PROVIDENCE – As manufacturers navigate a year marked by turbulence and tariffs, a shortage of qualified workers remains a familiar concern.
That's been the case for company leaders such as Doug Travers, manager at Herrick & White architectural woodworking in Cumberland.
Herrick & White offers its own training for workers, Travers said, but many new employees just don't seem interested in the work. He's not entirely sure why but thinks that a lack of early exposure could factor into hiring difficulties.
On Wednesday, Travers set up an informational booth at Farm Fresh Rhode Island, "hopefully to inspire kids to get into woodworking and show them the cool things that we do," he said. It's outreach that he feels is particularly important as he increasingly becomes aware of schools that don't offer woodshop classes.
"We train like crazy," Travers said, "but just to get them to come to the shop, it's tough."
Twenty-five other Rhode Island manufacturers joined Herrick & White as part of a broader push to encourage young people to consider careers in the manufacturing sector.
The gathering, hosted by Polaris MEP, took place in recognition of Manufacturing Day, with a theme of "engaging the next generation of Ocean State makers." Launched in 2011 by the Washington, D.C.-based Manufacturing Institute, this year's event marked the fifth celebration of the day in Rhode Island and brought in more than 550 students from 26 local high schools.
Christian Cowan, executive director of Polaris MEP's parent organization, the URI Research Foundation, noted the same lack of awareness highlighted by Travers.
"You'd be amazed at how few people have heard of [General Dynamics] Electric Boat," he said, despite the submarine manufacturer having thousands of employees in Rhode Island. The North Kingstown-based company was also in attendance at the Manufacturing Day event.
Rose Wood, operations assistant at Pawtucket-based Neocorp, said that like many students at the event, a manufacturing career wasn't on her radar prior to college. Wood attended the University of Rhode Island, studying textiles, fashion merchandising and design.
When a fellow program graduate working at Neocorp contacted the department looking for an intern, Wood applied and landed the role with the rope and bungee cord manufacturer. Soon, she realized she preferred this career pathway to working in the fashion industry, as she had originally envisioned.
"I realized that there were 100-plus textile companies in the area," Wood recalled. "I thought, where were you guys at the job fairs?"
"I think [companies are] so focused on day-to-day operations that they don't get out into the world to communicate who they are and what they're doing," she added.
Meeting with students also provides manufacturers with an opportunity to shift common but often inaccurate views about today's workplaces, Wood said.
"There are a lot of misconceptions about [manufacturing careers]," she said. "I think people's ideas of manufacturing are that you're in a hot, sweaty, dirty factory building. But we're not in the 1800s. There are nice facilities, there are nice benefits."
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Voghel@PBN.com.
