The team of change agents heading up Kinexus of Benton Harbor can certainly pat themselves on the back today for a remarkable job assimilating some 1,500 students seamlessly onto the factory floors, in front of rock star like backdrops for photos and selfies, and into the lunch rooms of two major industrial plants in Michigan’s Great Southwest to mark the 5th Annual Manufacturing Day in America.
Todd Gustafson’s team and partners from multiple agencies and the manufacturers themselves pieced together an exciting day of eye-opening experiences for more than 900 students at Bosch on Red Arrow Highway in St. Joseph and some 500 to 600 at ACCOA Manufacturing in Niles.
Manufacturing Day has become a national phenomenon that lures tens of thousands of high school and middle school students into manufacturing facilities across the region, the state, and the country hosted by generous industries so that students, teachers, counselors and parents can see for themselves, first-hand, that manufacturing is clearly not dead in America, but rather continues to thrive and prosper.
From the very early hours set up by Kinexus logistics crews, to personalized tours, robotics exhibitions, training information, and face-to-face time with other manufacturers including firms such as Edgewater Automation, Vickers Engineering, Kelm Acubar, Eagle Technologies, Getman Corporation, Hanson Mold, JR Automation, Vail Rubber Works and others, it was an extremely busy day in the high-tech environment of Bosch where associates were busy making specialty braking systems and more even as the non-stop tours poured through the plant.
Designed to showcase modern manufacturing technology and careers and answer the myriad questions students produce, Bosch hosted hundreds of students from Bridgman High School, Bridgman Middle School, Lakeshore High School, St. Joseph High School, Benton Harbor High School, Lake Michigan Catholic High School, Hartford, Gobles, and the Van Buren Intermediate School District, as well as New Buffalo and the Kinexus Bridge Academy. There was another large line-up of schools delivering students to the AACOA manufacturing facility on Mayflower Road in Niles this morning as well.
Each student was provided with a colorful t-shirt identifying them as “Michigan Made” and celebrating Manufacturing Day, a backpack, lunch in the corporate cafeteria, and the chance to explore many highly skilled and top wage jobs that the various manufacturers need to fill both now and in the future.
While often unfairly and incorrectly characterized as a dead or dying industry, manufacturing continues to flourish in Michigan’s Great Southwest, valued at more than $2.1-billion in the tri-county region of Berrien, Cass and Van Buren Counties alone. That’s 22-percent of the region’s entire capital output.
You might not realize it, but there are 450 manufacturing establishments in the tri-county area, and they employ 17,873 people. That’s 116-percent above the national average, and fully 17.1-percent of all jobs in the region.
Equally important, students were told today that still more jobs are on the horizon with a projected increase of just under 5-percent in the decade between 2014 and 2024. That number, too, outpaces the projected national growth of just 1.5-percent in that same time frame.
Because finding the right skilled talent is the biggest challenge facing manufacturers both now and in the foreseeable future, Manufacturing Day has increased in both participation and importance to the industry over the last five years as manufacturers work to get young people into apprenticeships, work-study programs, training opportunities and other ways to fill the skilled workforce pipeline going forward. The aging workforce currently in place will create an ever increasing need for new talent, almost guaranteeing jobs for those with the skills to take over.
Based on the responses of young people who turned out for today’s activities in Berrien County, there is certainly renewed hope that the paradigm will continue to shift as students learn about the good money available to be made through an honorable career in manufacturing with lots of job opportunities right here on the home front in Michigan’s Great Southwest.
There’s little doubt about the success already, inasmuch as postcards reminding students to “save the date” for the 6th Annual Manufcturing Day which will take place on October 5th, 2018 at facilities yet to be determined. Stay tuned.
Click the link below for additional photos from today’s events at Bosch:
