Elizabeth Côté, 34, surrounds herself with great books while working for a nonprofit publishing department.
Côté grew up in Ohio and attended the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, for a bachelor’s degree in English creative writing. She then moved to the east coast.
Six months ago, Côté decided to stay at home with her children. She recently decided to go back to work as the distribution manager at The Association for Talent Development.
She also volunteers for the Community Connector program, a Macks Center for Jewish Education program that is now transitioning to be a part of the new Macks Center for Jewish Connections. Connectors put on programming to connect Jewish families in their neighborhoods.
She and her husband Nigel live in Federal Hill with their two children.
What do you do for work currently?
I have been at home with my two boys the past six months. I’ve been a stay-at-home parent, but I actually start a new old job soon. Four years ago, I was the distribution manager for a nonprofit in Alexandria. Once I moved to Baltimore, I quickly realized the commute was not the easiest thing in the world, and they weren’t really doing telecommute at the time. Then I got a call a couple months ago that my position is back open with remote work. So, I’m starting my old job again. I work in the publications department, and we produce a lot of the books for The Association, and we run a lot of different conferences and we run the bookstore. My job is the distribution manager so mainly warehouse management and inventory and running the bookstores.
What is your favorite part of your job?
Probably my coworkers. I met some really great friends. They just made the job go by. Anytime you need help on the job, they were there, for both personal and work. They were really great, and I’ve remained friends with them for the past four years. So I’m really looking forward to getting back and seeing them. I’m hopefully going to be going in two days a week, so seeing them in person and remotely via Zoom.
I also like that it’s a nonprofit and that I’m working for a good company. The conferences are really awesome. We have some really good keynote speakers. A couple of years ago we had Obama, so that was really cool.
How did you get into this?
It kind of fell in my lap to be honest. I was just looking up jobs when we were living in D.C. at the time, and I was transitioning. I worked for a publications department in a company called Hachette Book Group, and my husband got this really great job opportunity in D.C. to work for FEMA and we decided to make the move to D.C., so I had to start the job hunt. I made my way up to manager since I started off as a data specialist. But the department’s great. It’s a real family feel.
How do you feel about going back to work?
It is a little scary. I keep saying I need to look up [things on] YouTube. I need to get back into Excel, get back into all these things that I’m a little bit rusty on because I haven’t been doing them in the past six months. It is a little scary to drop the kids off at daycare because I’m so used to having them here next to me.
Do you volunteer anywhere in the community?
I am currently the downtown Baltimore community connector for the CJE. I specialize in Federal Hill. I’ve been doing events, meetups and playdates to try and increase the community presence. We have B’nai Israel, and we have Chabad, but there is a big gap between that. I’ve been trying to create a lot of events to help this.
