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Employer Quotes
The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Manufacturing
They are talking about this topic: Educational Partnerships
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The quotes below are about this issue:
Many employers speak of the need for businesses and educational institutions to work with K-12 institutions to educate children about the manufacturing industry and related career opportunities. It would also be beneficial to educate guidance counselors and parents about the manufacturing industry to further enhance the possibility that youth consider manufacturing employment opportunities.
| "Guidance counselors have such an influence over students and what students choose to do. And guidance counselors tend to think about manufacturers the same way that parents do. So, we need to figure out a way to get them exposed to our manufacturing environments so that they can give children a different perspective. If they had another perspective, they might not just drive students toward college, but may encourage them to consider technical school." | Central |
| "I always ask of our new hires, especially in welding, what got them interested in welding? And there are two answers. One is that it's family-related—their grandfather had a welding machine or their uncle was a welder—there's something in that sense. The other big one is that they took a class in high school in industrial arts. And those things are disappearing. So, they learned how to do a whole bunch of things with their hands and found out, you now, this is really fun and it's interesting. And from that, they branched off into some kind of livelihood." | Central |
| "We have entry-level positions, production machinists, but the problem I hear about is the labor rate. Because people say, 'Oh, this isn't providing affordable wages,' or whatever the case may be. If only people could understand what it costs a company to train people. Our entry-level production machinists start at $10.50 to $11.00 an hour. These are people coming in with no experience in machining whatsoever. But their level of advancement, their level of increase in their wage, is far superior to most other jobs that are out there. People have to understand that when people come into the industry and they're learning their job—and they're learning on our time—it costs us about $40,000 to train these people over time. It's a big picture approach. People need to better understand that approach when companies are doing that. They need to understand that it's a fast-track process to get them up to a skill level where they're actually producing and making money for the company and that—in the end—they'll be able to get a better wage. So, there is some give and take. We have people that are switching their careers when they're 30 years old. We do have people who are doing that." | Central |
| "I have been at a number of meetings with counselors and with technical education instructors throughout the state. And I have to tell you that there is one school district in Minnesota that—if a student says that they don't want to go to a four-year college—they're dropped from the counseling services." | Central |
| "How are high school students challenged or informed about these kinds of opportunities? I'm thinking about high school students who are maybe stressed or, for some reason, don't see the value of finishing their high school education. I'm wondering if these opportunities are presented anywhere in the high schools, you know? Because, you can't afford to have these students falling off. And the opportunities and possibilities are exciting." | Central |
| "I was going to say—even beyond the capacity of the secondary training or secondary education—how are we going to feed those programs? That goes back to the high schools. How are we getting kids interested in those types of fields? I don't think we can lose track of that. And our conversation has often drifted back to entry-level positions because we can't find the skilled people that we need. So, we need to focus on how we take entry-level people and take them where we need them to go. And, there are two pieces of that at the high school level. One is: How are the high schools turning out entry-level people that can come to us and be successful and help us be successful? And, then, also: Are their eyes open to the opportunities that are available? So, I think that's an important link. I mean, we can have all the capacity in the world, but if we're not developing a way to open kids' eyes—if we're cutting all the programs that give kids the opportunity to explore their options—then they're never going to take that next step." |
Central |
| "People need more exposure to who we are, what we do, and what the opportunities are. They don't understand. Parents don't understand. High school counselors, I think, are beginning to understand because we've been hammering pretty hard on that. But it's important that there's exposure because I think that the average parent, who might be 45-years-old, of high school kids may believe that the manufacturing environment is still a smoky, dangerous, ankle-deep-in-oil type of a situation. They don't understand that it's very, very high-tech now. You can wear a white shirt and pressed trousers in a lot of shops. We need to get that message across." | Central |
| "Other influencers are businesses. So, if we go to the local school board meetings and say, 'Look, our company is in your area. We pay taxes to this city. You need to recognize that the programs you're considering dropping or have cut directly impact our ability to hire people from this area to stay working in this area.' So, we need to go to the administrators and say, 'Hey, I am one of your customers.'" | Central |
| "There's another issue relative to the secondary education, which is that we see an ever-increasing trend at the secondary level—with resources and finances more than anything—that they are dropping their career and technical education coursework. Dropping all areas of career and technical education. That, then, diminishes the opportunity for kids to explore and see if they might be interested in this field. They're not exposed to it as they used to be." | Central |
