Manufacturing Day is just over a month away, and economic development officials are getting ready. Seventh graders from around Starke County will once again have the chance to meet with representatives from local industries, during an event hosted by the Starke County Economic Development Foundation.
Precision Waterjet Concepts (PWC) was founded in 2002. The company founders saw a need for quality abrasive Waterjet Cutting in many industries and started the company to meet that demand.
Executive Director Charlie Weaver says there will be few changes to this year’s event. “We are inviting or have invited all seniors to join the seventh graders, who are not going on to college, and to try to give them an acquaintance of what’s going on in their own community,” he explains. “As last year, that includes North Judson-San Pierre School, Knox, O-D, and Culver, to pick up the North Bend kids.”
Also new this year is a job fair for local manufacturers. “Everybody but one that I’m aware of is desperate for more people, and our goal, of course, is to bring back into Starke County the labor force that’s working outside the county,” Weaver says.
Meanwhile, the Pulaski County Community Development Commission is planning an event of its own, according to Executive Director Nathan Origer. “We’re working on possibly doing a job fair that is geared explicitly toward seniors in high school,” he told the Pulaski County Commissioners last week. “So rather than companies setting up and doing it for hours for a normal job fair and hoping five people from the general public show up, doing it with a captive audience, high school students.”
Origer pointed out that many manufacturers have jobs available for students who plan to attend college, as well as those going straight into the workforce. “Our manufacturers hire attorneys,” he said. “Some, if they’re large enough like Braun, have corporate counsel. They have accountants and salespeople, and other white-collar jobs. So you can go off to college and get a degree and get a white-collar job then, if you want to come back. So we’re going to be working on that, and also just trying to get teachers and parents more tuned into the difference between modern manufacturing and that image of that dirty, dusty, gray nasty place, dimly-lit, from 50 years ago.”
The events will be held on or around Manufacturing Day, which is officially observed the first Friday of October.
