{"id":251352,"date":"2026-08-10T11:49:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T15:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=251352"},"modified":"2026-08-10T11:49:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T15:49:42","slug":"from-coloring-artist-in-chief-to-vp-alumna-sarah-macary-brine-has-made-an-impression-at-cheshire-manufacturing-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/08\/from-coloring-artist-in-chief-to-vp-alumna-sarah-macary-brine-has-made-an-impression-at-cheshire-manufacturing-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"From Coloring-Artist-in-Chief to VP, Alumna Sarah Macary Brine Has Made an Impression at Cheshire Manufacturing Firm"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time Sarah Macary Brine took a seat at HOB Industries<\/a>, she was 6 or 7 years old and her feet didn\u2019t reach the floor from her chair at the reception desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad would sometimes bring us in on weekends, and I have fond memories of spending a portion of some Saturdays drawing pictures and stringing paper clips together for hours,\u2019\u2019 Brine said. \u201cPatti, our receptionist, always knew when we had been in the building, because she spent her first half hour on Monday unclipping that paper-clip chain!\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Today, Brine is Vice President at the fourth-generation, family-owned manufacturer in Cheshire. HOB Industries specializes in high-speed metal stamping, custom tooling, and precision engineering. The company serves the automotive, aerospace, electronic, appliance, and commercial roofing sectors.<\/p>\n

Brine, who earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from Babson College and an Executive MBA from UConn in 2017, will be honored with a \u201840 Under Forty\u2019 award from the Hartford Business Journal<\/a> in September, recognizing her as an outstanding young professional excelling in her industry. Brine is one of three UConn business graduates to be recognized.<\/p>\n

EMBA Program Taught Her to Think More Strategically<\/h2>\n

Running a manufacturing business today isn\u2019t easy, Brine said. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the challenge is the joy,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cOn a global scale, there are tariffs and pricing challenges and 20 great employees who have their own needs in the business and outside of it. \u201c
\n\u201cOn the days when it all comes together and works, it is fun. Like they say, \u2018Everyone wants to be a star athlete but no one wants to go to practice,\u2019\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cBut it is the hard work and preparation that brings success and that allows us to celebrate when we get the win.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

When Brine was accepted into UConn\u2019s EMBA program, she was the youngest in the cohort and she was nervous about it. But she met people with different leadership styles, different viewpoints, and experience in a vast wealth of industries. She said the professors were exceptional and she still maintains friendships with many of her classmates.<\/p>\n

Through the EMBA program, Brine developed a new perspective. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe EMBA program gave me the opportunity to step back from the day-to-day operations of the business and think more strategically,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cInstead of simply reacting to whatever came my way each day, which is so easy to do in a small business, it challenged me to spend time on our long-term goals and priorities and to make decisions with the company’s future in mind. This has stayed with me for many years.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Brine\u2019s father, Francis Macary Jr., is no longer CEO but is still an owner and remains involved in the business, while her brother, Peter Macary, serves as company president.<\/p>\n

Brine said her father never pushed her, or her three brothers, to join the company. But the summer after her junior year in college, he asked her if she would help build a custom software for the company. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were the kind of family where you had to earn your own gas money, so I said yes,\u2019\u2019 she recalled. <\/p>\n

That summer she enjoyed the work, particularly providing new data for the company and knowing that the processes she developed would benefit the organization. By the time she returned to college, she was invested in the company\u2019s success. Her first accomplishment after becoming a permanent employee was to create a method that allowed employees to measure production in real time, an essential tool for the staff.<\/p>\n

Brine\u2019s Advice to Students\/Alums: Enjoy Your Work<\/h2>\n

If Brine could offer advice to students or young alumni, it would be two-fold.<\/p>\n

\u201cA core value of mine is to enjoy work,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cSo much is written about people working to make money, but there is so much joy it brings to your life if you enjoy what you do and take pride in it. That\u2019s very important.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, I can\u2019t overstate the importance of relationships. People sell products to other people. The root of business is building relationships with customers and with co-workers,\u2019\u2019 she said.
\nBrine, and her husband Stephen, an inner-city teacher for more than 20 years, are raising their 2-year-old daughter, Dottie, and are excited to welcome a baby boy in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve been fortunate enough never to have to view my career and family as separate parts of my life; they’re both part of an incredible adventure that challenges me and brings me so much joy. I truly believe one makes the other more rewarding,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brine, who earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from Babson College and an Executive MBA from UConn in 2017, will be honored with a \u201840 Under Forty\u2019 award from the Hartford Business Journal in September, recognizing her as an outstanding young professional excelling in her industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":251353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1862],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-251352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-busn"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 14:36:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251356,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251352\/revisions\/251356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/251353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251352"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=251352"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=251352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}