| "I think it's also the high school funnel. There seems to be more of an expectation of kids going on to a four-year college than to trade school." | Central |
| "I believe that's why you see the big jump in robotics, just because of a lack of skills. People don't want to do this type of work anymore." | Central |
| "With CNC, we kind of missed that two-year gap. So, what's happening now is we just need to find people. Now, people are moving from job to job for more money, so you're seeing puddle-jumpers a lot more." | Central |
| "I think one of the opportunities for manufacturing right now is the change towards more robotics. And there are a lot of young people who think that's really exciting—that there's going to be more and more robotics. I think we need to let young people know that that's what's going on in manufacturing. They may find themselves totally interested in robotics. If there is more robotics, obviously, there will be more jobs doing that type of work. So, just showing these young people that you don't have to just be an engineer, or just a production machine person, or just be a welder, but if you learn some of these skill sets—along with some other things—you can move your way up through the industry. Someday, you might own or run an operation. Or you might be the head salesperson or the head quality manager, etcetera. I like that idea." | Metro |
| "I think we do a good job of preparing kids for college, but we don't do as good of a job of preparing those that want to use their hands. What we see is a lot of younger students that come in that—they're not in touch with mechanical—just basic building things. I don't know if that's part of this assessment, but that might be a gap. Also, in the machine tool side, we do a lot of grinding and finishing operations. I've been into a lot of tech schools, and they have lot of lathes and mills but they don't have as many grinding—I would say modern grinding equipment. So, that might be something that could be looked into as well." | Metro |
| "I would say that businesses in the community should also be getting involved with the high schools. Inviting those counselors into our facility, we're doing that right now. Inviting high school counselors and tech education teachers to tour our facility and see what we do. We know the counselors and the teachers are really the ones that are directing students into career paths. So, if counselors in high schools have no idea what's out there in manufacturing, they don't know how to put them in that direction. They can have a kid that's very mechanically-inclined, but if business doesn't have the opportunity to say, 'You're a kid that is mechanically inclined, so look what we do—you'd be a great fit for our industry. This is what we do.' So, we're willing to come out there. We can go to your school. We can show some of the parts we make. We can talk about it and answer questions. It gets them excited about it. They know that there are businesses here, locally, that are doing these things and making these really great things. And, hopefully, they will be able to get a job in the industry, and go through the tech school. So I agree that MnSCU has to get more involved, but I think businesses will need to join forces, so we can do it together." | Metro |
| "I think it's got to go all the way back to the high school and maybe even before that. But, it's got to go back to the high schools where people look ahead and see the opportunity for those jobs and say, 'Hey, I want to do that.' They have to be given the direction to go into that as a career, so that—by the time they get to you—they're already on that path. So, whatever MnSCU can do to promote that at the high school level—an aptitude test or some sort of test that pushes people into that direction—then I think you got a chance to really take those people and turn them into good, solid workers for manufacturing. And then we can talk about more specifically about some of the specific needs that we have. Question: So, MNSCU should get more involved before the students get to the secondary? Employer: Yeah. I think you've got to pay it forward." |
Metro |
| "I saw some papers from 20 years ago where they were talking about how they've got to get more kids into manufacturing. They think manufacturing is a dirty job. It's 20 years later, and we're still saying the same thing. But how much has happened in this lifetime? So, we need to get working on this and figure out how we get students excited about these positions—which I will assume are pretty decent paying jobs and usually with good benefits." | Metro |
| "I think the biggest problem we have is keeping students in the program. Because there is a demand out there, and once they get to a certain level skill, they bail out of the program. And, if they lose the job that they quit school for, then they can't get employment. Most of them are coming because they're getting trained because they're out of work or they're displaced from work." | Metro |
| "These younger kids need to be told that they can be a welder for 45 years. Or that they can go through these programs through initiatives from MnSCU. And then, obviously, employers need to add the soft skills down the road and support them. Question: So, instead of MnSCU maybe promoting just a silo of something, there's going to be different pathways along the way for advancement? Employer: Yeah, I have two degrees from the United States. My origin is from India. The degrees that I took—I was sent to a placement office—but I wasn't told that five years from now you can do this or 10 years from now you can do that, and so on and so forth. That needs to be promoted early on. STEM's out there. Project Lead The Way is out there, but those are the grass root efforts. When somebody enters your program, they need to see the light at the end of the tunnel so they don't quit, saying, 'Oh, there is a job—I need to quit right now because that job is going to get me my current earnings.'" |
Metro |
| "We need to step back a little bit further and go back into the high schools and the middle schools and talk about manufacturing and production careers." | Metro |
