Cameron White was ready to call it quits.

He’d been employed most of his working life with a Maryland stormwater management company, climbing the ladder to director of operations.

He and his wife Mary had been talking for a few years about moving out of the state where he grew up. The pandemic sealed that decision for them. And if he needed to leave the company he started working for when he was a teenager, well, the couple would find a way to make things work.

Then Cameron’s boss told the 33-y...