First Posted: 3/13/2015
LIMA — Changing the stigma about manufacturing jobs is something that may take a partnership between educators and businesses.
“There’s a push in the budget to increase people in the career technical field. … Not everyone needs and wants to go to a four-year college,” said State Representative Bob Cupp at the Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce Manufacturer’s Counil meeting on Friday.
More than 15 business leaders attended the quarterly meeting, where Cupp spoke briefly and then opened it up for discussions and questions. The discussion mostly focused on work force issues and getting enough qualified people to fill local jobs in manufacturing.
Cupp proposed that school career counselors and teachers go to work at local businesses during the summer months, so they can see what it’s like and come back and tell their students.
“To be in there and see what happens on a daily basis, it would be very enlightening,” he said.
Judy Cowan, President and CEO of the Ohio Energy & Advanced Manufacturing Inc., talked of how the message that manufacturing jobs are good jobs is not getting out to students and young people.
“We have to educate the parents,” Cowan said.
Gene Heitmeyer, chair of the council and general manager at Diamond Manufacturing of Bluffton, said young people don’t want to go into manufacturing because of old stigmas.
“It’s an old stigma that [welding] is dirty, smelly, but it’s changed over the years,” Heitmeyer said.
The key may be to “find out what’s going to excite them about [welding],” Cupp said.
The meetings are an opportunity to network and discuss manufacturing opportunities.
“Hopefully [attendees] can get out of it where they can go for workforce engagement and how to build a better economic environment and creating jobs,” Heitmeyer said.
Attendees also discussed transportation, the gas tax and business in the Great Lakes region.
