But six months later, he returned for good. He would work at Rayloc for nearly 35 years, refurbishing brake calipers and other auto parts, and becoming a supervisor.
"I enjoyed working there, because I always liked automotive - I liked automotive parts," he said. He's not so much a tinkerer with cars. "Mostly I love just detailing them," he said.
As years passed, competition grew, with low-cost parts flooding in from China.
In response, the company shifted three years ago to a system called "lean manufacturing," which meant fewer production-line workers and stricter quotas. If a bathroom break took too long, he would intervene.
If his group lagged, he would come in on Saturday to make up the difference.
"It was very stressful. I couldn't sleep," Harris said. He began taking medication to treat nervousness. "It was kind of like having your own business. To do it right, you have to live with it, I felt."
The end came last January - when the Atlanta-based company announced that the Maryland lines would close in two months. In March, Harris was out of a job.
The news slapped Hancock, wedged between West Virginia and Pennsylvania at the Maryland panhandle's narrowest point. Several Rayloc workers lived in other states but belonged to the local volunteer fire department. The company agreed to let them leave when the alarm bell rang. With the workers gone, so are the rescuers.
"Obviously, it was devastating," said Dan Murphy, a veterinarian and Hancock's mayor.
Rayloc joins clothier London Fog and recreation vehicle maker Fleetwood Travel Trailer Enterprises as the latest large manufacturer to close in Hancock. "Now they are down to squat," said Peter P. Thomas, executive director of Western Maryland Consortium, the region's federally funded job training and placement provider.
Harris, 60, looked for work, but he sensed that his age was a detriment. So he embraced the training program, improving reading and math skills that had atrophied.
Out the kitchen window of his immaculate Williamsport home, he sees his future in his backyard - the neatly aligned blocks of a retaining wall he built by hand. He wants to start his own landscaping business, but according his timetable, which includes months at a West Virginia trade school, it could take a year to get the business going.
