Quality Engineering Career News by UQSI

By Allen Samuel

05/04/09

While the daily newscasts continue with doom-and-gloom accounts of our nation’s economy, the Connecticut businesses supporting the aerospace industry supply chain remain vital and in fact, busy!

Connecticut’s small to mid-size suppliers serve the broad global aerospace industry making parts for all the larger aerospace companies like Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney , General Electric and Rolls-Royce. The 60 companies that are members of the state’s aerospace “cluster,” Aerospace Components Manufacturers Inc. (ACM), now employ about 5,500 people and have annual sales of more than $1.4 billion.

Yes, it is true that many of Connecticut’s unskilled jobs have been outsourced overseas, but skilled workers remain in high demand at our local firms and will remain so for the foreseeable future. But our aerospace work force is aging. We face a “silver tsunami” with so many of our older and most skilled workers nearing retirement.

At one ACM member company, for example, Whitcraft, the Eastford-based aerospace components supplier, the average age of its work force is now about 46 — and that is even after several years of implementing a structured intern program that has attracted many young people to the company — and skewed the average age lower than it would be otherwise.

At another ACM company, Horst Engineering in East Hartford, the average age of its skilled manufacturing personnel is over 50. Workers at Horst are delaying retirement, so it is hard to assess how many will be lost in the next several years, but there is no doubt that more youth need to be attracted to the precision machining industry.

Replacing these highly capable, experienced workers as they retire is difficult, to say the least. And, as the ACM firms are increasingly successful in the world’s aerospace marketplace and even look to expand, the skilled labor shortage will only get worse.

We must fill the pipeline with new workers ready to be trained as the skilled work force that is our future. We must educate and enlighten our teachers, counselors, parents and high school students about our industry to attract the state’s young people. That is the key.

ACM and its member companies are eager to work with our schools to highlight the long-term career potential — and wage potential of our industry. We want to show young people they don’t have to leave Connecticut; we want to show them we can provide not just jobs, rather solid careers in a thriving, exciting industry.

We need our young people to understand that our aerospace work force practices 21st century technology in the most advanced, cleanest factories that are a far cry from the stereotypic image of factories of generations past, making products for commercial and military aircraft, propulsion systems and spacecraft. And our aerospace suppliers provide employment for a highly skilled workforce in a wide range of positions — from management to the factory floor.

We urge students, guidance counselors, teachers and parents to visit our facilities and see for themselves. As well, our member firms are equally eager to come into their classrooms to talk about engineering, high-tech manufacturing, computers and opportunities at all levels of our businesses.

ACM and its members have worked over the past decade to ensure high quality training for its work force, joining together to offer instructional programs that otherwise might be unavailable or too costly for an individual firm. And, of course, we continue to rely on our regional vocational high schools and state colleges.

Our aerospace cluster has taken many steps to maintain its competitive edge in the global marketplace. We have been at the forefront of promoting lean manufacturing, for example, to streamline operations and enable labor and management to have a mutual interest in the success of our operations. Through these and many other efforts we have helped keep jobs in Connecticut while so many other industries and businesses are cutting back and even shutting down.

The aerospace industry has a long and vital history in Connecticut. For the aerospace industry in Connecticut, doom-and-gloom can be swept away and, with a partnership with parents and educators, we can continue to thrive and grow — and make the best aerospace components in the world with the best workforce in America.