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“Stanley Black & Decker offers technical challenges and interesting work, which allows me to flourish as an engineer and an inventor.”
Taking a career break for caregiving has its own rewards and challenges. But reentering the workforce may be more difficult than first imagined.
Margie knew she was ready to reengage with engineering and refocus on her career. But she was afraid she had been out of the workforce for too long. Not even a year later, Margie is a Senior Product Engineer at Stanley Black & Decker. And she’s singing the praises of the company that gave her the opportunity to relaunch her career.
How Stanley Black & Decker’s Returner Program helped Margie get back to work…
Nine years after leaving her engineering job in aerospace and defense, Margie felt it was time to reconnect with her career. What made her choose Stanley Black & Decker?
“After doing some research on the Returner Program and Stanley Black & Decker, I was impressed with everything I saw and read regarding company culture, innovation and the work/life balance,” she answers.
The 16-week program lived up to her expectations.
Although she was worried about her skills being rusty, she quickly regained her confidence with the support of her manager.
“As I became more comfortable, we increased my workload and raised the complexity of the challenges assigned to me. My skills came back faster than expected, and before long, I had regained a ton of confidence in my engineering ability and technical know-how.”
What’s Margie most excited about at Stanley Black & Decker?
“The work at Stanley Black & Decker is engaging, technically challenging and rewarding to support. There are unique challenges, and I love the fact that I can actually go to a store like Home Depot and see products that have my company’s name on them. But I’d have to say the best part of working here is the people. Everyone has been incredibly helpful, welcoming and supportive. Stanley Black & Decker is full of great people, and I think this is what generates our great work environment and ultimately the great products that Stanley Black & Decker delivers to our consumers.”
How is innovation encouraged?
“My manager challenges our team to come up with innovative ideas that we as a company could pursue. At weekly meetings, our team brainstorms on what we can do to generate a new innovative technology. Innovation is a core value at Stanley Black & Decker and is ingrained in our culture, which I think is a big part of what makes working here special and exciting.”
What’s Margie up to now?
She’s tackling everything from leading efforts to reduce manufacturing costs… to supporting new technologies that grip and remove damaged nuts and bolts. Applying her extensive skillset to innovative projects is all in a day’s work.
“As an engineer, the work allows me to use a broad range of my skills which keeps it fresh and engaging.”
What would she say to other moms looking to reenter the workforce?
“I was afraid that I’d been out of work so long and technology had advanced so quickly that I would get back to work and just flounder around until I failed. Thankfully, in large part due to Stanley Black & Decker’s support structure and the amazing people that work here, that was never even close to happening. I genuinely feel like I’ve never missed a beat even after taking the eight years off.”