There could not have been a better place for the Rhode Island Textile Innovation Network to announce its official formation than historic textile-manufacturing hub Slater Mill in Pawtucket.
“I was really excited when we were approached about hosting the launch,” said Lori Urso, executive director of the Old Slater Mill Association. “It represents the future of an industry in Rhode Island that began right here, at this mill, and in the center of this historic city.”
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, there are more than 70 textile companies in Rhode Island, with more than 2,500 workers. Smart fabrics are used in hospital-bed sheets to help reduce infection, in suits to protect those in submarines from explosion or to protect special-forces units from bullets, in highway-construction projects, roofing material and more.
RITIN and its members are committed to collaborating to achieve a skilled workforce, making the state a leader in textile manufacturing. The industry has changed a lot since the 1793 mill was up and running during the Industrial Revolution.
“There has been a massive offshoring of textile jobs,” said Mary Johnson of Polaris MEP, program manager for RITIN. “Ninety-five percent of what we wore was made here in the 1960s. Today, that number is about 2 to 3 percent.”
With Michael Woody of Cranston’s Trans-Tex LLC as president, RITIN is the 2016 creation of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and the University of Rhode Island. The September launch event included partners Real Jobs Rhode Island, the R.I. Commerce Corp., Polaris MEP, the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association and Slater Mill Museum.
‘We can certainly learn from each other … and have some meaningful conversations.’
DANIEL DWIGHT, Cooley Group president and CEO
“If it were only textile companies, we couldn’t have come this far,” said Woody. Trans-Tex makes printed textile items such as printed lanyards, key fobs and printed ribbon. “We [as an industry] have had to reinvent ourselves and have come to focus on more-advanced textiles, more innovation.”
But innovation – for the super-specialty textile companies that serve the automotive, aerospace, military and first-responder industries, for example – takes research, said Johnson. And research takes time, creating a need for a highly collaborative textile-manufacturing group while at the same time having made it more difficult to organize one.
“They are stretched very thin to keep their businesses competitive,” she said of RITIN members. “Now, they can leverage support from that network and R.I. Commerce Corp. and Real Jobs RI. They’re competing in a tough marketplace.”
But member competition is not a concern in being part of the group, as the products they make and materials they use all differ greatly, said Daniel Dwight, president and CEO of the nearly 100-year-old Cooley Group of Pawtucket, which started out making painted cotton awnings and now makes industrial textiles coated with polymer chemicals. RITIN’s value will come from members learning from each other.
“We are banding together because … with the diversity of what we do, there is no competition,” he said. “We can certainly learn from each other, get to know them – or new people if there is a change at a company – and have some meaningful conversations,” especially around best practices, or what other manufacturers have tried that hasn’t worked for them, in terms of technical or operational aspects, for example.
Member facility tours are also in the plans.
Woody notes that Rhode Island and its connections with colleges, along with its labor and training resources, puts it ahead of other areas in growing these kinds of advanced skills.
Johnson cites National Council of Textile Organizations data showing that hourly textile workers make 136 percent more than those who work in a clothing store. The average salary in the textile industry is $52,400, she said.
But first: an education component is needed.
Focus groups with students have shown a negative perception of textile manufacturing so far, Woody said. There is a general lack of information about textile manufacturing and products it yields, and their uses. Research is in the works to study college students’ impressions about the field. Woody said URI, Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design have all expressed interest in things such as lunch-and-learn types of activities.
“The industry in general is a mystery to people,” said Urso. “Unlike a retail shop, a factory is not a place where the average person is welcome to just stop in. … So, it’s difficult to get people excited about the industry. ... Most people have no idea what is going on in those plants, or how it relates to them, if at all.”
Now that RITIN’s network is in place, Woody and Johnson are gathering input on what textile-manufacturing skills are needed and watching pending national legislation for potential job-training funding opportunities. One proposal calls for recent manufacturing retirees training new employees, for example, Johnson said.
“We’re ramping up efforts to change hearts and minds” about textile manufacturing, said Woody.
For folks such as Pawtucket Mayor Donald R. Grebien, this initiative holds nothing but promise, especially with the coming departure of the Pawtucket Red Sox to Worcester, Mass.
“RITIN will tackle real problems that will not only help the textile-manufacturing companies but the thousands of workers that they employ,” said Grebien. “I look forward to seeing the positive strides that RITIN will make.”
