Maurer had started as a $3.10-an-hour seamstress at Appalachian Outfitters, a store in Oakton, and eventually bought the sewing end of the business for $14,000, borrowing $4,000 against her husband's life insurance. She saw a growing niche for backpacks, computer bags and duffel bags, and she eventually obtained patents for camouflaged military curtains and tents. After two decades of hard work, sometimes shlepping computer bags in the back of her Volkswagen Quantum station wagon, she sold the company. By then, Bea Maurer Inc. grossed more than $50 million a year and employed 120 people.
