SALISBURY, Md- A Salisbury manufacturing company held an open house on Friday to celebrate their expansion and addition of jobs to the Eastern Shore.
Last year nearly 500 employees lost their jobs to Labinal Power Systems. Friday, manufacturing company, Toroid, announced that they hope to take some of those employees and bring them onto their team.
The job loss effected many Salisbury residents like Faye Parker. Parker worked at the Labinal plant for nearly 20 years, and she said she thought she was going to end up retiring there.
"It kind of hurt because I thought it was somewhere a lot of us were going to be able to retire from and then when that happened it was like a blow a big blow," Parker said.
Like Parker, Rich Bishop also worked at Labinal Power Systems. But, he was one of few who decided to pick up and move to Texas with the company.
"I was part of the transition team that went to Texas trying to make it easy for the folks that were coming to Salisbury who relocated to start a new life," Bishop said.
Bishop said his time in Texas was short-lived and he wanted to move back to Salisbury.
"I thought it was going to be a permanent role. I just missed the Eastern Shore. I missed my family, my family was still here," Bishop said.
President of Toroid, Katarina Ennerfelt, said that former Labinal employees like Parker and Bishop were major assets to her company with years of experience. "When a big company like this disappears what it does is that it actually generates some organic growth. But just because there is all this experience in the area and there are companies that today willing to pick up that experience utilize and put people to work. And for us that's economic development there's no question about it," Ennerfelt said.
Both Parker and Bishop were hired by Toroid and said they were thankful to find a place where they could continue to do something they loved.
"If you know how to do it from what you did a Labinal its pretty much easy here," Parker said.
Ennerfelt stressed that they are not trying to take the place of Labinal. She said after touring their facilities years ago she found many similarities between their companies. But, now with a whole workforce out there with so much experience, she said it was the perfect opportunity to expand her company.
