KALAMAZOO – Kalamazoo Area high school counselors and the local manufacturing community met Tuesday at Kalamazoo Valley Community College?s M-TEC in a forum sponsored by Southwest Michigan First, M-TEC and the Kalamazoo Regional Education Service Agency (KRESA).
The program was designed to educate counselors ? who could then take the information back to their students ? about the technical and skilled trade opportunities that exist within the manufacturing arena. The event was a response to predictions of a skilled labor shortage that experts in both the educational and economy sectors say threatens Michigan?s economy in the coming decade. Gov. Jennifer Granholm, in her state of the state speech to Kalamazoo in February, said the shortage ? across all industries ? could be as high as 300,000 open positions with no skilled employees available or trained to fill them.
Approximately 50 Kalamazoo-area high school counselors participated in the event, which included a presentation by the Michigan Manufacturers Association on the future of manufacturing called Manufacturing Matters-Take Another Look.
A panel of five area manufacturers also discussed their industry sector and attendees toured six local manufacturing facilities. Presenting companies presenting were: Landscape Forms, Liberty Molds, DesignWare, Hycorr Machine, Flowserve, Menasha Packaging, Kalamazoo Fabricating, Select MilWorks, Mann+Hummel and Weber Specialties.
