Manufacturing campaign aimed at young people

By RANDOLPH HEASTER
The Kansas City Star

A campaign to attract area young people to manufacturing careers was officially launched Tuesday with $1.4 million from the private and public sector.

The National Association of Manufacturers picked Kansas City to originate its “Dream It. Do It.” program, which aims to help young people identify interests and utilize resources to find careers in manufacturing. The campaign was initiated Tuesday at the offices of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which donated $900,000 to the program. The U.S. Department of Labor contributed nearly $500,000.

Experts estimate that if current trends continue, the United States might face a shortage of 15 million qualified employees by 2020, many of those in manufacturing.

“While the departure of low-level manufacturing jobs to China and India has received much attention, manufacturers like Dell, Motorola, Honeywell and Harley-Davidson need employees with technical skills to create high-end, cutting-edge products that beat the global competition,” said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the association's educational arm, the Manufacturing Institute. “But the erosion of educational training programs and a weakness in math, science and technical training has left us without the skills that are essential to meet the needs of the future.”

The program's national partners include the American Association of Community Colleges, the College Board and Monster, which is powering the job- and intern-search function on the dreamitdoit.com Web site.

The Alliance for Innovation in Manufacturing-Kansas City is the local group spearheading the project. The group's members include companies, business groups and educational organizations, including the Kansas City Area Development Council, Kansas City Power & Light Co., Associated Industries of Missouri and the Metropolitan Community Colleges.

Paul Scianna, executive director of the alliance, said the goal of the organization would be to change the perception of the manufacturing industry. Many young people tend to think of such jobs as dirty, low-skilled positions. Technological advances have resulted in many manufacturing positions becoming highly paid, requiring high skill levels and taking place in clean environments.