| "I think one of the biggest things we've got to do is figure out how to support programs like that so we can reach down as deep and as early into schools as possible and grab the kids attention across these industrial classifications, across the engineering, across the sciences. The bigger the pull that is, the easier it's going to be. Once we've got people trained and ready, then we'll slug it out amongst each other as to who gets them." | Northeast |
| "Right now, it's national and statewide, and we'll be reducing the current technical courses and programs, and that's really going to have a big impact, I believe, in workforce development in the future. You don't have students who are developing those interests and skills because they're not exposed to them. I would advocate that you need to really start looking at the lower grade levels, middle school, and high school, and advocate curriculum changes." | Northeast |
| "One of the things we've done on the Range is what's called applied learning. So, we're actually in the high school. High school students can work on a two-year degree program. We work very closely with the superintendents, with MnSCU, and all the industries to develop these programs. And what we have found, working with them is that—while we've been focusing on ninth-grade because we've been doing some career work—that we're actually going to have to go down to the sixth-grade level to start getting them ready for the idea. This is coming from the superintendents. The best example I'll give, I love that it's a smaller school. It's Silver Bay. It just opened up, and part of a community college is right in their high school. Because they still had the equipment—they didn't get rid of it—for their industrial education programs. Boy, that's going to help that North Shore area, because we really have trouble drawing people up along there." |
Northeast |
| "It starts early. I recently participated in a program, City of Duluth. The Chamber of Commerce had CEOs in the classroom. And we spoke to eighth-graders about preparing, not only for college, but a work career. And we explained the things they need to be thinking about in terms of team-building and in terms of how they develop relationships that are going to carry them into the workplace. We talked about how they can groom themselves for success, and the things they need to be thinking about when they're 13 and 14, and getting along in the world and being successful. We need more of that kind of real life experience awareness from people other than the teachers, because the students seem to believe it more from someone they don't see every day. I think it was a very successful program, and we're going to continue it every year, I understand." | Northeast |
| "Part of the thing that we're recognizing is that so many high school students have been pushed toward college, college, college. And that the technical skill development—like multi-craft or welding or something like that—just hasn't been promoted. And so now they're starting to partner more with industry. I know one place where they're looking at re-instating vocational training at the high schools in conjunction with area colleges because those skills have not been promoted for a long, long time." | Northeast |
| "Well, that's where our group comes in. There are manufacturers in the Fabricating Association. We're 85 members strong. We not only take students into the program through machine tooling—in the middle schools and high schools—but we also work very closely with all of the MnSCU colleges, from the Iron Range to northern Wisconsin. It's a very slow process, but it's becoming quite effective right now." | Northeast |
| "We need to figure out how to partner with each other, and how to support these institutions to reach down and get more kids to consider these types of jobs." | Northeast |
| "We recognize that with budget cuts and declining enrollments, many of our industrial technology programs at the high school level were really swept out the door, and so we brought that back now. It's collaboration between the IRRRB, our business and industry partners, the Northeast Higher Education District, and 21 of our local high schools. So, students can take industrial technology type classes in the high school and get college credit. And I believe we've seen about a 75 percent increase in enrollment in our technical programs from 2004 to 2011. But the dinner table conversation that we talk about is really critical, and our industry partners have helped us out with that, too. Because when parents start to talk to their children about education, they say, 'You're going to go to college,' and we need to help them define what that means. Because, in their mind, that's four years somewhere else. And maybe they come back, and if they do come back with that four-year degree, do we have a job for them? Because the recent Georgetown study that you've probably all read, indicates that about 70 percent of the jobs in our state—and that's probably even higher in northeastern Minnesota—are going to require some post-secondary training. It might not be that four-year degree, but at least some sort of certification or diploma after that. And so I think we've done a better job than many rural regions in engaging our families in discussions. And we're allowing students to experience some of those technical trades, at the high school level, so that they have an opportunity to pursue them if they choose." | Northeast |
| "It's a free country, right? People are going to go to whatever college they want, and take whatever classes they want. And, to be more clear about it, that's why they want to hear from employers, to know: What's the demand? There are too many elementary education teachers, so maybe you shouldn't be an elementary education teacher. So, that is one of the outcomes of this process, to be more clear about where there is a demand and what kind of education is needed for that job so—to some extent—you can steer students towards jobs that are actually available." | Northwest |
| "There was a group at one time, but it didn't hold up when the economy got shaky a few years back. But we're going to bring that group back together. We're going to start out with a small group of five or six of us. And we'll need to figure out what direction we want to take. Is it going to be about training? Or our growth patterns? Or maybe something else that suits all our members. And we're going to do a region five area group and start getting those meetings going again. We need to do things like get marketing materials together so that everyone in school knows that manufacturing offers cool and sexy jobs, not just dull and boring stuff. We're serious about that. And that's part of this group, too, to get a little more enthusiasm back with manufacturing." | Northwest |
