Leading Corning’s Plant

Wilmington plant manager Michele Holbrook on leadership and science

The saying, “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life,” seems to fit MICHELE HOLBROOK like a well-tailored suit.

Manager of Corning’s Wilmington optical fiber plant since March of this year, Holbrook works intensively, both in the moment – overseeing a complex and diverse operation – and looking toward the future, helping the plant envision and prepare for the evolving future of its high-tech specialty products.

“My career is definitely consuming, but I absolutely love what I do. It’s not draining,” she says. “Time flies.”

Holbrook describes Corning is a “fun company” to work for. Not only does it invest in its employees, she notes, but it actively helps women develop their leadership abilities. That kind of support, as well as Holbrook’s own interests and drive, has helped her advance throughout her nearly 20-year career with the company. 

Starting in 1995 as an environmental engineer at Corning’s video products plant in State College, Pennsylvania, Holbrook moved in 2005 to Blacksburg, Virginia, where she progressed from quality manager to plant operations manager at Corning’s environmental technologies facility.

Holbrook believes in strength-based leadership, in which management finds employees’ strengths and aligns their job duties with those strengths.

“I have a great team,” she says, adding that her organization focuses on innovation and quality, with a commitment to continuous improvement. “There’s an understanding by the entire organization of where we are heading and why.”

Holbrook has team support at home as well. Her husband – her college sweetheart – decided to leave his IT system administrator job and become a stay-at-home dad when the couple’s two girls were young.

A demanding position, however, doesn’t mean that Holbrook is all work and no play.

“Family is very important to me,” she says. “I am home for dinner four nights out of five, and I take time every evening to talk with my daughters about their day. We have good friends in our neighborhood. I make time to go to church and spend time with God. And I love to read.”

One book that Holbrook references is Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean in: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead in which the author, the COO of Facebook, has collected the perspectives of many leaders on traits and behaviors that tend to hold women back from reaching and sustaining positions of leadership.

“Women (tend to be) more hesitant; they need to be more willing to take risks,” Holbrook says.

Women also tend to shy away from careers in the sciences, but not Holbrook. The Corning plant manager says she was fortunate to have support from her parents and her teachers as she grew up. Besides inspiring her, these foundational individuals made sure she knew what she liked and explored things that most interested her. 

She was also advised to make sure she worked for a company whose values aligned with her own.

An important part of the Wilmington Corning plant’s community involvement is to support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education locally. That involvement includes giving a STEM teacher award annually and participating in the STEM program at Holly Shelter Middle School.

Holbrook, who earned a degree in chemical engineering at Clarkson University, understands from her own experience that math and science education isn’t monolithic.

“There are so many different aspects of science,” she says. “In high school I spent a semester exploring electronics and decided it was not for me. But the next year, I took chemistry, and it was for me. You have to keep peeling that onion to discover where your interests lie.”

If Holbrook weren’t the plant manager for a Corning operation, what might she be doing?

“I would be working in some other manufacturing facility,” she answers. “Manufacturing is very fast paced, and I like that.

Holbrook explains that her first-ever job – as a waitress – involved exactly the kind of environment she most enjoys.

“I worked fast and was moving all the time,” she says, “working with people.”

To view more of photographer Chris Brehmer's work, go to www.chrisbrehmerphotography.com.