Manufacturing As A Desirable Career Path
Adopt A School District Initiative
The world is changing rapidly as other countries and regions acquire competitive advantages that seriously
challenge many aspects our country’s manufacturing and educational dominance. To remain relevant as
a North American manufacturing powerhouse there needs to be A Manufacturing Renaissance with a
strategic plan for the revitalization of manufacturing, the public education system, and the economy.
To address the need for the revitalization of the manufacturing sector the Association for Manufacturing
Excellence (AME) has adopted a new vision for “A Manufacturing Renaissance driven by People Centric
Leadership coupled with Enterprise Excellence.” AME has realigned its strategic initiatives to address the
challenges facing a manufacturing and educational renaissance. The public agrees manufacturing is
critical to reviving the economy, but they would not recommend manufacturing jobs to their sons and
daughters. One of AME’s initiatives is to get parents, schools and students excited about "Manufacturing
AS A Desirable Career Path”.
AME and its alliance partners are increasing the awareness of parents, students, and public schools of the
companies needs for career ready individuals with more focus on the need for STEM (Science Technology
Engineering Math) skills. People think that science, technology, engineering, and math skills aren’t
important because you’re not interested in becoming an engineer or a computer programmer. What they
need to keep in mind is that almost all jobs will require some level of STEM-related skills.
It is estimated that 85% of all the new jobs with be skilled positions and requires some post-secondary
credentials. The average wage for manufacturing is 77K as reported by the chamber of commerce has a
17% higher compensation benefits versus non-manufacturing jobs.
Changing the perception of manufacturing and addressing the skills gap is going to take leadership from
manufacturers themselves. The Manufacturer's Pledge represents a commitment by manufacturers to
take action. These actions can focus or invest in education and training, promote a positive image of
manufacturing, support policies that improve manufacturing, rally other business leaders -- anything that
supports manufacturing.
To assist in creating the awareness of the need for more literate, career ready citizens and the
opportunities for high pay jobs in advanced technology and manufacturing, the Association for
Manufacturing Excellence will be reaching out to school districts to offer them a corporate-membership.
This membership will allow teachers and students to attend AME events at member prices. In addition,
the district will receive 5 copies of Target Magazine to increase awareness of what will be required for the
career readiness and the 21 century learning skills to be successful.
This initiative will support the revitalization of manufacturing by re-energizing a world class educational
and training system to enable our communities and its citizens to have the education and skills to qualify
for good paying jobs to lead in the designing and building things at home, again!
1
Manufacturing As A Desirable Career Path
Adopt A School District Initiative
Steps for Deployment of Manufacturing AS A Desirable Career Path:
1. Select a school district that you and your company is align with.
2. Gain support of your company and other businesses in your area to engage with the school
district.
3. Businesses agree to provide:
 Tours of their operations
 Promote Manufacturing Day (October 4, 2013)
 Provide input on curriculums for STEM Skills
 Go to schools and make the case for Careers in Manufacturing
 Select 1 or 2 students to mentor in manufacturing.
4. Contact your school superintendent and school board to make them aware of this initiative.
5. Explain why AME and our alliance partners are interested in partnering with them on producing
more literate, career ready citizens.
6. Provide them with the new addition of Target Magazine that outlines “Manufacturing AS A
Desirable Career Path”.
7. The best place to start in the schools is with Career & Technical Education leaders and the
Guidance Counselors - help make their job easier.
8. Go see the technology and advance manufacturing classes – you will see some great teachers and
students interacting.
9. Share proven programs to help school improve:
Association for Manufacturing Excellence – Corporate membership and best practices for
producing career ready citizens for the workforce and or college.
Society of Manufacturing Engineers – PRIME schools program so they can get funding to grow
their programs like Project Lead the Way and other learning tools to help students prepare for
careers in advanced technology and manufacturing.
American Productivity & Quality Center – North Star Program provides continuous
improvement principals and tools to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the services
schools provide.
Manufacturing Institute - Dream It Do It provides information about the different high paying
career options that manufacturing offers and the skills required.
Literate Nation – The Learn Act assessing students at the earliest age to identify and then
provide the right research based intervention to help them become more successful at learning.
These are the steps to get started. Once you get engaged with your school district and local businesses
the next steps will be become second nature to a continuous improvement leader.
2
Manufacturing As A Desirable Career Path
Adopt A School District Initiative
Each national and regional AME board director is being asked to reach out to a school district. Our goal is
track how many school we touch in a given year. We would ask for the presidents of each region to provide
a count of how many of their board members have adopted a school district at the end of each quarter
and report their progress to Glenn Marshall. These findings will be summarize and the outcomes will be
reported as part of Manufacturing As A Desirable Career Path KRA results.
This initiative is an excellent way for AME to engage with local businesses and schools to get them more
involved with AME. Then in the following years we want to work with schools to see if more students are
enrolling in STEM courses and are graduating with skills and knowledge to join the workforce or go onto
college.
Looking forward to hearing from you and how your journey is going on getting your school district, the
students and parents excited about “Manufacturing As A Desirable Career Path” again!
Glenn Marshall, Newport News Shipbuilding retired, is leading the Association for Manufacturing
Excellence initiative for “Manufacturing As A Desirable Career Path”.
He can be contacted at
marsh8279@aol.com or go to www.ame.org for more details. Or call (758) 585-1196.
GM
6-7-13
3