Echo Profile: Breaking the glass ceiling

At 58 years of age, Simon Pearce presides over a business empire worth $30 million. The Cork-raised glass blower and designer has helped to revitalize a market that had all but died out (there are no glass companies left in the U.K., for instance, whilst Pearce is one of only two glass companies in the U.S.).
With flagship stores in Vermont and Pennsylvania and outlets in more than four hundred stores around the country, Pearce has come a long way from his young days in Shanagarry — in more ways than one.
A self-confessed “wild child,” Pearce’s upbringing could be described as “unorthodox.”
Speaking to the Echo from his home in Vermont, Pearce recalled climbing up on to the roof of his family’s house when he was eight years old.
“My mother didn’t stop me,” he said.
“She left, she drove away because she couldn’t bear to watch me up on the roof but she also knew it was the right thing to let me do it. My mother was a fascinating woman. She believed that when a child is born, it knows everything and it has everything and that all the parent needs to do is keep it alive and warm. She wasn’t into teaching the child anything. She had this belief you should let the child do anything that the child wanted to do.”
Pearce’s mother, a Welsh dressmaker, met and married his father, a British potter in London, where the family lived until they moved to Shanagarry when he was four.
Pearce’s father went on to establish the well-known Shanagarry Pottery house and eagerly passed his skills on to both Pearce and his brother Stephen (who later took over the Shanagarry label and runs his own pottery business in Ireland).
Somewhat modestly, Pearce denies that talent has anything to do with his success, arguing instead that his abilities developed from an upbringing where freedom, independence and experimentation were encouraged.
“It never occurred to me that there was anything special or different about what I did,” he said.
“If you wanted to do something, you learned how to do it; that’s how I’d done everything as a child. If we wanted a bicycle we’d cobble one together out of bits and pieces. It gave us the idea that we could do anything we wanted to do — that there were no limits, no boundaries.”
Pearce’s reluctance to recognize limits and boundaries caused problems for him in school. His severe dyslexia made it almost unbearable. In fact, Pearce was the only person who was surprised when he was expelled from school at 16.
“I was always asking could I leave and my parents would say no and then finally one summer, they said yes,” he said.
“I never knew I was expelled until I was 23. I was sitting opposite my father at a dinner party one night and I heard him telling the person beside him that I was expelled from school. That was the first I knew about it.”
Pearce headed off to New Zealand, where he worked with renowned British potter Harry Davis. But his increasing interest in glass design brought him back to Dublin two years later.
“I started collecting old glass,” he recalled.
“You could buy glass in old pubs and junk shops, old Georgian rummers, for 50 cents or so and that got me really interested,” he said.
“I kind of thought: ‘Nobody’s making glass like this any more. Everybody seems to be making pottery,’ and that age you want to do something different so that’s how the whole glass thing started.”
Making the decision turned out to be the easy part. After rejections from Waterford Crystal and several glass companies in Europe, Pearce literally talked his way into the Royal College of Art in London with no formal qualifications. From there, he set his sights on working in the big glass factories in Europe.
“In Europe it was very secretive,” he said.
“Eventually, I drove down to a factory in Holland called Lierdam and I discovered that the secret was to arrive at the factory and just talk your way in, doing anything. I’d sweep floors and I’d carry glass. But then I headed up to Denmark and that was really the beginning of the whole thing. When I got to Scandinavia it was completely different. They’d tell you everything they knew. I ended up in a factory in Sweden called Orreforis and they had a school in the factory. That was really where I got enough knowledge – at least I thought I had enough knowledge – to go back to Ireland and set up my own workshop.”
He did just that in 1970. The Simon Pearce label had become a household name by the time he decided to move to the U.S. in 1981.
“I didn’t have to leave, which is kind of important, because if you have to do something you don’t have the luxury of doing it right and choosing how you’re going to do it,” he said.
“When I came, I was determined to find the right spot. The three things I wanted was somewhere beautiful to live and work, somewhere we could do a really good retail business and somewhere we could make our own electricity. Power is such a big factor in glass making.”
Pearce found what he was looking for when be purchased a spectacular stretch of land in Quechee, Vt., that had its own windmill and waterfall. His flagship store, restaurant and warehouse are still located at that site. Today, Simon Pearce is a well-known brand throughout the U.S., and Pearce’s company has enjoyed healthy growth and expansion since its inception. With over 400 employees to rely on, Pearce slowed down in recent years, spending more time with his wife Pia and their four sons (the eldest of whom, Andrew, works as a glass blower for the company). But Simon and Pia Pearce remain deeply involved with the company, which they run as a team.
“A year or two ago I was thinking of pulling out of the company a bit,” he said
“I would have expected everyone to be really happy that finally this guy who runs this thing is going to give us some space and get out of the way. In fact it was the complete opposite — they wanted me to stay and that was a good feeling. I appreciated that people felt that way about how I ran their company and how I dealt with them.”
At this point in his life, Pearce is clear about where his priorities lie.
“I think when I was younger, I was trying to prove to myself and the world that I wasn’t a failure because I wasn’t good at school. I had this need or desire to build something,” he said.
“That’s kind of gone now, I no longer have that need or desire. I’m much more interested in running a good company. For a company to be healthy it has to grow. We’ll grow at a very moderate rate. I’ve no interest whatsoever in becoming the next Waterford Crystal.
Pearce, who travels back to Ireland “two or three times a year,” relishes his lifestyle.
“Being able to do what I wanted to maintain the quality of life I wanted and have is fantastic,” he said.
“I don’t work very hard, I don’t socialize a lot. I spend most of my time with my family at home.”
