We have many blessings in our lives, the love of family, friends chief among them.
Most of us enjoy an unparalleled material well-being, and a lifestyle of modern convenience that is the envy of the world.
Thanksgiving provides us the chance to recognize and thank the engineers, machinists, and entrepreneurs who have designed and built these modern technologies that keep us safe, comfortable, and make our modern lifestyle possible.
Precision machined components enable almost all modern technologies to function safely and efficiently. It makes me smile to understand where all this behind the scenes technological “magic” is sourced.
Thanks to the machinists who make them, the engineers that design them, and the investors who tool up their shops to be able to produce them.
Thanksgiving is also about recognizing how our loved ones contribute to our ability to produce our highly engineered components. How they help us keep in mind what “Safety Critical” really means. How they make sure we have what we need when we arrive on the job. And have a reason to return home, all body parts intact. Now is a great time to recognize the contributions of our loved ones to our success.
I am thankful for the blessings of my family and friends.
I am grateful to live in a time where technology makes my life more about the joy of my family’s company than about battling forces to merely survive. Technology works, thanks to machinists.
In our shops, we have calibration routines to help us assure that our output is to spec and acceptable.
Thanksgiving is a day for us to recalibrate and reflect on the blessings that collectively we share.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Vintage Thanksgiving Dinner photo credit
Calibration photo credit
Tag: Machinists
On Wednesday, February 26, approximately 200 students from five different schools settled into their seats at the Elkhorn Area High School auditorium to listen to four experts and one of their own peers address the career opportunities in the manufacturing industry.
Brian White, President of Waukesha Engine; Hanan Fishman, President of PartMaker, Inc, (a software development company); Mary Isbister, President of GenMet, Mequon (metal fabricator); Mike Reader, President of Precision Plus; and senior, Brad Pearson, (manufacturing apprentice) shared their insights on opportunities the world of manufacturing offers.
According to all four speakers, there is a huge deficit in the number of young people applying for jobs in manufacturing.
Currently, the industry is looking for people skilled in
- Design Engineering,
- Manufacturing Engineering,
- Machinists,
- Welders,
- CNC Programmers,
- Fabricators,
- Machine Maintenance.
White mentioned that top machinists can earn up to $80,000 per year and that every manufacturing job generates four other jobs in other sectors such as health, IT, finance, etc.
Both White and Reader stressed to students to make certain that they are
- Preparing for a career, not just for college;
- To make sure that their advanced education can help them secure a job,
- And to prepare themselves for life-long learning.
They cited the fact that 70% of manufacturing jobs will require education beyond the high school diploma. Fishman backed up this fact by stating that what goes on in manufacturing today has a lot more to do with what goes on above the neck than below. Isbister reminded students that when hiring she looks for highly driven and ambitious job candidates; those who are committed to their jobs. She, along with the Reader, White, and Fishman stressed the importance of soft skills—reliability, communication skills, collaboration, self-motivation, positive attitude, and a willingness to learn.
Senior apprentice, Brad Pearson, spoke of his experience at Precision Plus and his appreciation for the opportunities he has been given by his mentor to learn all aspects of precision-turned component manufacturing
Our PMPA member shops, like Precision Plus, are leading the charge to change the conversation about careers in manufacturing. What about you?
Today is National Tradesmen’s Day.To show our appreciation for the skilled tradespeople that produce, maintain and install in our industry, we’re celebrating National Tradesmen’s Day. We want to honor the folks who work with their hands and apply their minds to our Industry’s challenges.
Our skilled machinists make the world a safer place with the products that they produce.
When we drive our cars, fly in planes, have medical procedures performed, we are truly placing our lives in their good hands.
The electricians that help us install our equipment and assure that no one is exposed to live electrical current are responsible for the delivery of the energy that drives our quality of life.
I am a college graduate and I love what I do.
But I can do it only because tradesmen like our precision machinists made the stuff in the world that makes what I do possible.
Thanks for sharing your talents.
Thanks for making a difference.
Thanks for “working with precision.”
Please join us in thanking these professionals who make our wonderful quality of life possible with the high precision products that they produce.
Photocredit.