The Southwest Regional Manufacturing Association is addressing the decreasing numbers of people in the trades locally and recently kicked off the “Manufacturing Discovery Camp,” where people can learn about opportunities in the manufacturing field.
Attendees at the camp, which was a tour of local facilities doing different types of manufacturing, included a numbe of Dunbar High Schoool students.
The first stop was S4J Manufacturing in Cape Coral. The company manufactures, among other items, "luer" fittings, described as small, friction-based, leak-proof connectors.
Owner Doug Gyure addressed the group.
"We’re one of only a handful of companies in the world who make these fittings in metal…. The luer got its start on a syringe, for injecting, you know, whatever is needed in a medical application," he said.
Gyure shared how manufacturing positions have changed at his facility and the need for training.
"The level of technical skills a person needs has gone up a lot. Instead of needing a bunch of people at a lower level, we need fewer people at a higher level. The payroll might stay the same but the number of people goes backward. So, manufacturing sometimes doesn’t sound good because it’s not a growing field, but as far as wages go, wages are very high in the manufacturing world, as long as you get yourself educated or trained. And when I say educated, I don’t necessarily mean going to a full-fledged college. We do have a program in Immokalee, ITECH, that teaches machining."
SRMA Executive Director Rob Harris asked Gyure about opportunities in the manufacturing field.
"Fresh out of high school is an area we would hire, if we had an opening for a machine operator. And what I call a machine operator, I mean someone who preferably has no experience on a machine," said Guyer. "It’s better for us because when you have experience on a machine, whatever you learned is going to be different than what you’re gonna do here… we actually like getting green people for machine operators."
Gyure said that they currently manually program most of their machines. But, he added, times are changing.
“You don’t always need the advanced programming but it’s getting to the point that it’s almost silly if you don’t have it.”
The discussion that followed revealed that the computer programming taught at Dunbar High School today might be transferrable to what Gyure could be looking for tomorrow. And that—could be a match, for future high school graduates from Dunbar.
Karen Moore is a contributing partner for WGCU and the publisher of SWFL Business Today.
