“We want people to think of and view us as their first stop for their business needs,” Clarence said.
As owners of the Mail Center in the Village of East Side Mall for less than a month, the Womacks outline services offered as sending and receiving faxes, copying, rubber stamps, mailbox rental with 24/7 access, notary, business and greeting cards, key duplication, shipping and handling services through FedEx, DHL and UPS.
With the slogan, “We’re more than just shipping,” Kirsten said, their Mail Center is unique partly in part of the services provided through her other business, Im-mack-ulant Impressions. Their goal is to provide quality work that allows clients to maintain a professional image.
“It’s a perfect marriage of services,” she said. Providing administrative support services to businesses, entrepreneurs, organizations and individuals through her virtual administrative consulting company her services include calendar management, making follow-up telephone calls, sales support, Internet research, recruiting, interviewing, making travel arrangements, creating power point presentations, creating newsletters and event coordination.
With more than 35 years of experience between them, the Womacks are pulling together the knowledge and experience from their current and former professional careers to operate the Mail Center.
Clarence, a Braddock native and former supply sergeant in the Army, now works as a manager for U.S. Steel at Irwin Works.
“Those experiences have taught and showed me a lot about business and working with people,” Clarence said pointing out that he currently manages 14 people.
An Oberlin, Ohio, native, Kirsten is very detail oriented and gained her expertise from working for a telecommunications company, a state senator in Ohio as well as an out placement service agency for high level executives. After operating Im-mack-ulant Impressions for three years, she said the Mail Center is a perfect fit. A graduate of Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio, Kirsten has a bachelor’s of science degree in human resource management and has obtained Human Resource Generalist Certification from the Society for Human Resource Management. 
HUSBAND AND WIFE TEAM—Kirsten and Clarence Womack, operating as a minority- and veteran-owned establishment, check faxes for a client.
Ecstatic how the opportunity of obtaining the Mail Center came about, Kirsten said she and her husband are counting their blessings. “Stressed out from my job and looking for something less demanding I just happened to call the owner of the Penn Avenue Mail Center to inquire how to get into this type of business,” explained Clarence.
“The owner thought I was calling to purchase his business, but I wasn’t. I didn’t know the business was for sale. One thing lead to another, we set a meeting and two weeks later we’re the owners,” he said smiling.
Slowly getting adapted to the idea that they own the business he they are working to get organized and things the way they’d like them to be. By attending networking events, word of mouth and e-blast marketing they are informing the public that they are the proud owners of the Mail Center.
In the future the Womacks plan to improve their copy services by providing color copies which will enable them to market to churches, businesses and organizations that need design work or projects demanding a higher level of copies such as bulletins and programs. Additions will also include adding a traveling notary service, and a pick up service for packages.
Other inimitable features the Womacks plan to add to the mail service is offering authors a place to sell their books and a source for their customers to buy Steelers apparel. Within three years they hope to expand by opening a Mail Center in other areas of the region like Monroeville.
Happy to be a part of the growth and development occurring in the East End, the Mail Center is located in the Village of East Side where Trader Joe’s moved into the former Wheeler Paint building in October of 2006 and Staples Office Supply in the former Shop ’n Save location in May of 2007. And at the intersection of Penn Avenue and East Liberty Boulevard, the old Nabisco factory is being transformed into Bakery Square, an urban lifestyle center which will consist of office and retail space, a fitness center and a120-room hotel.
Well aware that no business is successful without the consistency and cooperation of the customer, the couple is sponsoring an open house Sept. 5 hoping to introduce themselves to the community. Kirsten encourages people to come in, to share ideas and bring plenty of business cards. Aiming to serve as a referral service, she said, “If we don’t know something or provide a service we want to be able to send people to the appropriate resource to assist them.”
(The Mail Center is located at 6393 Penn Ave. in East Liberty and is open Mondays-Thursdays 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Fridays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m.-3 p.m. For more information, call 412-362-3848.)