| "Our key difficulty is just getting enough interested kids and others—like returning adult students—into that pipeline." | Northwest |
| "Employer 1: I'm concerned that when we've got kids that are very good in math—because we're stressing that in our high schools—that they're the kids that are going to be the higher learners or the academics rather than the machinists, the CNCs, and the hands-on welders. In the old days, the hands-on group didn't need the technology degree that they need now. Our equipment has changed. So, the mindset of those kids needs to change in school. We need to somehow let our youth know that it's going to be a higher requirement on this side because of the technological advances we've made. That's our biggest struggle and our biggest gap right now. Employer 2: You can no longer go into machining as a way to avoid math." |
Northwest |
| "The Superintendent of Brainerd Schools met with a group of employers last week, and he shared that the students that are taking trig and calculus are not the students that are going to go into tech programs. At that meeting, we talked about the missed opportunity in creating more applied math in the high school. So, I want to make sure that that's taken under consideration as it relates on a statewide level. Creating more opportunities for applied math." | Northwest |
| "Even at the high school level, I don't think there's enough emphasis placed on—if you're going to do well in math and science—it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be an engineer. There are a lot of people who do well in math and science who may want to do something different." | Northwest |
| "Too many people view manufacturing as an assembly line. Well, it's not. And if you do choose this path, you would accelerate your personal growth and—of course—the company's growth as well." | Northwest |
| "Another thought I had was the possibility of sharing instructors between the colleges and the high schools. Often, it's hard for the high schools to have teachers that have the higher-level skills in manufacturing. So, maybe we could do some kind of instructor sharing? And, again, it is creating interest in those kids by offering them more opportunities in grade school or high school." | Northwest |
| "Now you're getting to the crux of the issue—we need more of a feeder system, including parents saying, 'It's not a shame to be a machine operator. You don't have to be a doctor or a philosopher. You can get a good career being a welder or a computer operator or something like that.' But that's going to be a long road to hoe. I watched the news this morning, and a person was on there talking about the higher education committee that he's on. And he said, 'Everybody needs to go to college.' You can tell he's trying to make this shift towards encouraging some kind of post-secondary education, but the word he used was 'college,' and that word tends to mean a four-year degree. He said it three or four times and corrected himself every time. You could see him struggle." | Northwest |
| "Let's put some forethought in this industry and build it from that local high school level through the industry level and into the college level. Because that is our lifeblood. We need that workforce for us to be able to survive as companies." | Northwest |
| "Would it be viable for high school welding students to get some kind of AP [advanced placement] credit for their welding classes? We already have AP for college English. Maybe there could be a program where a student could earn credits if they take advantage of the opportunities in industrial technology classes? Maybe that is the question for the colleges because it might encourage some students—the ones who might not otherwise consider taking a welding class—if they knew they'd get some college credits if they pass the test." | Northwest |
| "Over the last six months, we've provided a significant investment to our local high school programs involving technology. And we're not giving them the leftover stuff. We have them using the technology that we currently use in our facility. So, that is a two-way street for us. Because it does provide us with training for our own internal side of the business, but then these high school kids are getting exposure to this technology. In some cases, they've got newer stuff than what we have in the plant because this new generation of power sources came out, and that was exciting to them. And to see the enthusiasm that they get from that—because they're not just getting this rusty, old machine—they're getting current technology. I see a small percentage of them that are excited about the opportunity—to be able to learn the trade and to be able to pursue a position with our company. There have been several conversations I've had at the schools where I've taught my career path and where it has taken me. And it's a path that's kind of been all over the place within the manufacturing sector. So, it's just getting them to realize what opportunities are really out there. And if they were able to do something at the high school level, then I guess the utopia of the program would be that they could do welding/fabrication work that might help them get credits taken care of at a [MnSCU college] level or something. Where they are already working towards college-level credits while still in high school, so that those two programs—the high school and the post-secondary—work in unison. And then you've got the students that say, 'Hey, I'd like to be a welder at the facility. And I can still go through that same course, and I'm going to have all the skill sets that I need to be able to go into the industry.' It does take a lot of effort at the local level to be able to start getting that excitement there. We're starting to build traction, but it does take a lot of resources and hard work to make that move." |
Northwest |
