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| Dan West Livonia Chamber, President |
We’ve talked about the need to direct more young people
into high-demand, good-paying skilled-worker and advanced manufacturing careers
in this publication for a couple years now.
Now, it is time to turn our talk into action.
The Livonia Chamber of Commerce and other community
resources aim to better coordinate efforts on a long-term mission to shift thinking
so more young people, backed by increasingly confident parents, are inspired to
pursue high-tech jobs needed in the metro Detroit marketplace.
The Chamber’s Board of Directors recently talked with
Livonia Public Schools Superintendent Randy Liepa to push vocational
opportunities within its long-running, successful internship program. This
would give interested students a better appreciation of the clean, exciting,
high-tech and viable career opportunities with advanced manufacturing, welding,
electronics, informational technology, construction, and other skilled trades.
Most of these careers need only two years of post-secondary education.
According to many analysts, these types of jobs are in high demand over the
next decade.
We also realize the need to introduce young people to
these types of careers at a young age. Schoolcraft College will hold a
Technical Career Open House on Saturday, May 10, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., to
introduce middle and high school students to experiences in the manufacturing,
metallurgy, welding, CAD and electronics lobs.
This open house will give youngsters and their parents
a first-hand look at the technical training available to pursue a career in the
modern world of skilled trades. Contact Gene Keyes at Schoolcraft (gkeyes@schoolcraft.edu)
for more information.
“Most young students don't know about the manufacturing
industry and we want to show them,” said Keyes, who runs Schoolcraft’s
Manufacturing Department. “Other businesses are looking for new workers and
will be at the open house to explain what it is they do and show off product.”
Also in the coming school year, the Chamber will work
with upper elementary and middle school classrooms to give students a chance to
tour several local manufacturing operations such as AlphaUSA, NYX Inc., Delta
Research, Delta Gear, Linear Mold and Engineering, and Roush. As Chuck Dardas,
AlphaUSA’s president and COO, simply put it: “We need to get young people excited
about building things.”
It is understandable why parents have been shy about
the manufacturing careers in recent decades as assembly jobs declined. This
moved parents to direct their children to focus on university studies. But in
many cases, these students’ studies were not focused on skills needed in the
marketplace. This created a glut of college graduates who obtained significant
student loan debt, yet are stuck in jobs that didn’t require a bachelor’s
degree.
“For years, we focused on the need for college to get a
good job, but we made a mistake,” Michigan Governor Rick Snyder said at his
recent Economic Summit in Grand Rapids. “We needed to equally talk about the
need for training skilled workers.”
Snyder talked about the need to redefine perceptions of
a “skilled worker,” so more families realize this type of training can lead to
good jobs, good careers and good pay.
“We need to focus less on just education and more on
career preparedness,” the Governor said.
So in Livonia, our business and education communities
are working together to better prepare young people for needed, viable jobs of
the future. Not every young adult was meant to go to a university for at least
four years to get trained for a good job. There are other paths. We have to
inform our young people of those other paths.
And now, Livonia’s business and education communities
are working together to make that happen.
Dan
West is the president of the Livonia Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at
dwest@livonia.org
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