At 58 years of age, Simon Pearce presides over a business empire worth $30 million. The Cork-raised glass blower and designer has helped to revitalize a market that had all but died out (there are no glass companies left in the U.K., for instance, whilst Pearce is one of only two glass companies in the U.S.).
With flagship stores in Vermont and Pennsylvania and outlets in more than four hundred stores around the country, Pearce has come a long way from his young days in Shanagarry — in more ways than one.
A self-confessed “wild child,” Pearce’s upbringing could be described as “unorthodox.”
Speaking to the Echo from his home in Vermont, Pearce recalled climbing up on to the roof of his family’s house when he was eight years old.
“My mother didn’t stop me,” he said.
“She left, she drove away because she couldn’t bear to watch me up on the roof but she also knew it was the right thing to let me do it. My mother was a fascinating woman. She believed that when a child is born, it knows everything and it has everything and that all the parent needs to do is keep it alive and warm. She wasn’t into teaching the child anything. She had this belief you should let the child do anything that the child wanted to do.”
Pearce’s mother, a Welsh dressmaker, met and married his father, a British potter in London, where the family lived until they moved to Shanagarry when he was four.
Pearce’s father went on to establish the well-known Shanagarry Pottery house and eagerly passed his skills on to both Pearce and his brother Stephen (who later took over the Shanagarry label and runs his own pottery business in Ireland).
Somewhat modestly, Pearce denies that talent has anything to do with his success, arguing instead that his abilities developed from an upbringing where freedom, independence and experimentation were encouraged.
“It never occurred to me that there was anything special or different about what I did,” he said.
“If you wanted to do something, you learned how to do it; that’s how I’d done everything as a child. If we wanted a bicycle we’d cobble one together out of bits and pieces. It gave us the idea that we could do anything we wanted to do — that there were no limits, no boundaries.”
Pearce’s reluctance to recognize limits and boundaries caused problems for him in school. His severe dyslexia made it almost unbearable. In fact, Pearce was the only person who was surprised when he was expelled from school at 16.
“I was always asking could I leave and my parents would say no and then finally one summer, they said yes,” he said.
“I never knew I was expelled until I was 23. I was sitting opposite my father at a dinner party one night and I heard him telling the person beside him that I was expelled from school. That was the first I knew about it.”
Pearce headed off to New Zealand, where he worked with renowned British potter Harry Davis. But his increasing interest in glass design brought him back to Dublin two years later.
“I started collecting old glass,” he recalled.
“You could buy glass in old pubs and junk shops, old Georgian rummers, for 50 cents or so and that got me really interested,” he said.
“I kind of thought: ‘Nobody’s making glass like this any more. Everybody seems to be making pottery,’ and that age you want to do something different so that’s how the whole glass thing started.”
Making the decision turned out to be the easy part. After rejections from Waterford Crystal and several glass companies in Europe, Pearce literally talked his way into the Royal College of Art in London with no formal qualifications. From there, he set his sights on working in the big glass factories in Europe.
“In Europe it was very secretive,” he said.
“Eventually, I drove down to a factory in Holland called Lierdam and I discovered that the secret was to arrive at the factory and just talk your way in, doing anything. I’d sweep floors and I’d carry glass. But then I headed up to Denmark and that was really the beginning of the whole thing. When I got to Scandinavia it was completely different. They’d tell you everything they knew. I ended up in a factory in Sweden called Orreforis and they had a school in the factory. That was really where I got enough knowledge – at least I thought I had enough knowledge – to go back to Ireland and set up my own workshop.”
He did just that in 1970. The Simon Pearce label had become a household name by the time he decided to move to the U.S. in 1981.
“I didn’t have to leave, which is kind of important, because if you have to do something you don’t have the luxury of doing it right and choosing how you’re going to do it,” he said.
“When I came, I was determined to find the right spot. The three things I wanted was somewhere beautiful to live and work, somewhere we could do a really good retail business and somewhere we could make our own electricity. Power is such a big factor in glass making.”
Pearce found what he was looking for when be purchased a spectacular stretch of land in Quechee, Vt., that had its own windmill and waterfall. His flagship store, restaurant and warehouse are still located at that site. Today, Simon Pearce is a well-known brand throughout the U.S., and Pearce’s company has enjoyed healthy growth and expansion since its inception. With over 400 employees to rely on, Pearce slowed down in recent years, spending more time with his wife Pia and their four sons (the eldest of whom, Andrew, works as a glass blower for the company). But Simon and Pia Pearce remain deeply involved with the company, which they run as a team.
“A year or two ago I was thinking of pulling out of the company a bit,” he said
“I would have expected everyone to be really happy that finally this guy who runs this thing is going to give us some space and get out of the way. In fact it was the complete opposite — they wanted me to stay and that was a good feeling. I appreciated that people felt that way about how I ran their company and how I dealt with them.”
At this point in his life, Pearce is clear about where his priorities lie.
“I think when I was younger, I was trying to prove to myself and the world that I wasn’t a failure because I wasn’t good at school. I had this need or desire to build something,” he said.
“That’s kind of gone now, I no longer have that need or desire. I’m much more interested in running a good company. For a company to be healthy it has to grow. We’ll grow at a very moderate rate. I’ve no interest whatsoever in becoming the next Waterford Crystal.
Pearce, who travels back to Ireland “two or three times a year,” relishes his lifestyle.
“Being able to do what I wanted to maintain the quality of life I wanted and have is fantastic,” he said.
“I don’t work very hard, I don’t socialize a lot. I spend most of my time with my family at home.”