A Renewed Purpose for Heath Ceramics

As published in The New York TImes, March 8, 2026

Three years ago, Heath Ceramics earned B Corp certification based on its social, environmental and transparent governance practices.Credit...Heath Ceramics

In 2003, Catherine Bailey and Robin Petravic, a married couple of industrial designers, bought an ailing 55-year-old Bay Area pottery called Heath Ceramics and transformed it into a showplace of midcentury modern revivalism. Continuing to produce locally, with factories in Sausalito and, later, San Francisco, they updated the streamlined monochromatic tableware designed by Edith Heath, the company’s co-founder, and added many new products, including dinnerware created with Alice Waters for Chez Panisse. (The legendary Berkeley restaurant, with its earthy, unpretentious California Modern sensibility, is in many ways Heath’s culinary twin.)

Three years ago, Heath earned B Corp certification based on its social, environmental and transparent governance practices.

Last month, Ms. Bailey and Mr. Petravic announced that they were stepping away from their leadership roles, having appointed Megan Wernetti, formerly Heath’s director of creative operations, and Allison Banks, its chief operating officer, as co-presidents. Ms. Bailey and Mr. Petravic will remain with Heath, working to transform it into a purpose trust-owned company, a model that is meant to ensure that its future will be guided by concerns for design and manufacturing integrity and community connections rather than profit. (The couple also recently started a podcast called Make Good, in which they discuss design, craft and “what it means to do things well, even when it’s not easy.”)

Writing in a joint email, they said, “We’ve always emphasized the aim to be great, not big.” Aspirations to quality often get lost, they added, when a company is sold and its “founders/owners move on.” heathceramics.com