| "There needs to be more focused career education in the schools. I truly believe it should start in elementary school and middle school. We need to be able to help kids understand what the different career choices are. I think we've lost that focus. If we could do with the technology classes what they've done so well with the English classes and the sciences classes—of getting some post-secondary credit at the high school level—that would be good. Then, maybe folks could go into a two-year degree program with some actual college credits. Because we really see a link to those two-year degree certificates. So, I do think there needs to be a real connection. And then we can help with the high school teachers because some of the stuff that we need isn't maybe the most fun stuff to teach. But this is where the jobs are, and this is where these kids are going to be able to come and start making a career, and that is important as well." |
Northwest |
| "There needs to be a link from the high schools to the colleges. There seems to be somewhat of a different mentality between high school and college. So, if we can link those, there does seem to be some manufacturing equipment out there that would be available." | Northwest |
| "We need to get the tools into the high schools so that they can use them. But then there is a marketing piece, too. There needs to be a presence of employers presenting these tools and helping teachers. If you've got the right folks in there to kind of market it—not just give the tools to the industrial tech teachers—but also kind of make sure that action happens, then there is a pipeline and a relationship built with kids. It lets them know about the career opportunities. The kids can connect with someone like a manager that has a career in the field, so they get that connection and see what a career would look like." | Northwest |
| "We just recently had a joint Northwest Manufacturers meeting. And the one thing came out of there was how their machinery is obsolete for manufacturers but that it could be used for educational purposes. There is a trend towards taking that older equipment into the high schools so they can use it." | Northwest |
| "A local high school just started a production class. We're excited about that. We'll try and partner and stay involved with them, but there are not enough kids in it. We still need that exciting manufacturing career propaganda stuff." | Northwest |
| "It seems to me we're talking about two things. One is how do we hire people in general and build a pipeline, and the other is how do we develop those skills. And, looking at high school, we've all talked about how parents play a huge part in how their children select their careers. If we had more community engagement between higher education and businesses—like events for kids in our communities with their parents there—then we can talk about the opportunities in many factories, and that career pathway opportunity for those kids to move from one job to another. I think you would have more support from the parent if they could see what the technology levels actually are in the industry." | Northwest |
| "I think we've got to focus on attracting kids out of schools—to let them know that they don't have to go a college to get welding experience. If they can get it as part of school, when they graduate from high school, those kids—if they had the welding experience—could apply for certain positions right now. Question: We've heard that a lot of high schools no longer offer welding and shop and these kinds of technical trade classes. Is that true in this region as well or is it still offered in some of the schools? Employer: Four high schools still have some offerings, but in talking with Triton this week, they didn't have any graduating seniors coming out of those programs. And they only had one junior that was eligible to come to work for us even for the summer months because they have to be 18. They said next year, potentially, they'll have some people interested. I think more of them will be 18 by then. I talked to the shop teacher there. They got one shop teacher who teaches it all through high school. Employer 2: That's the only one in Rochester." |
Southeast |
| "I think it's interesting that most kids now automatically think that they're going to go to college and get a four-year degree right out of high school. That's just the value proposition for a college degree. It's kind of like with MBAs, we can't take everybody that has an MBA—they're a dime a dozen. Same thing with college degrees, often they come out of college and they don't have the skills that they need in order to survive in the real world. What's the point of having this degree where you're paying $20,000—or more—a year? In the end, you've got a big load of debt and no job experience." | Southeast |
| "The fact is some people can make more out of high school degree with a skilled trade than some people can make with a lot of college degrees." | Southeast |
| "Employer 1: I think we need to train them in high school because there are a lot of kids—it's not a hundred percent of the kids coming out of high school right now that are going to college—there are a lot of kids that go into retail jobs. Or I see them at restaurants. So, I just don't think we have the programs to be able to get them thinking about a welding career. Employer 2: It's the marketing thing and the image of the industry." |
Southeast |
| "They have to be skilled laborers. It's an important job. And the fact is some can make more out of high school with a skilled trade than some can make with a lot of college degrees." | Southeast |
| "What's the conversation at the high school level? That's important because this idea of going to a four-year school after high school—the fact is that kids are finding out they can't possibly pay back the debt that they've incurred with the curriculum they've chosen. So, they do get a job, but they wind up with $80,000 or $100,000 of debt, and they're making $40,000 as a professional in whatever. So, what are they being steered towards in high school? Help them understand the math of what they want to do—understand the debt and understand the earning potential—and then they might want to make a different choice. Because maybe it's a better choice to not incur that debt and be a tradesperson. So, while kids are still young, they at least have options to think about." | Southeast |
