CUMBERLAND, Md. — After working in Western Maryland for 30 years, Dave Yates was prepared to see a bear in a field or wooded area.

He was caught off guard Wednesday morning, however, when a black bear found its way into a conference room where coworkers had met minutes earlier.

Yates, operations center manager for Columbia Gas of Maryland in Cumberland said workers were ready to drive trucks out of the company’s garage when a bear entered the building and approached a nearby hallway.

“It stood up … and actually pushed the door open,” Yates said.

Over a dozen workers were in the building at the time, he said.

After the bear, estimated to weigh roughly 100 pounds, entered the empty conference room, workers shut the door to the area and called for help.

“We were concerned about safety … school starting … that’s why we trapped it,” Yates said.

Soon after, the employees talked via phone to Rande Brown, game mammal biologist at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, who told them to evacuate people from the building and open doors to free the animal or it would become agitated.

“We thought we were doing the right thing,” Yates said of enclosing the animal.

“But (Brown) couldn’t have been more right,” Yates said. After about 10 minutes in the conference room, the bear started tearing apart window blinds. “You could tell it was scared.”

After the doors were opened, the bear left the building and ran away.

Brown, who arrived at Columbia Gas moments later, canvassed the area and talked to residents to collect information on the bear’s movement. There was a possible sighting on Maple Street, but the bear was not located.

“Hopefully, the bear is safe,” Yates said.

Jennifer DuBois, communications and community relations director for Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania and Maryland, said the company’s surveillance cameras captured images of the bear as it made its way into the building.

The in-house photos and videos of the bear cannot be shared with the public due to company policy, she said.

However, employees outside of the building used cell phones to photograph the bear while it was trapped in the conference room.

DuBois said the event marked a first in her career.

“This has never come across my desk,” she said of a bear inside a company building.

DuBois said upon learning of the event, she was concerned for the safety of the employees in the building.

“When I saw the picture … I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. He’s in our meeting room,’” she said. “I knew exactly where the bear was standing.”

DuBois said the event will be discussed at an upcoming company safety committee meeting.

“It will be part of our (monthly) review,” she said.

Brandon Stevens was at the Cumberland business to do some contract work on behalf of his family’s company, Frostburg-based Stevens Electrical.

Shortly after the gas company’s morning meeting in the conference room ended, he heard one of the workers say something about a bear.

“I thought they were joking,” Stevens said. “Then they shut the garage doors.”

While Stevens, a Western Maryland native, has seen wild bears roam outdoors, Wednesday’s event at the Columbia Gas building caught him by surprise.

“It was pretty crazy,” he said and added he used his phone to snap a photo of the animal.

“I texted a picture to my wife so my son could see it before he got on the school bus,” Stevens said of his spouse Mindi and their child Braxdon, 6.

“(Braxdon) wanted to know why the bear was inside and what it was doing.”

Harry Spiker, game mammal section leader for Maryland DNR, said the bear likely entered the building because it was looking for food or “curiosity could have gotten the better of it.”

Additionally, unseasonably high temperatures probably caused the bear to be restless.

A lot of local bears that otherwise would be in hibernation remain active, Spiker said.

Last month, nine bears were struck and killed on Maryland highways, disabled two vehicles and brought the 2015 road-kill total to 52, according to an unofficial count maintained by the Cumberland Times-News.

“Bear activity has definitely been much higher than normal and I do attribute that to the warm weather,” Spiker said.

He said his department receives 300 to 400 “nuisance bear calls” per year, many of which include the animals eating trash or bird food in feeders. Roughly five to 10 of the annual calls pertain to bears that enter buildings, he said.

“Most of the time it’s in a garage,” Spiker said.

And most of the time, as long as the bear has an escape route, it will leave without causing too much damage, Spiker said.

However, folks should keep their distance from bears, he said.

“People should remember … (bears) are strong, wild animals,” Spiker said.