Employee Spotlight: Meet Margaret Turco

Since March of this year, Margaret Turco has brought her artistic touch to UCEC as our engraver for nameplates and terminal tags.

Margaret Turko

Margaret had extensive laser engraving experience prior to arriving at UCEC. She also held previous positions as a purchasing agent and cost estimator. After dropping off her resume at a temp agency, the recruiter told her about an engraving position at UCEC. After a 90-day period through the temp agency, Margaret was hired full time.

“This is a such a good company to work for,” Margaret says. “I like the company culture. It makes a big difference.”  

Margaret taught herself engraving at a previous job which primarily used a die-cutting machine. She opened up her own home-based engraving business and did all sorts of jobs for manufacturers and others, including an Aurora-based artist.

The mechanical engraving machine at UCEC isn’t as precise as a laser, Margaret says, but she still strives for perfection with each job. “It satisfies me to make something really perfect,” she notes. “I like to get the end product where I want it to be.”

Coming to UCEC from outside the panel industry, Margaret says her biggest challenge is reading the schematics. If she doesn’t understand something, she asks questions.

“Those guys (in the shop) can envision how the panel will turn out. It goes from a piece of paper to becoming a panel,” Margaret says. “They make a huge effort to be as perfect as they can be.”

A new engraving product that UCEC has begun offering is engraving from the back of the nameplate. This reduces dust and looks really sharp. “Our customers seem to like that,” Margaret notes.

Away from the shop, Margaret spends a majority of her time volunteering. She’s a board member of the Aurora Arts District and Brothers Redevelopment, whose mission is helping seniors age in place. They organize a Paint-a-Thon where volunteers paint 100 seniors’ houses each summer. Another volunteer project found Margaret surveying dark alleys and streets in Aurora where 580 streetlights were eventually added.

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