Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1531663
JANUARY 2025 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 69 year students authoring research papers and interfacing with experts in the field. When you are 18 or 19 years old, that can really light your fires of passion for the industry. You can see how my two "jobs" are related. I go around the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, talk- ing to schools and hopefully getting them to install a Learning Factory. When it's set up, everything is new and shiny, with a full suite of industrial soware; it's all visually compelling and a draw for students. However, I noticed that even with these great systems set up, classes were barely half full. Not enough kids knew enough about the field to want to check it out. I thought, "I will continue fighting the skills gap during the day, and the awareness gap the rest of the time." I want to see young people at least consider manufacturing, with its related disciplines, as a first career choice, rather than something they accidentally fall into. When there's exposure to the industry by eighth and ninth grades, and students can get hands-on experience, then a higher percentage will continue that path. Instead of just seven students in a room, we'll have 20 with a waitlist. I am doing my part to fill the labor pipeline. How did you decide to enter the K–12 space? I've been with Festo Didactic for about 10 years. I'm based in New Jersey, and during the pan- demic, we had restrictions on travel. With time on my hands, I found myself thinking about how to fight this awareness gap. at's when I mapped out the book for the high school age, aimed at students, their teachers, and guid- ance counselors who, because of lack of expo- sure, knew very little about manufacturing. How many students have entered the construc- tion industry, for example, simply because they walked down the street and saw a construction site? at industry is very clever. ey put win- dows into those plywood walls so a passersby can see the bulldozers, cranes, and other equip- ment needed to build something. What child doesn't want to peer into that window? I wanted to find that "window" into manu- facturing operations, which are oen located in industrial parks—a place very few people will just happen to walk by. e buildings don't have windows, and they are oen quite unassum- ing and uninteresting. You might pass by such a building for 10 years and never care about what's happening inside. is book is a virtual window into the manufacturing process. Hopefully, it's just enough to pique some interest. Every October, on National Manufacturing Day (a "holiday" founded by the Manufactur- ing Institute), manufacturers are encouraged to open their doors to the public to show what they do. I want these books to make a virtual window in manufacturing industries, to expand aware- ness and interest, so a higher percentage of stu- dents will say, "is is a career for me." You also have a third book with terms and definitions, right? Yes, when I was writing e Smart Student's Guide, I had to do a lot of research. I had all these notes, and I had accumulated a list of terms, which prompted me to make the dic- tionary or compendium of terms. Mike Nager