| "Maybe we need a training program for high school counselors." | Southeast |
| "We talked to some high school counselors, and they got in trouble by parents when they steered certain kids away from four-year degrees. Every parent wants their kid to get a four-year degree. This was the conversation we had a couple of months ago. My oldest daughter is in college and she knows ten kids from Rochester that dropped out of [non-MnSCU college] within the first year. One's a fireman. One's this, one's that. They're just not cut out for it, but we push our kids to go to college. And the counselors say that—if they direct kids to other options—the parents are in the office asking why they told their kids not to go to college." | Southeast |
| "Is there a demand? How many of the kids are going to fill the class? If the technical colleges are going to offer these classes, how are they going to fill them? We just talked last week. We can offer classes through the technical colleges, and we've got to take the responsibility, I believe, in recruiting to fill those classes. I think that needs to be part of our responsibility as manufacturers—we go out and recruit to fill the classes that are available. My understanding is that colleges are having a hard time filling the classes." | Southeast |
| "No one wants their kid to be a welder. But it's a great profession. If you can train it—the army had issues for a while, right?—but the 'be all you can be' slogan changed that. The military, in general, has changed its image in order to attract young kids into the military. You can do the same thing on the manufacturing side. Make it cool to be a manufacturer." | Southeast |
| "I came from a family where my dad is a machinist, my uncle is a machinist, and my cousin's a machinist. So, when my brother graduated from high school, he went into machining—into the technical school. And I think my mom had always thought that her kids would go to a four-year college, and so she was almost disappointed that he chose that route. But now, we are all very proud because that's just the family business. And he makes more money than I do, and I went to a four-year college. So, it's like it spread a good image about it. I guess in my family it's different because we're proud. When the next 18 year-old kid goes to tech school—it's a good thing—but not every family has a good image of it. So, if there's some way that you could spread the word out there—that this can be a good thing. Each mom puts her kid through college, right? And you've had a multi-billion-dollar-a-year college industry promoting it. You know that they're recruiting students to have revenue for their revenue stream, and that's what we're competing against." | Southeast |
| "I would invite all of you to join us in some of our meetings where manufacturers talk about changing the image of manufacturing. The kids like the bells and whistles, and the fun kind of thing. If we all work together to put something together—like events and things—that gets kids interested. We need to promote the image of the industry. We need kids to know that they can go into building all these trucks and stuff. Not everybody understands that. There are so many different things that go on in manufacturing, but I don't think they know that. They think of the old dirty kind of manufacturing work, but that's not what it's like today for most of our businesses." | Southeast |
| "We need to start when they're young. Start that education process at the beginning that it's cool to be involved in all this sort of stuff." | Southeast |
| "I think the healthcare industry has stepped up, and it could be a model for us. I mean, they're going to grow 10,000 employees in the next ten years just here alone. They're getting that. They are in the middle schools. They are in the high schools. They're designing programs for them. Outside this room, most people think that all manufacturers have left America. Most people have no idea what positions are available, what jobs are out there. So, how we are we going to deal with that? We are going to have to do that a lot earlier and in a whole different way rather than thinking that MnSCU's going to ride in on some horse and solve this." | Southeast |
| "I know that the National Association of Manufacturing (NAM) does have this dream to do a campaign. It's a packaged marketing campaign, but you really have to figure it out for your own region. There has been some success in Alexandria. For example, they're building a new high school and they're working with¿they're putting the machines back in the high school because they have a lot of drafting companies in that region. Same thing in northeastern Minnesota, there's a company there and they're starting in middle school and high school because they need employees. So, they're bringing the programs back." | Southeast |
| "When I went to high school, we actually ran a company, and this was in ninth or tenth grade. The shop teacher set up a company. We had to run it, produce a product, the whole ball of wax. I never went to college, and I'm a successful business person as far as I'm concerned. We need to do this. But I've gone into the schools—junior high and high schools—and it's a brick wall. They have no knowledge. They have no experience in it. They've never done it. How can they possibly be steering our kids in the right direction?" | Southeast |
| "Employer: The problem comes from the fact that enrollment in the classes is so low. You can't justify running the programs because the enrollment's too low. Question: So, demand is high, but the enrollment is low? Employer: Enrollment is typically low. I'm talking about over the last 10 years, not the last three years. Well, there are more students. We have 19 students in the Right Skills Now program and another 19 in North Mankato and another 19, I think, in [lost in transcription]. That's a lot of students that typically wouldn't have been there, but when they get out of there, that's just the start of their education—they'll come in and run the machine. They can load parts and unload parts, but that's all they're going to be able to do. We're going to have to train them from that point on, which takes a lot of time. So, you go back to school, and hopefully there will be a program that they can go to. And hopefully the employers don't just scoop them out of the Right Skills Now and don't allow them to go to school." |
