While she's had a background in steel, Laurie Loreno's future is in ink and paper.

The Hermitage resident has been named the new controller at The Herald. A graduate of Reynolds High School, she earned a bachelor's in accounting at Westminster College, New Wilmington.

Along with taking a traditional career path by working at such accounting firms as Carbis Walker & Associates in New Castle and McGill, Power, Bell & Co. in Hermitage, the 38-year-old has worked in various office roles at steel-related companies such as Inter-Lock Steel in Hermitage and Bull Moose Tube Co. in Masury.

While working as accounting manager at Bull Moose, she often found herself on the shop floor wearing steel-toed shoes and a helmet.

"I graduated guy school in a year,'' she joked of the experience.

"All of the guys who were 6-foot-1 and 6-foot-2 were protective of me. I still keep in touch with those people today.''

For a brief time in 1999 she helped set up the accounting department for Gary Bauer's 2000 presidential campaign in Washington, D.C.

The Republican was the former Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration.

"It was very fast-paced,'' she said. "And it was very interesting because as you look at the campaign and he makes it, you might be working in the White House.''

Over the years she also has worked part time for her father's Greenville real estate business, Loreno Real Estate.

A licensed real estate agent for 15 years, she sold homes and also has done appraisal work.

She is a daughter of Larry and Dorothy Syrjanen Loreno, Sharon.