Connecting with a new generation

Bill McCourt, ED of the RI Manufacturer's Association 6-26-12 / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
Bill McCourt, ED of the RI Manufacturer's Association 6-26-12 / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

“Cybersecurity,” “medical research” and “laboratory technician” are all terms commonly floated these days when lawmakers, educators and civic leaders talk about how to address the state’s mismatched workforce.
It’s these fields, they say, that are hiring, and will continue to do so, and for which job seekers must be trained.
However, there’s an entire industry that, according to its own experts, could do wonders to bridge the gap between the unemployed and hiring companies if only anyone knew that it was still there – manufacturing.
“I think people have left us for dead, but we’re alive and kicking. We’re still here,” said Bill McCourt, executive director of the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association, a Providence-based nonprofit that essentially exists to dispel that myth.
McCourt, who came onboard in January, is the man whose mission it now is to help reshape the manufacturing industry’s reputation and, as part of that, get career-planning students interested in working within its trenches.
“I don’t think folks understand the benefits of manufacturing,” McCourt said. “Part of my job is to educate the public. People can make a really good living and provide for a family in manufacturing and manufacturing employment has been growing.”
Some statistics agree with that.
In May 2012, according to the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, the manufacturing sector employed 40,800 state residents – 200 more jobs than in May 2011. They earned on average $18.41 per hour, up from $15.70 one year ago.
The National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, D.C., reports that between 2003 and 2010, manufactured-goods exports grew 33 percent and since 2003 have grown 60 percent faster than the state’s overall economy.
But the general consensus in Rhode Island, at least among those promoting a burgeoning creative and knowledge-based economy as the key to the state’s fiscal recovery, is that Providence’s once-glory-filled manufacturing sector fell apart with the collapse of its Jewelry District starting in the 1960s and largely attributed to the development of Interstate 195 and overseas outsourcing. That coincided with the growth of the baby boomer generation and the tendency of its members to discourage what they saw as factory-based, manual labor as career paths for their children.
Much has changed and, as the last wave of baby boomers working within the industry eye retirement during the next decade, there is a growing concern that their jobs will go unfilled, in addition to the ones that already remain vacant.
“A lot of people are not educated as to what manufacturing is. They keep thinking [it is] textiles [which are] out of business, but that’s not what it is,” said Patricia Blakemore, director of career services at the New England Institute of Technology, which is a RIMA member. “There’s not enough written about it. Everyone’s talking about computers and gaming and I understand why. [Manufacturing] isn’t glamorous. It’s not glitzy.”
RIMA was founded in 1998, which McCourt admits many felt was late in the game, and has a couple-hundred members, including some well-known manufacturing companies such as ChemArt, the Lincoln-based ornament maker and The Cooley Group, in Pawtucket, which develops and produces engineered coated fabrics for industrial, commercial and military use.
Most members, McCourt said, are the small-to-midsize businesses that, according to NMA, account for 89 percent of the state’s exporters.
But sustained, active participation and membership growth have eluded the organization during tough economic times as would-be members may have lacked funds for professional affiliations and the association lacked a marketing budget. “Membership has always been a struggle. There are so many organizations and [they are] good ones,” said McCourt, whose previous professional life was as a chief financial officer in the industry. “There’s some complacency. I think there’s also a portion [who] feel that if RIMA is here then … we’re making sure the fight is being fought. If everybody had that attitude, then we wouldn’t exist anymore.”
McCourt in late June was busy applying for $100,000 the Governor’s Workforce Board Rhode Island will award to add manufacturing to its list of industry partnerships.
The board previously supported a partnership with RIMA from 2006 to 2008.
If awarded the grant, RIMA will use the funds to help the board develop manufacturing-training opportunities for job seekers.
“I think RIMA is trying to say, this isn’t your grandfather’s Buick anymore,” said David Marquis, president of ChemArt. “The middle class was built with people who had some college but didn’t finish. A lot of these people ended up in manufacturing. It’s not that kids shouldn’t go to college. We need people who have training in basic, but also life, skills. [We need to] change the image from the smoke stacks to the high-tech.”
Blakemore recently held a focus group of manufacturing employers which she hoped would bring to light exactly what skill sets are needed to fill manufacturing jobs that now depend on computerized mechanical controls.
The goal is to recruit, educate and train a new generation of workers alongside industry veterans.
“They want to get these employees in while talent is still there to teach them,” Blakemore said. “I try to get the word out. You tell [students] that it’s making things, not grinding wheels. It’s clean [and] it’s a great career path. There are definitely some talented kids out there who don’t think college is attainable, but this is something they can do.” •

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