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NY Senator Gillibrand Introduces Legislation To Boost Manufacturing Education At Colleges

WAMC/Pat Bradley

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was at the Nova Bus manufacturing plant in Plattsburgh this morning where she announced legislation to enhance manufacturing education at the nation’s four-year colleges.

The Democrat is introducing the Manufacturing Universities Act of 2015. If passed it will designate 25 colleges nationally as Manufacturing Universities and provide each of them $5 million a year for four years to enhance their engineering programs.

The colleges will be expected to increase focus on manufacturing skills, create partnerships with local manufacturers, increase internship opportunities and help graduates launch manufacturing businesses.

Gillibrand cited a 2014 New York Federal Reserve report indicating more than 30 percent of New York manufacturers have difficulty retaining skilled workers and need more employees in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math.  “The Manufacturing Universities Act of 2015 would help prepare more engineers, more product designers, more innovators and more men and women to drive our economy forward. Now, New York has the highest quality, hardest working men and women in the workforce. What we don’t have, and what we’ll finally get with this new bill,  is a process to connect more of our high skilled engineers with careers in manufacturing so they can keep our state competitive.”

Plattsburgh North Country Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Garry Douglas says manufacturers need the tools to support an educated and skilled workforce.   “We still make things here. But we’re making new things, different things, and even some of the things that we’re still making that we’ve made for a long time are being made in different ways. That’s the importance of initiatives such as the one being discussed here today. If we want to keep making things here in the North Country we need to have the tools, the support, the education, the type of skills coming out of the pipeline so that companies can continue to proudly make things.”

The Development Corporation Executive Director Paul Grasso says manufacturing is key to the economy.  “For years the U.S. got away from actually making anything. So to be able to educate a next generation of people who actually can design and manufacture something will be absolutely huge. And having that qualified workforce is something that will attract the companies that will want to manufacture things. My one recommendation to her would be to reach out to women in manufacturing because it creates a completely different universe of people that could get into manufacturing.”

The universities would have to apply and submit a plan for the goals that would be achieved over the four years of funding, according to Gillibrand.   “We have so many schools that are dedicated to engineering in our state that I’m optimistic we’ll get some strong applications. But I would say we are very well positioned to win at least one of those grants.”

The program would be under the auspices of the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.  Gillibrand said it would be paid for through “the budgeting process.”