With over two decades of experience in business recruiting and management, Dawn Marie Herlocher was inspired early on by her mother, Sandra Kline, to pursue a career that allowed her to help others. Earning her Associate of Science in business management from the Penn College of Technology in 1998, she then began her career as an office manager for Wynn Sport and an accountant for Nicholas Meets. In 2000, she joined Liberty Workforce, a staffing company, where she worked doing payroll.
Ms. Herlocher became the business executive for Liberty Workforce in 2006, having taken over management of the company after the owner moved to Florida and retired not long after. She has since opened a second staffing company, Reliable Valley Services, where she was worked as a recruiter since 2018. With Liberty Workforce her primary work is recruiting and providing staff for a meat processing and packing company, and through Reliable Valley Services she works with a fruit farm and a recycled tire plant to help them find suitable employees.
Furthermore, since 2008, Ms. Herlocher has excelled as a business owner and candle maker for Main Street Scents Candles & More. An endeavor that sprung from a childhood of experimenting with store bought candle making kits and making candles for the store her mother ran. Her mother was also the one who encouraged her to open her own store and provided the financial aid to help her get started. She ran Candles & More out of a 12 by 30 shed for 11 years before opening a bigger store, and through her success was eventually able to open a second store as well.
Throughout all of her professions, Ms. Herlocher considers the highlight of her career to be helping people find work. There are so many people who struggle to find work due to things like discrimination or having spent time in prison, and it brings her great joy to help people pick up their lives and get second chances. She truly has made a name for herself through her dedication to helping others. With Candles & More, she notably sells not only her own products, but the products of other crafters and artisans in the community as well, and she regularly donates her products to be used for fundraisers.
Ms. Herlocher attributes much of her success to the fact that she had a dream and she stuck to it and always kept pushing forward. Looking toward the future, she hopes to see the expansion of Liberty Workforce and Reliable Valley Services so that she can partner with more companies to do recruiting work on their behalf, and her five year goal for Candles & More is to open branch stores all over the United States and hire more people. Ms. Herlocher would advise young and aspiring professionals to not give up on their dreams as well as remind them that hard work does pay off.
Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Ms. Herlocher now resides in Loganton, Pennsylvania, with her partner and her two children, Kaylee and Colin. When she isn’t doing work for one of her three companies, she enjoys spending time with her family and doing a number of outdoor activities, such as camping, hunting and fishing.