On August 19, tool giant Stanley Black & Decker filed a WARN notice with the state of Maryland, alerting officials to its plans to close a 75-year-old factory.
Built in 1951 to produce power tools, the Hampstead, Maryland, Black & Decker plant well preceded the 2010 merger between the former company and Stanley Works.
READ MORE: Stanley Black & Decker Closing Last Factory in Founding City
And over the years, the company’s name isn't the only thing that’s changed.
While Hampstead employed 3,800 by the late 1960s, by 1985 – according to reports – its power tool manufacturing production was shuttered “when efforts to modernize the plant failed.”
The company then began using the space mainly as a distribution center – even selling the building along the way – and maintained a small presence to date, for “powdered metal manufacturing and limited warehousing and distribution.”
And while a shadow of its former self, the facility does still employ about 55 workers – that is, until October, when the layoff proceedings will begin, concluding with the facility’s target shutdown in March of 2027.
The Baltimore Sun spoke with Stanley Black & Decker spokesperson Debora Raymond, who said the company had, over the past several years, “seen a steady decline in volume in the materials produced at [the] Hampstead facility” and, as such, the closure was pursued.
Raymond said the firm was “focused on providing a smooth transition to impacted employees, including options for employment at other Stanley Black & Decker U.S. facilities and operations for salaried employees, in addition to severance and job placement support services for both salaried and hourly employees.”
Stanley Black & Decker announced more than 300 layoffs and a plant closure earlier this year in New Britain Connecticut – once dubbed “Hardware City.” The company blamed the move on a lack of demand for single-sided tape measures.