Southeast |
| "MnSCU also needs a feeder system from the middle schools and the high schools. It doesn't start at MNSCU. If we don't have a feeder system to feed into, that's part of the problem, I think. MNSCU can't do it by themselves. It's got to be further upstream." | Southeast |
| "I think we need to go all the way back to the high schools and elementary schools as far as exposure to our industry, but I think one thing with high schools is they really have their hands tied. There are so many requirements for high school graduation; requirements that comes from the state level. But also—matching that—is what four-year colleges are requiring for entrance. That's really limiting options as far as what students can take for their elective classes in most colleges. So, even if you do have a high school that has a strong trade program—or even wants to put a trade back into it—if they're not going to have sections of the day to allow for electives, you're not going to get students taking the class because they're not able to take the class because of so many requirements. My son was going to take intro to auto, small engines, and one other class for his ninth-grade electives. Now, he's taking Spanish for two of those electives because that's what's needed to get into a four-year college. Students can only take so many electives when they're in high school. So, if you do it like the program that Alexandria is putting in, then kids have to fight for—well, they may really like music and dance and math—but they need to prepare for the four-year college. So, they think, 'I need a language and I'm taking math, so I don't have time to take this elective class that I'm interested in.' So, maybe we need to take another look at the four-year college requirements, where you need two years of a foreign language, because that may be two of the student's four electives." |
Southeast |
| "Another thing to keep in mind is that the kids who are technical are probably going to be more apt to take a post-secondary program at the [MnSCU college] during their junior or senior year, and that penalizes the high school dollar-wise. They already have stretched budgets, and now they lose a bunch of kids to post-secondary, and that hurts their budgets worse. So, they aren't going to be very inclined to encourage them to do that." | Southeast |
| "My concern within the manufacturing sector is that I don't think we market ourselves very well, and I think it's even before the schooling side of it. I think if you look at other industries, they market to the youth in a much better way than what we do within manufacturing. There's a stigma around manufacturing. There's a lifestyle around manufacturing that is really a challenge for some. You know, within manufacturing, you have to go to two, if not three, shifts to make it work. And that's not a world—or a way of life—that most people aspire to. But I think that what other industries have done—you know, look at even the connotation of quick-service restaurants as to the challenge of getting people to work within a quick-service restaurant—yet you see McDonalds who actually is great at marketing to the youth. They actually create an environment that is worthy of note. I don't think we have that within this world of manufacturing. We need a marketing muscle that is able to change that stigma because, by the time it gets to the technical college, we've already lost most of the people who would be really good in this industry. So, it's really a question of how we create a campaign that reverses the stigma, that reverses that mindset. I think that we have to do that at a much earlier phase through a much more coordinated effort within the manufacturing sector. It may not be the most glamorous role or activity, but other industries have been able to create the right spin and mindset to it. I think that there's a real need, and it's a short window given the fact that we're going to lose so many very qualified people. We're going to have this huge void that's going to be that much more of a challenge for us." | Southeast |
| "We actually started working with the Tri-State Manufacturers' Association in the central part of the region about two-and-a-half years ago. It has a pro-manufacturing career awareness campaign. We were able to leverage marketing collateral—best practices from throughout the nation—because it started with the National Association of Manufacturers. They're up to probably close to 25 grassroots campaigns now throughout the nation. We're now looking to expand that in the Brainerd area. We've been able to work with multiple manufacturers in that area. We want something, and we want it here. We want to make a difference, and we've just started some conversations with Minnesota Precision Manufacturing Association (MPMA) about taking that further out into the state. But it is exactly what you're talking about. It's meant to be very eye-catching for youth, but you can also tailor it for an older adult audience to say, 'Pay attention. This is an important industry in your state, and it's a wonderful career, and here's how you can get into it.'" | Southeast |
| "We're not the only players in this because there are others, but we're really looking at robotics competitions as being a way to get into the middle schools and high schools and really generating interest in STEM careers with a real push to the manufacturing/technical programs. We're sponsoring robotics this year with five colleges and about 50 teams of six to eight students. But FIRST is another example of that. There is also BEST in the west central area, but we're really seeing that as a way to just get the kids energized. We've got Boy Scout troops and Girl Scout troops involved. We've got three teams in Anaheim, California right now competing, so those are just a few areas that we're working on. We believe it has got to be done." | Southeast |
| "One of the things that would help manufacturing is if every high school would expose students to manufacturing opportunities. So, that could help with the marketing part—to make people aware of the opportunities in manufacturing. It would give them an introduction to it that they wouldn't otherwise get if they don't have an industrial arts programs anymore." | Southeast |
