Mother-daughter team has real head for hats

By Claire CoxPrint Story | Email Story
Rita Burns, left, and her daughter, Karen Karlberg at Karlberg's Lee store. (Photo By Claire Cox)
LEE — Karen Burns Karlberg has gone from being a GE computer program analyst to public relations and development director of the Humane Society in Pittsfield. Her mother, Rita Christopher Burns, began her working career as a hat buyer for a department store, and now volunteers for the Humane Society when she is not at her job coordinating deliveries of meals-on-wheels to Berkshire seniors. But when mother and daughter get together, the subject is nearly always hats, hats, hats. They end their work week on Saturdays at Hats & Jewels in Lee, where they chat and model and sell the millinery Karlberg creates in her home studio in Becket. As they tell it, hats have been important to their relationship since Burns brought samples of the latest styles home from a store in Waltham, and 3-year-old Karen promptly tried them on, took them apart, reassembled them and wore them while toddling about the house. Burns was born in Pittsfield, graduated from high school there and went to the Modern School of Fashion and Design in Boston, graduating in 1955. She became a hat buyer, married Frederick Burns and bore two children, Karen in Boston and James, now a Hollywood screenwriter and director, in Pittsfield. While her husband, who died in 1999, was employed at GE, Burns worked for several dress shops and joined Elder Services of Berkshire in Pittsfield 11 years ago, as a secretary and then as nutrition meals site director. On Tuesday, she received an award for excellence from the state for her work with the program [See story, Senior Focus.] She also became a volunteer for the Humane Society, where she works at the reception desk, prepares mailings and does anything else that is needed. “I’m there whenever they need me, but always on Fridays from 2 to 4 and when they need me on Sundays. If someone can’t show up, they call me,” she said last week. Burns, a “diehard Red Sox fan,” watches the games on TV in the home she has lived in for 35 years, which she now shares with a Maltese puppy named Barney that she adopted from the Humane Society. Karlberg, who has her mother’s love for animals as well as hats, went to work for the Humane Society in April after serving as marketing manager at the Cranwell Resort and Spa for three years. “I decided I wanted my life to be more meaningful,” she said. “I wanted to work for animals because it was important. I wanted to do some good with my life.” Her decision came 24 years after she graduated from SUNY Plattsburg, taking five years to earn degrees in computer science, archeology and liberal arts. “I wanted then to make a living at computers, but I had a passion for things that are old,” she explained. “I found it fascinating to see where our origins of man were. I spent a couple of summers on excavations in New England through the University of Massachusetts.” She was hired by GE, where she met her husband, Mark Karlberg, who has worked for GE and its successor, General Dynamics, for almost 40 years. “I was laid off from the defense industry when peace broke out in 1989,” she said. “It was a big shock. I went to Berkshire Enterprises and enrolled in their entrepreneurial program on starting your own small business and received a certificate in small business management in 1990.” With her marketing knowledge, she was manager of the Red Lion Inn gift shop for several years and marketing director at the Outlet Village on Pittsfield Road until it was sold. From there, it was off to New York to learn about the clothing industry in a job with Eric Javits, a major fashion house. Deciding to go into the hat business in the Berkshires, she came home to start turning out hats in earnest and to work for the Humane Society. “I found out that I liked marketing,” she said. “So I started my own little hat business and also realized that I couldn’t survive just doing hats because the economy was getting tough.” Animals are an important part of life at the house on 7 acres in Becket that she and her husband share with the seven cats and two dogs, which keep her company in the studio, where she now makes as many as 200 hats a year. “I sold my first hat right off the top of my head 10 years ago,” she recalled. “I wore it to a fund-raising function in Pittsfield. It was straw with a wonderful band and a big rose. I loved it. A woman came up to me and said she loved it and must have it. I took it off and sold it to her for $40. The next day she called to order another hat.” Burns, not to be outdone, has developed her own sales method. “I wear hats when I go to weddings and other gatherings,” she said. “I just go into the shop and borrow whatever I want. When someone asks ‘Where did you get your hat?’ I can say, ‘It’s one my daughter made.’ I’m a walking hat store.” Her most recent “loan” was a high-style model she wore to a breakfast of the Red Hat Society, of which she is a loyal member. Karlberg began turning out hats in such numbers that she found she needed a retail outlet rather than her studio on a country road. She teamed up with Anne O’Neil, who makes and sells jewelry, to open the Lee shop. “I’m going to be working more on recovery headwear for women going through chemo or other hair loss,” she said. “It’s very important to me. I feel very strongly about helping women with my own designs.” Nowadays, when not saving animals, producing hats or working weekends with her mother’s help at the Lee store, Karlberg goes to New York to shop for supplies or to fashion shows there or in Boston. Burns always goes along to offer her sage advice on what will sell, especially to older women. “She’s been going to all the shows since I can remember, “ Karlberg said. “She’s not just my mom. She’s a real friend.”
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Lanesborough Fifth-Graders Win Snowplow Name Contest

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — One of the snowplows for Highway District 1 has a new name: "The Blizzard Boss."
 
The name comes from teacher Gina Wagner's fifth-grade class at Lanesborough Elementary School. 
 
The state Department of Transportation announced the winners of the fourth annual "Name A Snowplow" contest on Monday. 
 
The department received entries from public elementary and middle school classrooms across the commonwealth to name the 12 MassDOT snowplows that will be in service during the 2025/2026 winter season. 
 
The purpose of the contest is to celebrate the snow and ice season and to recognize the hard work and dedication shown by public works employees and contractors during winter operations. 
 
"Thank you to all of the students who participated. Your creativity allows us to highlight to all, the importance of the work performed by our workforce," said  interim MassDOT Secretary Phil Eng.  
 
"Our workforce takes pride as they clear snow and ice, keeping our roads safe during adverse weather events for all that need to travel. ?To our contest winners and participants, know that you have added some fun to the serious take of operating plows. ?I'm proud of the skill and dedication from our crews and thank the public of the shared responsibility to slow down, give plows space and put safety first every time there is a winter weather event."
 
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