Carolyn Lee

So you are building the connection in their minds.

that there is an opportunity for people who look like them, who are in their communities, who are doing these things and having such a big impact on what we do each and every day.

You know, I grew up in a manufacturing family, and my father and grandfather would say there was the opportunity to come right out of high school and go in and get a skilled manufacturing role.

And some people lament that that is not as simple of a pathway anymore.

The jobs that we have today require skills that is central to every manufacturing job, but there is no one pathway for those skills.

So we have the opportunity to help people ignite their interest and then help them see what those paths are to get the training for the skills they need for the job that they aspire to, and then how to continue to do that.

But manufacturers need to be driving the conversation and not hope that the workforce ecosystem just arrives that the people land at their door,

Instead, we need to be front and center and help describe these opportunities and combat some of the fears that are out there that the robots are taking over and AI is taking over and there will be no more workers.

The jobs will change, but the workers will still be there.

What their jobs look like will be different.

And that's the thing that we need to help people understand and understand what skills they need to attain in order to make sure that those jobs are durable.

The FAME apprenticeship system, which is the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education, it was actually a program started by Toyota.

in 2010 in order to train their own maintenance technicians.

And they realized in order to get the local community college to be able to sustain the program the way that they wanted it to be provided to students, they needed to bring more companies in.

And so in 2019, Toyota transitioned that program from

their maintenance to us.

And at the Manufacturing Institute, we have now more than doubled the size of it.

It is now operating today, and it is a multi-skilled maintenance technician and also a process technician apprenticeship program helping grow the talent that they need.

Every single worker I have talked to, not just this year, but in all of my time in this role, where I've said to them, what do you think about the automation?

How is that new technology helping you, hurting you?