| "About the high schools, we're trying to build an apprenticeship program with our local high school, but I'm coming up with a roadblock because of the child labor laws. The state has to approve that program, so I think the state really needs to advocate more for employers and apprenticeship programs. We're having a difficult time with trying to get that developed in our area." | Southeast |
| "I think that, as a society, we promote the four-year degree, but if it's not that and if they can't find something else in life, well, there's always that factory work job that's in manufacturing. But manufacturing makes the world go around. You get a lot of people that really just don't want to work in life. They say, 'Well, because I can't find something else, I'll go get a factory job.' They're looking to get a job that's just a job, it's not a career. Because he might have to work a first or second or third shift, it's very hard to promote the idea that, 'Hey, you can make this a lifestyle, you can move up, and you can be successful.' It's perceived as a job that nobody else wanted because they couldn't get a four-year degree." | Southeast |
| "We have decided that we need to go to these 'career days' at the high school and the middle schools to let students know that, if they're from the surrounding area, there are career fields available for people that may not be interested in a four-year degree. Or maybe they want a career that's more hands-on. We want them to know that they can truly have a career. I think programs have disappeared—shop class and all that. So, someone needs to let them know that there are positions available—whether it be in welding or something else. It's not something that they are aware of." | Southwest |
| "I think that—if a kid isn't planning on going to go to a four-year college—I don't think they get much guidance at the schools." | Southwest |
| "I think one of the big things with the program is that it gets young kids interested in both that high-level engineering and mid-level engineering. It's not just about the four-year engineering program. It's about those kids who are very mechanically inclined, but they don't want to be a four-year engineering student—but maybe they want to do something that's related to engineering. One of the things that I know with our program in [unknown college] is that they have those classes full. They can't keep up with the demand because these kids want to get into those programs. I think the big piece—where employers come into play—is getting together with the moms and whoever else is involved in the decision-making process, and being able to get in front of those kids and say, 'If you're interested in this type of stuff, let me tell you more about it. Let me bring you into our facility so I can show you what you can do with those interests.' We can teach them what it is and what it means. But how do we get them to those institutions that give them the programs needed?" | Southwest |
| "The reason that there are fewer welding classes is because there's no enrollment. And there's no enrollment because no one talks to kids about manufacturing careers. So, we need kind of a marketing campaign; we need to do a better job with that. And the other thing we continue to hear is that parents—and most guidance counselors—tell the kids, 'You will get a four-year degree, whether you'll be able to use it or not.' So I think it's kind of changing that mindset—to get them to understand that you can have a great career with a two-year technical degree as a welder. And you can stay close to home; you don't have to go far away. So, that's the really big problem that we continue to hear about in manufacturing. And, if you think about it, the analogy is that there was a significant nursing shortage several years ago, and the healthcare industry has done a great job with solving their problem by saying, 'Hey, this is a great industry for a career.' We should think about that." | Southwest |
| "We need to drive interest and encourage people to go through these programs, so that they come out and are available to be placed for employment." | Southwest |
| "I think we, as employers, need to do a better job of coaching the schools on our expectations. Now, even an automotive technician needs really high-tech skills because everything's computerized. So, how we think about some of these jobs needs to change; our models need to change. Someone who wants to be a welder, they should have A's in math and science. We need to recruit some really smart kids to all these programs." | Southwest |
| "I need more people in high school being educated to understand the fact that—even to go work on a production line—you're going to need to go to technical school. And if they're going to go to technical school, there are some skills that you need to work on. You need to have a basic understanding of logic. You need to have a basic understanding of math. You need to be able to use a computer fairly effectively. You need to be able to problem-solve and troubleshoot. You need to be able to have all of these higher skills when, good golly, the high school's having trouble teaching them how to read and write. I need them three steps beyond that, and the only thing that can get them there is technical school. So, the more people you can put into your system, the bigger candidate pool I have to look through to try to find the people that are going to be able to do my jobs." | Southwest |
| "Students don't know that these job opportunities exist and that there's a demand for qualified candidates. So, if we could somehow let students—or even incumbent workers—know, 'Here's a field that's a great job, and you can get a certificate in a certain amount of time.' I think that's what we're trying to identify. Where are these opportunities to educate students about these options? And you know MnSCU's going to offer the program if they can fill it. So, how do you fill those classes?" | Southwest |
| "You've got to change the model. Because the model worked really well until you take the pool of candidates out, and then it just failed. I think what we ought to do, as an industry, is help these people fill up the pool of candidates again. Because, if we have candidates that go into these programs, everything tends to roll along pretty good." | Southwest |