Edgewood Students Exposed To Manufacturing JobsEdgewood Middle School students participated in the school’s first Futures in Manufacturing event Thursday and got exposed to the manufacturing field.
During the event, students were put into groups with mentors in order to design and build a package to protect an egg from being broken. They then threw the package about 4 meters to see if the egg would survive the throw. The packages were put through a second test of having books dropped on them to see if the eggs cracked.
When asked what made her decide to put on the event, Project Lead The Way teacher Abbi Richcreek said the number one job opportunity in Kosciusko County is in manufacturing, so she feels middle school students should be introduced to those job opportunities, and manufacturing jobs should be promoted to underrepresented populations.
Richcreek also told students the highest concentration of manufacturing jobs is in Indiana, employing 1 in 5 Hoosiers. Indiana’s advanced manufacturing has between 36,000 and 57,000 unfilled positions. Over 45% of the workforce in the field are 55 and over, so “it’s very crucial” to have people to replace them once they retire, she said. She said Indiana cannot meet the growing employer demand without more people to fill the job.
Approximately 50 seventh- and eighth-grade students participated in Thursday’s event. There were 15 mentors from the manufacturing field, including from Zimmer Biomet, DePuy, Medtronic, Paragon Medical and Ivy Tech.
Several of the mentors talked about their pathway in the manufacturing field.
Dante Zumbo, a manufacturing engineer at Paragon Medical, said he got into manufacturing when he was in college. When he got some exposure to machining, he really liked it. After more and more time in school, he said he started working part-time in a machine shop in Terre Haute. He found manufacturing to have a combination of analysis and technical, as well as the hands-on side of dealing with equipment. He was able to make things and found that satisfying. Getting exposure to equipment and how to make processes better drew him to engineering.
Abisha Gross, from DePuy, started her career a little over 10 years ago. She started as quality engineer after school and then into development before moving into other areas, and now does packaging for operations. She’s had a variety in her career and said she wanted students to know they can choose their own path in the field.
Thursday’s event was sponsored by OrthoWorx.
Bob Vitoux, of OrthoWorx, said OrthoWorx is highly interested in exposing students to manufacturing. Thursday’s event was an opportunity to be part of something he knows Richcreek is passionate about and an industry they’re interested in exposing students to.
OrthoWorx is an organization that works with orthopedic companies and one of the areas the organization is interested in is attracting students to the workplace.
Richcreek said she hopes through Thursday’s event, students consider a career in manufacturing.
Vitoux said he hopes students walk away from Thursday’s event with an understanding of what it takes to make something. The manufacturing field needs lots of workers to go into the field in order for it to continue working.
