COLLINSVILLE — Not everyone needs to go to college, and creating a realistic pathway to high-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector was the main focus of a “manufacturing roundtable” sponsored by local workforce development agencies.
The event was held Tuesday at Collinsville’s Gateway Convention Center, and also broadcast via Zoom. About 50 people attended in person.
The event was sponsored by Madison County Employment and Training, and the St. Clair Intergovernmental Grants Department-Workforce Development Group, in part to celebrate National Manufacturing Month.
“October is Manufacturing Month nationwide,” said MCET Director Tony Fuhrmann. “The point of this event is to spread the word in our region about some of the interesting things that are being done, both at the education level and by certain businesses.”
While much of the emphasis was on education, part of the program included discussions by “non-traditional” manufacturers.
“Every year the state celebrates manufacturers across the state,” said Jonathan McGee, deputy director, regional economic development for the Illinois Department of Economic Opportunity. “Over 18,000 manufacturers employing 550,000 Illinoisans. We know it’s one of the biggest sectors in industries in our state.”
McGee was at the conference for a short time, then had to go to SIUE for a presentation dealing with the state’s $200 million Back-to-Business program.
In addition to discussing the state of manufacturing and educational programs and opportunities, participants at the event also got a chance to look over Southwestern Illinois College’s Advanced Manufacturing Mobile Lab.
The lab is primarily used at local high schools, both as a recruitment tool for the college and to help high school students by giving them access to modern high-tech manufacturing machines.
“The program today is pretty good,” said Dennis Cooper, CEO of MAC Medical, a Columbia, Illinois-based manufacturer of stainless-steel hospital products. “The involvement from the state and local government has been very impressive.
“Workforce development is extremely important,” he said. “What we’re finding in the current market is that a lot of what people should be taught early on just hasn’t been. It creates a lot of problems for manufacturing.”
Specifically, he said there are turnover issues, in part because promises and expectations are not aligned. However, he said schools are “absolutely” getting better at it.
Specific topics included the new Center for Academic and Vocational Excellence in the Belleville Township High School District; SWIC’s new $7 million Advanced Manufacturing Training Facility, to be built on the college’s Belleville Campus; and the Saint Louis University Center for Additive Manufacturing.
While manufacturing — and especially heavy industry — has declined in many parts of the U.S., it continues to play a major role in the Metro East economy. That has also influenced the rise of the logistics and transportation industry in the region, especially Madison County.
“It is the largest sector, still,” Fuhrmann said, referring to manufacturing.
He added that this area still has a great deal of “heavy” industry.
“If you go to Granite City, if you go up the river to Alton, you see those heavy manufacturing plants,” he said. “But we’re also seeing a new birth of more modern manufacturing, more computer-generated and things like that.”
One of the biggest issues, like most other sectors of the economy, is workforce.
“Like everybody else, they’re looking for employees,” he said. “It’s a matter of getting the word out that those jobs are here, they pay well, and there’s a future with them.”
MCET continues to offer services ranging from job postings and help with resumes or job searches, to paying for up to two years of training for high-value jobs.
For information about employment and workforce training opportunities, call 618-296-4301, visit the Madison County website at https://www.co.madison.il.us/ or visit the department’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MCETD.
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