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Manufacturing Industry Brainstorms How to Get Students Interested

Jay Timmons at a City Club apperance in 2012.
Jay Timmons at a City Club apperance in 2012.

When it comes to manufacturing, Jay Timmons says business leaders should all have one major goal in common: figure out how to inspire young people to go into the field.

One way to do that, he says, is to focus on how technology and innovation within the industry have changed.

"Manufacturing is nothing like manufacturing of my grandfather’s time," he said. "But it still has the same promise, not only for the American economy, but for families everywhere.”

Timmons said he’d like to see some big-scale initiatives, like a national manufacturing month, created to give the industry more exposure.

Here in Northeast Ohio, manufacturing jobs declined during the recession, but now make up about 19 percent of all jobs in the region, according to a Team NEO report released last month, and the Ohio Department of Development says roughly 13 percent of employees across the state work in the field.