![]() By: John W. Kennedy, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program, Inc. I’ve been in MFG & Engineering for many years and have watched as our efforts were always downplayed. In fact, I took that reality and wore it as a ‘Badge of Honor’ like so many others….and where did that get me…us? It allowed our critical Industry Sectors to be forgotten and disrespected. The fact is that over my own career I’ve seen many ‘crossroads’ – 9-11, natural disasters, price & tariff wars, and now a pandemic – the initial ‘talk’ is always the same… Bring Back US Manufacturing!!! Then the urgency recedes, and we go back to business as usual. How’s that working now? Does anyone foresee much changing at all – moving forward?!? Oh sure…we’ll convene Task Forces made up of a variety of Governmental and Academic Experts with a few major corporations thrown in to provide a better visual…then what? (Cue the tumbleweed…) Let’s look at the facts and then we can make a more intuitive and effective decision:
So, what happened? Well it’s kind of simple…we’ve destroyed our Supply Chain and this has been done over decades…no pointing fingers required as we’ve all been complicit.
??? How about all those medications, like Blood Pressure treatments that are now becoming more difficult to secure? Bad Business…Dangerous Business…Deadly Business. Look, I’m not blaming companies for securing higher profits, but when a country, et al does not plan out a complex process like Manufacturing and allows others to dictate our safety…we all crash. Therefore we all need to focus and gain back the ground lost. So this really is not a missive focused towards anyone, but our MFG/STEM/TLD Sectors – Company Owners & Employees – because if we remain silent and on the sidelines now, then we quickly fall back into the various modes of failure until the next time we all cry to ‘bring back manufacturing’! That will be too late again. How do I know this isn’t happening - yet?
I remain hopeful that the gains that New Jersey (Governor, MFG Caucus, NJDOL, NJBAC, NJEDA) has taken over the past few years of investing in Manufacturing & STEM will not be lost in this recovery. Programs that support Tax & Red Tape Relief, Training, Apprenticeships, and yes, NJMEP are critical to our recovery. The bottom-line here is clear…US & NJ Manufacturing does not want a bail-out, but an investment and the respect that it deserves. However, if our Industry chooses to sit back and watch things play out this time…we will all lose out. Our silence is not golden, or something to be proud of, but foolish. If we do not stand up and speak up for ourselves, then we deserve the negative outcome. Your choice.
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