The weeklong launch of U.S. Rep. John Carney’s new initiative to bolster Delaware manufacturing made a stop at the Sussex County Airport in Georgetown last week.

 

“I’m a strong believer that if we’re going to have a really strong economy in the U.S., we’ve got to make things,” Carney said during his visit on June 6. “If we’re going to revive and maintain a strong middle class, we’ve got to have manufacturing jobs.”

 

Last week, Carney (D-Del.) launched his Make It In Delaware campaign, which is a subsidiary of the 2011 Make It In America agenda, a collection of bills and ideas designed to reinvigorate the American manufacturing sector.

 

“[American manufacturers] are not just competing with other companies in their region or in the country, they’re competing with operations in other countries where wage rates can be half of what they are in the U.S.,” he said. “So you’ve got to be smarter, you’ve got to be leaner and you’ve got to continually tighten up your operations.”

 

Carney hosted a roundtable discussion at the airport with several representatives from Delaware’s manufacturing industry to determine how lawmakers can help the sector prosper.

The need to create stronger connections with local schools to ensure students are prepared to enter the manufacturing workforce after graduation was a prominent point of discussion.

 

Neal Nicastro, plant manager at PPG Industries in Dover, said a majority of his workforce is made up of senior citizens who have a lot of experience but are all on the verge of retirement. He said PPG needs younger, qualified workers.

 

“I’m a firm believer that schools do not have the resources to work with kids who aren’t headed to college,” Nicastro said. “Guidance counselors are geared towards getting kids to go to college, which is a great thing, but the rest of the students don’t have a path and manufacturing is a great career.”

 

Tom Spencer, vice president of manufacturing for PATS Aircraft in Georgetown, said internships with local manufacturers would help fill the gap between high school and the workforce.

 

“Students are graduating and are finding the workforce is way ahead of them,” he said. “We have to back tow it with training and costs, and we find ourselves not as competitive as other areas where kids are coming out of school and have already been exposed to those skills.”

 

Chris Clifton, tooling manager for Atlantis Industries in Milton, said due to new and effective business practices implemented earlier this year, his company is currently experiencing major growth and will soon need to hire more employees. But, he said, it’s difficult to find employees that already have experience with injection molding.

 

“We’ve been working with [Delaware Technical Community College] to implement multiple apprenticeship programs that we mold to fit our needs because we’re a unique business,” Clifton said. “But unfortunately, we have to relocate a lot of our skilled help.”

 

Carney said there are as many as 600,000 vacant manufacturing jobs across the U.S. because workers don’t have the sufficient skills and training required to fill the positions.

 

“The way to address this is through co-ops, partnerships and internships,” he said. “If somehow there’s a connection not being made with the schools, whose mission is to prepare people to do jobs, then we’re missing the boat.”