Her Story
About Laurie
Laurie Whittier is a Marcom copywriter and content strategist with more than three decades of experience creating compelling content for the high-tech industry. Today, she serves as a Copywriter and Marcom Content Lead at Trimble Inc., where she specializes in video scripts, email nurtures, marketing campaigns, technical and B2B content, and brand messaging that helps companies communicate complex ideas with clarity and impact.
Laurie earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Northern Colorado and began her career as a newspaper reporter. Early in her career, her reporting on a young man’s cancer fight earned her the Jim Raglin media award from the American Cancer Society. Her career later expanded into marketing and communications, including a Vice President role at a Chamber of Commerce, copywriting for a vitamin manufacturer, and campaign work with full-service advertising agencies. She also completed specialized direct-response copywriting training in the late 1990s, building a diverse foundation across journalism, marketing, advertising, and content creation.
But some of Laurie’s greatest professional accomplishments came after one of the most difficult chapters of her life.
In 2018, while recovering from a serious illness that left her largely bedridden and unable to work in her usual capacity, Laurie was also navigating a sudden family upheaval and divorce while caring for her teenage son. For a time, simply getting through each day required taking small, deliberate steps forward. Unable to continue working as a writer at her usual level, she took a job as a personal shopper at a local grocery store to help support herself and her son.
Rather than giving up on her career, Laurie slowly began rebuilding. She eventually found a home-based writing position, only to lose that job less than a year later during the COVID-19 pandemic. At 55, after years away from a traditional career path and while continuing to manage significant family responsibilities, she faced the challenge of starting over once again.
Her next opportunity came through a returnship program, an employment pathway designed to help professionals reenter the workforce after an extended absence due to circumstances such as caregiving or health challenges. Laurie joined Trimble through the program as a copywriter and completed an intensive 90-day training period while learning a new generation of technologies and content platforms. She proved herself and earned a permanent position, where she has continued to build a successful career for the past five years.
Her professional comeback was only one part of an extraordinary personal transformation. During the years surrounding her illness and divorce, Laurie also lost both of her parents. Yet through persistence, hard work, and countless small steps forward, she rebuilt her health and her life. She lost 64 pounds, regained much of her strength, paid off her medical debt, and even competed in her first obstacle-course race.
She also rediscovered another passion: music. Laurie has recorded more than 35 professional music covers, became the subject of a two-episode podcast about surviving adversity, and most recently joined a rock band as a lead vocalist.
Laurie’s journey is a powerful example of reinvention and resilience. From journalism to marketing, from severe personal and professional setbacks to a successful return to the high-tech workforce, she has continued to adapt, learn, and move forward. Today, she brings that same curiosity, creativity, and determination to her work, her music, and every new chapter she takes on.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Laurie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to more than thirty years of storytelling. My career began in 1992 as a newspaper reporter, where I learned how to find a story, ask the right questions, and connect with an audience — skills that carried me through work with a Chamber of Commerce, into advertising, and eventually into high-tech marketing communications. My 1991 journalism degree gave me the foundation for a career built on communication, and specialized training in direct-response copywriting in the late 1990s opened the door to advertising and, eventually, to technology companies where I could blend storytelling with marketing strategy. When the industry shifted dramatically with new software and tools, I had to catch up after time away from the workforce, and that challenge became part of my story of reinvention. A defining moment was joining a returnship program at Trimble, a global high-tech company, where I had to relearn technologies and content platforms and become comfortable being a beginner again — a reminder that our professional identities don't have to stay frozen in time. My professional path has also been shaped by my personal one: I navigated an unsupportive marriage, cared for a son with health challenges, faced serious illness, went through divorce, and lost both of my parents, and there were years when simply getting through the day felt like an accomplishment. Over the past five years, I've worked intentionally to rebuild my life both professionally and personally — losing my parents, losing over 64 pounds due to illness, addressing medical debt, refinancing my home, and rediscovering parts of myself I'd set aside. Competing in an obstacle-course race became an unexpected but meaningful chapter, proof that I could push myself physically and mentally and come out stronger. Today, I focus on MarCom content creation in high-tech, writing video scripts and campaign content and helping communicate complex ideas clearly. Becoming fluent in tools that were once completely unfamiliar to me is one of the achievements I'm proudest of — not because I mastered new software, but because I proved I could still learn something entirely new after decades in a different professional environment.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
To women navigating career transitions, I'd say: don't underestimate the value of your existing experience. You may need to learn new tools, update your skills, or even start at a different level than where you left off, but your life experience never disappears. Every challenge teaches you something, every career chapter offers a new perspective, and every setback can become part of the story you'll eventually tell about how you got here. My own journey has taught me to stay curious, remain adaptable, and never assume that one difficult chapter is the end of the book.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Music has become an important part of my reinvention. I've recorded more than thirty-five covers, drawing mainly from pop-rock and alternative music of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, and I eventually took the leap to join a rock band as lead vocalist. There's something powerful about standing in front of a microphone and using your voice after years of feeling unheard. Music has given me another outlet for expression — where writing tells a story through words, singing tells it through emotion, and both have helped me reconnect with who I am.
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