Women in manufacturing was the focus of Naugatuck Valley Community College’s annual celebration on October 23 of Manufacturing Month in Connecticut. Women in Manufacturing—Inspire, Attract, Retain brought together industry leaders, educators, legislators and NVCC alumni to discuss the opportunities for women which exist in manufacturing and how to attract more women to the field. The event also featured tours of NVCC’s Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center led by current students and graduates.

“Today, we honor and recognize the importance of manufacturing to our state and the importance of having a diverse workforce in manufacturing because our strength resides precisely in what our Founding Fathers believed, epluribus unum—one of many. One nation that welcomes and needs the presence of many to support the one concept that we are the most generous, most democratic and self-sufficient nation in the world,” said NVCC President Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Ph.D. “We are fortunate to be in the presence of powerful, creative and generous women—women who have wisdom and experience to impart.”

Opportunities in the manufacturing industry are expected to abound over the next decade, but one of the challenges for women—and the workforce as a whole—will be the requisite training. In fact, the sector is projected to create nearly 3.5 million jobs nationally between 2015 and 2025, but some 2 million of them will go unfilled because companies won’t be able to find qualified workers, according to a new study from Deloitte. 

“That’s a big number and that represents a lot of opportunity,” said keynote speaker René Stranghoner, U.S. manufacturing strategic marketing leader with Deloitte. Part of the answer to closing the skills gap and filling those jobs is to attract more women to manufacturing, she said. To do that, the report suggests recruiting females into the manufacturing workforce earlier promoting personal development through challenging and interesting assignments, creating a more-flexible work environment, fostering mentorship opportunities and addressing gender bias in organizations head-on— demonstrating the commitment to diversity from the executive team on down.

“Changing the brand as an industry or a company or even of a management culture within an organization takes time, so women have to see that over time they have more faith that an employer is vested in bringing women up into the organization,” said Stranghoner. 

For their part, Connecticut’s technical high schools are committed to working with higher education to deliver the highly trained workers that today’s advanced manufacturing jobs demand, according to Nivea Torres, Ph.D., superintendent of the state technical high school system. “We are creating comprehensive educational pathways and we are creating a systemic approach, as we review our curriculum, we review our equipment needs and we’re also capitalizing on state assets by using our buildings and using technology.”

Other guest speakers at the event included State Sen. Joan Hartley; JoAnn Ryan, president and CEO of the Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce; Marcy MacDonald, vice president of human resources at Memry Corporation; and Sheila LaMothe, manager of marketing and public relations at TRUMPF Inc.

In addition, NVCC, in conjunction with their respective employers, nominated two graduates of the College’s Advanced Manufacturing Technology program for the 2016 STEP Ahead – Women in Manufacturing Awards, presented each year by the Manufacturing Institute. Darlene Blumenthal is currently employed by Tier ONE Technology in Newtown and was nominated as a STEP honoree; Hannah Lenoce is a state apprentice at Marion Manufacturing in Cheshire and was nominated for the STEP Emerging Leader Award.

“I’m learning even more on the job now, but the courses Naugatuck Valley offered me gave me a head start on developing the skills I now use every day,” said Lenoce.

The event was moderated by Cyndi Zoldy, executive director of the Smaller Manufacturers Association of Connecticut, which is housed at NVCC.