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If there is a theme to the path taken by Ellen Kravet Burke ’76, it may be one of creating a safe haven.
As a special-education teacher, she helped children overcome obstacles and enrich their lives. As advertising and marketing director for her family-owned wholesale fabric and furniture business, Kravet, Inc., she works to promote beautiful living spaces that offer a refuge in today’s world. And as a dedicated alumna, she volunteers her time and expertise in a variety of ways.
Kravet Burke graduated with a degree in psychology and a desire to teach special-needs children. Shortly after leaving Lafayette, she earned a master’s degree in special and elementary education at Hofstra University, then established a special education preschool program in a public school near Atlantic City, N.J.
“I taught preschool and kindergarten-age special-needs children with emotional challenges and developmental difficulties,” she says. “It was tough but very rewarding.”
After almost a decade of teaching, an opportunity arose to rejoin the family business. “The timing was right,” she says. “I became the marketing and advertising head for the company.”
Headquartered in Bethpage, N.Y., Kravet is a fourth-generation family business offering the widest range of fabrics and furnishings in the home decorative industry. The company began by supplying traditional and transitional fabrics to the interior design trade in 1918. Years later, Kravet developed an upholstered furniture collection as well as a mahogany wood chair collection. Since then a complete variety of styles and additional products have been added. In 1993, as Kravet entered its 75th year in business, the company launched a licensing division with high profile names such as Mark Hampton, Laura Ashley, Biltmore Estate, and Joseph Abboud.
“It’s an uplifting business,” Kravet Burke says. “There is a desire to make one’s home a sanctuary in a post 9/11 world,” she says. “It’s rewarding to create beautiful environments for people.”
Kravet Burke also remarks on the historical impact of her family’s firm. “In 1996, we bought Lee Jofa, an interior furnishings company dating back to 1823 with both British and American roots,” she says. “This was a wonderful business opportunity and a chance to be a part of history.”
Kravet, Inc. received an Award of Excellence for its work designing the printed and woven fabrics of the 2001 Winterthur collection. Winterthur, an American country estate in Delaware open to the public as a museum, is the former home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), an avid antiques collector and horticulturist. Kravet based its designs for the collection on the antique toiles and needlework that had been collected by du Pont.
Kravet Burke is proud to be a part of a family business with such longevity. “In Europe, family businesses stretch back many generations, but in the United States it is rare for one to survive for as long as ours,” she says. Her teenage niece and nephew have both expressed an interest in the business, and she hopes they may continue the tradition.
Life lessons have shaped Kravet Burke, but she credits skills learned at Lafayette with helping forge her professional path. “At Lafayette, I learned how to prioritize, organize, research, and work with people,” she says. “I had wonderful professors for role models. They were tremendous teachers.”
Kravet Burke is committed to giving back to a place she talks about, as she says, “every other day.”
“We’ve sponsored externships for students, where they shadow us as we go through our day,” she says. “They see everything that happens in a mid-size corporate marketing department and get a feel for the business. It benefits the students but it also helps us. Lafayette students offer a youthful and fresh perspective and ask great questions that help our work.”
Kravet Burke supports Lafayette in other ways, as well. She is past president of the South Jersey Alumni Club and has organized holiday parties and barbecues for area alumni. She also volunteers for the October phone-a-thon and holds a position on the Lafayette Leadership Council. She was recently appointed as an Alumni Associate member of the Lafayette Trustee Committee on Athletic and Student Affairs.
For all of her contributions, Kravet Burke says, “I wish I could do more for Lafayette. My husband, Ray Burke III ’75, comes from a long line of graduates, and both of us have a great affinity for the school. It’s a very special place for us.”