“I have never felt any advantages — or disadvantages — to a female work force,” she says.

Samco, started in 1984, offers about 900,000 items to promote a company’s name. These include tote bags, notepads, stress balls, mouse pads, pens, hats, sandals, snow globes, nail polish, piggy banks, music boxes and boxing gloves.

AMY J. CORRENTI | ROCKFORDWOMAN.COM
Norma Polcek at her Samco Promotional Products office in Machesney Park.

“This is direct advertising,” Polcek says. “It sits in front of the customer with your name on it forever.”

Polcek is a striking woman who speaks concisely and dresses smartly. She was born in the Bronx, the elder of two daughters. Her father owned a textile company in what is now Soho.

While she never worked for his company, she learned from him, she says. He used to buy damaged rolls of textiles, sell the usable pieces to fabric stores and export the misprinted pieces overseas.

“He was recycling then,” she says.

Polcek started working as a teenager, as a camp counselor, a typist and a switchboard operator. For a while she worked for a liquor distributor until the company found out she was underage.

She met her future husband at the Y when she was 12. They dated once in high school, then he didn’t call again for months. But after one exceptionally long phone call, his mother asked him to whom he had been talking.

“The girl I’m going to marry,” he replied.

“He took me to my prom,” Polcek says. “I married at 19.”

She earned a master’s degree in math and education from Hunter College and taught high school math for four years. She stopped to raise her three daughters, who were born within four years.

“I like doing things quickly,” she says.

Her husband, then president of the French Shriner Shoe Co., got the chance to move to Beloit, Wis.

“So we moved to the big city,” she jokes. “I loved it.”

She raised her daughters and immersed herself in volunteer work. Then she and a friend started a clothing line called Initially You. It involved embroidery machines, home fashion shows and eventually 40 representatives — all women — in the Midwest. Polcek sold that business to her partner before starting Samco.

Both businesses relied on what she calls “mothers’ hours” — part-time jobs with flexible hours.

“Women love that they can work around their families,” she says.

She also has an unusual hiring policy. Applicants work for a trial period, usually several weeks. Then the staff decides whether they will be offered the job.

“They work hard,” she says. “The person that’s coming in here has to share that workload. There has to be a personality fit. If I pick the person, it doesn’t work.”

She and her employees eat lunch together around a granite-topped table near the front door. Their business strategy is softer than the old hard sell.

“We talk with our customers. We listen to what their needs are. Then we research things that would meet their needs,” she says.

And while being a certified woman-owned business may bring clients looking for diversity, that doesn’t guarantee a customer base.

“You have to prove yourself,” she says. “It’s not just because you’re a woman.”

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