As Gill Carswell shows the young man into the office she is not surprised when he hands her his coat and asks for a cup of tea with two sugars.

But Gill, who is used to being mistaken for a secretary, says she loves to see her visitors’ shocked and embarrassed faces when she sits in the managing director’s chair on the other side of the desk.

Gill from Cannock took over Sime Foundry in Stafford Street, Wednesbury in 2002 from her father Eric Sands.

Sime Foundry make aluminium castings and their products range from tent pegs and potato peelers to parts for the London Underground and motors used on cruise ship windscreen wipers.

Since her father started the business they have worked on the development of diesel engines and make castings for machinery manufacturers Perkins, who are based in Stafford.

Gill has to work hard to balance her busy work life with looking after her three-year-old daughter Emma and son Harvey, aged one.

The 39-year-old says she has been known to take her children into the foundry and has had to work hard to combine being a mother and a managing director.

“My father started the business in 1974 and when I left school I went to work at a solicitors in Birmingham as a legal secretary,” says Gill.

“When I was 23 Dad asked me to come and work for the company and I decided it would be a great challenge.

“I learned to understand the accounts and what our customers needed from us.

“When Dad retired I took over the reigns and it is nice to be a woman in the male-dominated world.”

Gill, who employs 27 people at the foundry, says that customers and suppliers say it is refreshing to deal with a woman.

“They often confide in me and say things, about their children or their wives, that they wouldn’t normally say to a man,” she says.

“Whenever I go along to an event I’m usually the only woman there, which is a bit sad for our industry.”

Gill says she has been known to take her children in to work.

“A couple of days after giving birth to Emma I took her into work with me – it is like a second home,” she says.

“When I first got pregnant people thought the business would disappear.

“But if I have been busy in the day I work in the evening to make up for it.

“I’m just like any other mum, I still have to get the children up and dressed and off to nursery and pre-school.”

Gill met her husband Rob in 2005 when he was working at the foundry and they got married at Christmas Eve in 2008.

However, the blushing bride didn’t hang on to her wedding dress and instead melted it down in the foundry and turned it into a lamp post.

Gill says they make the aluminium parts in sand and gravity die-castings and they have become popular with companies who need prototypes.

“Being a small company we do a lot of small batch production,” she says.

“One of the reasons we have carried on trading is that we have stayed as versatile as we possibly can.”

When they have been busy with a big order at the foundry Gill rolls up her sleeves and helps out.

“If we have an order to get out I will drive the fork-lift truck and in the past I’ve made moulds and done shot blasting,” she says.

“When there is something you want to do you just have to go for it and not worry about your clothes – they can be washed.”