The recovery network

In 2022, Margo Walsh ’82 stood on the Assembly Hall stage before a crowd of students and said: “Consider this: You are the leaders. There is no one else who can be more qualified to effect change — societal, institutional — beyond the students at Exeter.”

Walsh, a native of Cumberland, Maine, deeply believes this to be true. As the founder and CEO of MaineWorks, a staffing agency for formerly incarcerated people and the first certified B Corporation in Maine, she lives the non sibi credo every day. The responsibilities are many. The stakes are, at times, quite high. But Walsh has zero doubts about the work she is doing, or that her time at Exeter helped her arrive at this point.

“Developing a business to address a social problem was central to starting MaineWorks,” Walsh says. “Solving big problems is a very Exeter thing.” In 2009, Walsh became aware of the underemployment problem among the men at the pre-release center at Maine’s Cumberland County Jail, where she was a volunteer. The men were permitted to work in the community but faced low wages and limited options. Even finding reliable transportation was a challenge.

Walsh had endured a personal struggle with addiction; she was at the prison to speak about recovery. A natural networker, she had built a successful career as a recruiter within the investment banking division at Goldman Sachs in New York City. She married and had two sons. From the outside her life looked fine, but through the years her drinking, which began in her teens, spiraled out of control. In December 1997, she entered a 10-day alcohol rehabilitation program.

More than a decade later, Walsh moved home to the Portland suburbs to raise her children. In 2010, she divorced, was struggling to make ends meet, and looking for her next step. At the prison, she became determined to use her professional recruiting experience to find better jobs for the inmates and others like them.

“I’ve always wanted to help marginalized people,” she says. “I saw potential in the inmates. I also knew that no one would ever hire them because of their felonies, so I thought, I will.” In 2010, Walsh asked her sister, Elaine Walsh Carney, and another friend for a loan to start an employment company for felons and recovering addicts. They agreed, and several months later, MaineWorks opened its doors.

Why would this single mother of two put all her energy into a venture that immersed her in some of life’s harshest realities? How did she find the courage? Walsh believes her capacity for selflessness most certainly developed at Exeter. “The ethos of the institution just seems to permeate the psyche of people who have moved on from the school,” she says. “The ability to consider other people has always been my way in the world. Maybe you can call it codependence with a capital C.” With the full force of her personal convictions behind her, Walsh networked and hustled to find employers who might take a chance on the new agency. “The construction industry basically hires on raw strength and hard work,” Walsh says. “I was able to provide people who were willing to show up with that work ethic and the social support they needed to really move on in life, and not just get stuck in perpetual exploitation.”

The MaineWorks mission is “working toward economic viability for each individual who is willing to work.” Companies, primarily in the construction and landscaping industries, hire the organization when they need temporary labor. But Walsh provides more than a job, she offers a system of support for her workers that sets MaineWorks apart from other staffing firms.

It all begins with “morning circle,” a daily meeting at which workers receive job assignments, meet new employees and share updates. The ritual allows the workers to unload, or celebrate, without judgment as they navigate life after incarceration. Circle used to take place in a 7-Eleven parking lot; now it’s held beside the MaineWorks building.

After circle, Walsh and her team drive workers to job sites across the region. MaineWorks provides all required safety equipment, plus new coats, boots and other gear to ensure they are properly outfitted. Instead of being paid only if they receive an assignment, as many temporary workers do, the men and women at MaineWorks receive weekly paychecks.

Almost immediately, MaineWorks’ client base grew, and those companies began hiring its employees for fulltime work — regardless of their background. As the workers returned to circle each morning, they revealed the struggles that had defined their past. A former baseball star had major league potential until he was arrested for stealing wine. Now sober, he went on to start a family and coach sports for his three sons. Another man had survived the Rwandan genocide as a child and came to the U.S. as a refugee. After struggles with addiction and an arrest, he was in recovery and raising a daughter with his wife. Each person was building something new, a source of pride.

In 2013, MaineWorks obtained its B Corp certification from the nonprofit organization B Lab. The process involves a rigorous assessment of the company’s adherence to social and environmental metrics. “It’s wicked hard,” Walsh says jokingly, but it is clear how much this achievement means to her. The designation elevates MaineWorks into a rare echelon of for-profit companies driven by accountability, transparency and high hopes.

After several years in operation, Walsh realized the workers needed more and different types of support to succeed. In the early stages of recovery, simply living is complicated and everyone’s needs are unique. “It’s one thing to say, ‘I need to get my license back,’” Walsh says. “But you need to go further upriver and figure out, how did they lose the license in the first place? Did they ever even have a license? For most people, we follow a linear path. But for people on the margins, linear is not a path.”

In 2017, Walsh and her sister formed the United Recovery Fund, a nonprofit organization that raises money to support clients in their reentry into the workforce. “Think about people who have no money,” Walsh says. “They don’t have $300 for license reinstatement. Rent assistance — who has first and last months’ rent, plus security? No one. We put our heads down to get underneath that messiness.” Last year the fund raised $800,000 to provide essentials like housing, transportation, health care, work clothes and gear for the workers.

Today, MaineWorks employs a workforce of 80 people and counts 15 large industrial construction companies in northern New England as clients. Its leadership team includes several key members who began as laborers and rose through the ranks — further proof of its power to change lives. Though Maine remains the headquarters, the company has established operations in New Hampshire and Massachusetts using a hub-and-spoke model. It has plans to expand into Florida.

The “work” of MaineWorks will never be complete, but Walsh remains up to the challenge. “I have a tireless ability to make and maintain connections,” she says. “I just have an unbelievable capacity for people. I have no idea how. It’s exhausting, really!”

So much can and will change, but through it all Walsh and the MaineWorks circle will be there, offering jobs, encouragement and support. “We meet every Friday at 6 a.m. on Forest Avenue,” Walsh says. “There is always coffee — all are welcome.”

Editors Note: This profile first appeared in the summer 2024 issue of The Exeter Bulletin. Photographs by Joanne Arnold Photography.