2025 Women in Signs: Sarah Flax

SARAH FLAX KNEW at a young age that she wanted to work in the supply chain. Originally from Alaska and relocated to Pennsylvania in 2016, she obtained Bachelor’s degrees in business management and supply chain management. Though she wasn’t looking for a role in signs when she applied for a supply chain position at Cima Network Inc. (Chalfont, PA), she has come to enjoy the company’s signage work and the sheer variability of signs.

“I can plan to do something but my day’s always gonna change,” Flax says. “You know what you’re going to do but you never know what you’re going to do.” Having worked in the supply chain industry for several years before joining Cima, she also appreciates Cima’s care for and valuing its employees.

Winter Palace: Sarah Flax takes pride in the Regal Winter Park Village project in Winter Park, FL (below), one of Cima Network’s biggest projects to date.

As director of supply chain, Flax oversees a department in charge of sourcing the highest-quality materials and products at the most competitive prices for Cima’s fabrication team, as well as shipping the company’s products in their original forms to subcontractors. Challenges arise when the materials are not stocked in time, or when she has to ensure the right equipment is used for shipping and that those shipments arrive on time for clients and subcontractors.

“It’s working a lot hand in hand with our project management team, the guys on the floor, the production team and the shipping team to make sure we’re all in sync, we know what’s coming in, what’s going out, what’s the priority,” she explains.

Flax has played a crucial role in implementing a new ERP system at Cima, overseeing data cleanup, part IDs restructuring, system validation and testing. She additionally led efforts to cut stock inventory levels by 50% three months ahead of schedule, and her introduction of a weekly on-time complete shipping metric has helped maintain a 98% OTC rate.

Flax is proud to be a part of the Regal Winter Park Village project in Winter Park, FL, which consists of a 50-ft. spire flanked by two 22-ft. metal boxes with patterned CNC faces and polycarbonate backs, behind which are arrays of programmable RGB LEDs. A peacock in the shape of the letter V adorns the top of the spire. It is one of Cima’s biggest projects to date, requiring 2,000 hours to fabricate, 800 hours to install, and teams to be transported from Chalfont to Florida to work on site. “It’s a really cool, interesting and intricate project,” Flax says.

Women, for the most part, remain a minority in the supply chain. Flax has seen a handful of female representatives from whom Cima purchases materials as well as a handful of female subcontractors — but she has not seen many women around overall. Whether the number of women in sign supply will grow in the future depends on their level of interest in the field.

Flax advises women working in male-dominated industries not to be afraid of asking questions, and at the same time to speak up if they have knowledge to share. “Treat your co-workers regardless of who they are as equals,” she adds, saying women should stop over-apologizing. “Your voice is just as important as whoever you’re speaking to, whether male or female.”