With the converging trends of reshoring and baby-boomer retirement, the future of U.S. manufacturing relies on the influx of skilled, capable workers—but attracting the necessary talent may require shattering a myth or two.

As part of that effort, more than 100 high school and prospective college students were invited to attend an open house at BIG Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc., Hoffman Estates, Ill. The Golden Corridor Manufacturing Group, a regional partnership of companies and organizations working to improve economic conditions in the I-90 corridor in northeastern Illinois, and toolmaker BIG Kaiser, hosted the event.

Prospective students look on as BIG Kaiser's John Zaya discusses precision tooling design.

Golden Corridor and BIG Kaiser teamed with Harper College, Northern Illinois University and the village of Hoffman Estates to introduce students to potential manufacturing and technology careers. Gary Skoog, director of economic development for Hoffman Estates, hoped the event would enlighten people about modern manufacturing and address some pervasive myths adhered to by students and parents alike.

"We will see a mass movement of baby boomers into retirement, but there’s not much of a workforce behind them to fill that void," said Chris Kaiser, president and COO of BIG Kaiser. The reshoring will only make that problem worse.

At the open house, students learned about machinery and tooling and saw live demonstrations of machines, tool presetters and CAD software. Hands-on tooling stations proved popular, and Bob Kupec, repair technician at BIG Kaiser, led students on repair room and machine shop tours.

Tom Erbach, business consultant in workforce and strategic alliances for Harper College, spoke on the unique opportunity students entering the technology fields face. Jose Verduzco recently participated in the Manufacturing Career Internship Program and attended Harper College. Now at Fanuc Robotics, he related his experience as a participant of the education and internship system.

"Our students, parents and instructors were impressed with everything," said Jeff Jerdee, director of education to careers and technology education services for Township High School District 214. "It is events like this that may, someday soon, dispel the negative myths about manufacturing."

Posted May 4