The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
LEADERS CELEBRATE MANUFACTURING
Kaptur announces Congressional hearing in Lorain
Local and industry leaders gathered in Lorain on Oct. 7 to kick off a month of events dedicated to education and awareness of opportunities in Lorain County’s manufacturing sector.
Lorain County Manufacturing Month was celebrated at Skylift Inc., 3000 Leavitt Road, in laying out the path forward for Lorain and Northeast Ohio as a haven for innovation and invention.
The family-owned company began in 2000 with two employees and since has grown to 85 in its 50,000-square-foot facility, manufacturing industry-leading specialty equipment used for the repair and maintenance of the electric grid.
Manufacturing is changing, (Tony) Gallo said, and with a talent shortage on the horizon, recent figures suggest about 80 percent of the workforce in the manufacturing industry will retire in the next few years.
Tony Gallo, president of the Lorain County Chamber of Commerce, said the origins of Manufacturing Month began in 2012 with local leaders recognizing the need to change the public perception of the industry and inspire young people to pursue careers in manufacturing.
“These goals are especially relevant here in Lorain County, where our employment numbers in manufacturing, since it’s one of our in demand jobs, hover around 20% in some of our municipalities here in Lorain County, nearly double of what the national average is,” Gallo said. “The need to correct the idea that all manufacturing involves repetitive, unskilled tax tasks that happened in dark and dirty factories, isn’t what it is today.”
The impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic on industry has upset supply chains.
Gallo pointed to a recent survey of 700 U.S. manufacturers of which 25 percent had to alter their supply chain.
“COVID screwed up a whole lot of different things in ways we never thought possible, for sure,” he said. “But COVID-19 laid bare the shortcomings of manufacturing’s heavy reliance on complex and far flung supply chains.”
Manufacturing is changing, Gallo said, and with a talent shortage on the horizon, recent figures suggest about 80 percent of the workforce in the manufacturing industry will retire in the next few years.
“COVID also affected an already tight job market,” he said. “We know that with everybody who is in manufacturing in Lorain County and Northeast Ohio already dealing with baby boomer retirements, our local manufacturers are now continually having career fairs to fill openings and offering incentives like signing bonuses and signing bonuses for
an employee who may have brought somebody in to actually fill that position.”
Kaptur announces Congressional hearing in Lorain
With the eyes of Washington on infrastructure negotiations, U.S Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur announced in her remarks that her committee, the Congressional Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth, will hold its first hearing outside of Washington on Oct. 18 at El Centro de Servicios Sociales in Lorain.
The committee will hear directly from residents about the challenges they face, Kaptur said.
“People will come from around the country to testify,” she said. “And we want to hear from the people of Lorain about what needs to be done here to make life better as we prepare legislation at the federal level that will be extremely consequential to the manufacturing sector.”
Kaptur said she wants her colleagues in Congress to see what empty mills and manufacturing plants look like.
“So, I hope Lorain helps me instruct our committee in a way that will be helpful to Lorain, but through the lens of Lorain to see manufacturing for the country,” she said.
Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat, told guests she is proud to represent a state where it makes and builds things rather than just shipping and selling them, with the impact directly benefiting Ohioans.
“If you look at when you go to college and you have to take all these courses, you know and you’ve got to take economics, they show you that one dollar invested in manufacturing will actually yield about one dollar and a half to the general economy,” she said. “That is very different than other kinds of businesses that merely move product, or move bits on the Internet.”
However, the competition in manufacturing is fierce and global, with Ohio and the United States battling in an unfair global marketplace for steel and other raw materials used by American industry.
Kaptur said she hears from constituent companies that have lost millions of dollars due to unfair trade practices while also having to fight for Ohio and the industrial Midwest to be heard in Washington.
Lorain County manufacturing is king
Additional remarks came from Lorain County Commissioner Dave Moore, who presented a proclamation declaring the month of October as Lorain County Manufacturing Month.
Moore was joined by the county’s community development team and he alluded to the county’s rich tradition of manufacturing and agriculture.
The commissioners also approved a $23,000 grant for Skylift for the purchase of recycled steel.
Max Upton, director of the city of Lorain Department of Building, Housing and Planning, along with Moore, praised Skylift for investing in the city, noting the company’s growth and the changing landscape in Northeast Ohio over the past 40 years.
“The city of Lorain has a rich tradition of making things from shipbuilding, to steel and everything in between,” Upton said. “It’s safe to say that the city of Lorain and its economy are made of makers and doers.
“Skylift is a Lorain proud company. They started here, they rented the buildings, and to my understanding, they own the building now, and they are growing exponentially.”
Upton noted Skylift’s cutting edge innovation in developing zero-emission battery-powered machinery.
“That’s the exact type of innovative manufacturing that’s going to propel our city, our region and our country forward into the 21st century,” he said.