Today’s manufacturing is nothing like the manufacturing of years past. While the industry is still responsible for making, well, pretty much everything, from cars to tables to computers, the methods have changed drastically. Manufacturing has become a safer, cleaner and more tech-savvy job than ever before.
Employers face a distinct challenge — there’s a large skills gap, where there’s a lack of interested employees to meet their needs. A 2021 study from Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute estimated that the skills gap could lead to more than 2 million unfilled jobs in U.S. manufacturing by 2030.So in recent years, companies and schools have been working together to highlight what modern manufacturing jobs entail, exposing students to the skills and specialties within.
One way Ohio’s educators and employers have been doing this is through summer camps focused on manufacturing.
The desire to create is something “innate” for people, according to Troy Spear, an instructor in the Kent City School District. And he enjoys helping students bring that to the surface – and helping them understand that a passion for making things can lead to a good paycheck down the road.
Making things doesn’t have to be a hobby, Spear says, it can be a career.
When Spear started at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent almost three decades ago, he was teaching woodworking. Over the years, the woodworking program transformed into one focused on manufacturing, computer-aided design and engineering.
“With the CAD and engineering tech program, our mantra is, we tell students and their parents, if you can dream it, we’re going to show you how to draw it, design it, prototype it, machine it, put it together and make it work,” Spear says.
In recent years, Spear and a co-teacher have run a manufacturing camp in the summer, typically at the Kent schools but open to anyone who’s interested. Students must be in seventh through ninth grade in the spring when they enroll. And there are no prerequisites; just a willingness to learn.
The camps focus on both design and production, with participants working on drawings, computer programs and equipment like CNC machines. Students also take field trips to local manufacturers. Spear hopes to run another camp this summer, though a planned expansion of the high school’s manufacturing lab could complicate that.
Kent’s camp is far from the only one in Ohio. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s office last May shared information about at least 36 that were planned across the state for 2023. The senator’s office started helping organize these kinds of camps in 2013.
In Mentor, the AWT Foundation — which stands for the Alliance for Working Together — has been working to connect students with manufacturers for about two decades. Today, it hosts a variety of programs, including robotics competitions, apprenticeships and summer camps, designed to expose students and adults to the varied careers available in manufacturing.
AWT’s two summer camps, one co-ed group and one just for girls. The co-ed group focuses on robotics, and the girls-only week will focus on chemistry and agriculture.
Steven Dohm, technology coordinator at the foundation, says the areas of focus change every year. Students have the chance to visit local manufacturers and do hands-on projects, making things like robotic cars or bubble machines.
This year, AWT is also adding shorter programs called STEM Days for students in third through sixth grades, which will have similar content to the summer camps but will be held for just a few hours during the academic year, on days students are usually out of school like Presidents’ Day.
AWT’s camps focus on younger grades because it’s important to highlight different career options before high school, when the focus is often all on college, says Roger Sustar, founder of the AWT Foundation. But going to college – or at least, directly to college – doesn’t have to be the only path. There are jobs and apprenticeships available, too, and companies that help employees earn their degrees while they work.
Spear says he wants students in Kent’s program to take on an “inquisitive” mindset, asking questions and looking deeper.
“What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to share with them a thought process that made in America is still a really awesome thing, and that they can be a part of it, they can be very successful with it, and they can have a very satisfying and fulfilling career and be able to support a family that way,” he says.
