A Mechanical Engineer with 32 years of combined manufacturing and management experience,  Positions held were: Machinist, Laboratory Supervisor, Chief Engineer, Vice President of Engineering, National Sales Manager, Executive Vice President and President of a $40MM company. Functional experience included, machining, time & motion studies, plant layout, job costing, product research, plastic mold designing, procurement, project scheduling, project planning, project management, quality control, cash flow analysis, marketing analysis, creating business plans, soliciting capital funding, managing multi-state sales.

19 years as a consultant (Charles E. Schafer Associates, LLC) providing technical, production, sales, IT implementation, training and administrative services to owners and principal officers of manufacturing companies.

Spent 38 years in banking doing commercial lending. Estimate that I worked with over 1,500 businesses in that time; one as small a $50K per year in sales and one as large as $150MM.  Experienced in lending to manufacturers, retailers, commercial and residential construction, medical, hospitality, many service providers and limited agricultural industry.     

Served 37 years in US Coast Guard and Reserve, rising from E-1 to E-9 and retired as Lt. Cmdr.  

Have spent over 30 years teaching banking and finance courses at the collegiate level part-time.

Joined SCORE in 2011 and have been Chapter Chair for 1.5 years. 

Expert in Public Administration. Very knowledageble in Economics. Executive Level Operational Management of Manufacturing! Industrial Arts teacher 2 yearsUSAF/Vermont Air National Guard Pilot and Staff Officer 22 years. Owned and operated Ironworking and blacksmithing business in Cornwall Vermont 8 years. 17 years industrial manufacturing experience primarily in operations; projects included: establishing and maintaining working partnerships with vendors, implementation of two EPR manufacturing packages, establishing European distribution warehouse, maintaining and upgrading MIS System(s), establishing an activity based costing system, installing shop floor data collection and "Just in Time" manufacturing systems, performed organizational analysis on several occasions to establish baseline and justify expenditure for major upgrades and process changes.

Owned, operated, managed, sold 11 businesses including several manufacturing entities, national auto industry service business, radio stations, printing, specialty retail, real estate, licensed NASD and NYSE registered representative, water conditioning business, auto and truck rental and leasing, manufacturing of specialty bank furniture.