Townsend Learning Centers diversified in a changing education market.

In 1969, there weren't many tutoring firms in Northeast Ohio. Today, tutoring corporations have turned better grades and high standardized test scores into a multibillion-dollar industry.

Sarah Littlefield, who founded Cleveland-based Townsend Learning Centers with a small office in Chagrin Falls to help adults and children improve their learning skills, has witnessed the tutoring market saturation, but has remained competitive by diversifying and providing individualized care.  

"We have waiting lists to get in here," says Littlefield, executive director of the for-profit learning centers. "We feel we're the best at what we do."  

As more small business and corporations crowded the tutoring and SAT preparation course landscape, Littlefield added career training and placement services with clients referred to her from the Veterans Administration, the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation and other private pay clients.  

Despite the intense competition, over the last 25 years, Townsend's SAT and ACT test mastery programs have grown to the largest in Northeast Ohio, offering classes and tutoring to more than 300 students a year.  

This year, Townsend expanded to a full post-secondary school, offering a diploma in office administration.  

Townsend expanded beyond 10 full-time employees during its peak growth years, but has since stabilized at 10 workers in five offices in Northeast Ohio, including its main office in Cleveland's Midtown district.  

For her accomplishments, Littlefield was honored by the Small Business Administration's Women in Business Award for not only Ohio, but for six Midwest states.  

"We've gotten calls from companies from as far away as Georgia asking if we have any local offices there." Littlefield says. "Our graduates are our best advertisement."