Hammerstone: Chiseling Away the Access Gap for Women in Carpentry

In late 2024, Maria Klemperer-Johnson, founder of Hammerstone School in Ithaca, NY, realized she needed help retooling her outreach and enrollment strategy when the school was operating at just 64% of its overall class capacity. The school’s tiny house course, once a major draw, showed signs of fatigue in a post-COVID-19 landscape where “glamping” had edged out do-it-yourself living. Klemperer-Johnson turned to Big Red Microenterprise (BRM) at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management for help.

Redefining the world of carpentry

Hammerstone School, a carpentry school for women, embodies a quiet but powerful shift in who gets to wield the tools of the trades.

The school was founded in 2013 by Klemperer-Johnson, a master carpenter and contractor who spent years as the only woman on construction sites. Since its founding, the school has become a haven for women and minorities learning the tools of the trade. With fewer than 3 percent of carpenters in the U.S. identifying as women, Klemperer-Johnson decided to chip away at that gap. To date, Hammerstone School has trained more than 1,300 students.

What began as informal weekend workshops in the barn behind Klemperer-Johnson’s house has grown into a nonprofit organization with an ambitious mission: to create a more inclusive future in skilled trades. The school offers a range of different courses, including life skills like rewiring a lamp; basic carpentry courses on how to build Adirondack chairs; and advanced classes in woodworking and weaving parquetry. Beyond tangible skills, each class offers confidence, agency, and community. The school’s signature tiny house course combines apprenticeship and construction bootcamp, resulting in a communal act of creation.

Drawing on Hammerstone’s roots for future expansion

During our first semester working with Hammerstone, we dove into the numbers and nuances. We learned that 41 percent of students discovered Hammerstone through a friend and that more than 80 percent of participants in the tiny house course were returning students. Word-of-mouth, we realized, was both the foundation and the future of Hammerstone’s enrollment strategy.

We built on that insight with care and precision, proposing a refreshed referral program; incentives to strengthen word-of-mouth messaging; and links with local businesses. Working with Klemperer-Johnson and her team, we reimagined social media messaging with new flyers and content calendars. We suggested timed promotions around Women’s History Month and collaborations with nearby campuses, laying the groundwork for long-term partnerships. We offered structure, consistency, and a few nudges toward experimentation.

In the end, Hammerstone stayed true to its roots. It didn’t need to become something new; it just needed to sharpen its edge. Like dovetail joints, the pieces were already cut to fit; they just needed alignment, care, and a bit of glue. For us, the project was a reminder that not all business problems require tech solutions or viral growth hacks. Sometimes the answer lies in listening closely, working slowly, and honoring the craft—whether that craft is carpentry or community-building.

About the authors

Jennifer White-Phalen MBA ’25 is from Santa Monica, California. Prior to joining the Johnson School, she worked in business development in the architecture and design industry and served in the Peace Corps. She joined Big Red Microenterprise to get a better understanding of the local business landscape and learn how to apply what she’s learning in the classroom to create real-world value for others.

Miwako Nara Uemura of Tokyo is starting her second year as an MBA student at the Johnson School. At Johnson, she is focusing on sustainability and its application in business. Prior to starting her MBA, she worked in real estate, managing hotel development projects. She joined Big Red Microenterprise to collaborate with Hammerstone on its mission to empower women through skilled trades—a cause that resonated with her own experiences in male-dominated project environments.