Archive for January, 2018

Los Angeles NTMA Training Centers to Celebrate 50 Year Anniversary in early 2018

Wednesday, January 24th, 2018

Last month, I had the opportunity to take a tour of the NTMA Training Centers in Santa Fe Springs, which was founded “to address the ever-increasing need for machinists to replace their retiring workforce.”

I met with J.R. Ragaisis, Exec. Director of Education and Training, and Carey Knutson, Exec. Director of Accounting and H.R. Carey emailed me info on the historical background of the Training Centers.  From the written history, I learned that Seymour Lehrer and Del Molinari led the charge to develop the Center in 1968 with the backing of the National Association organization. Members of the Southern California Tool & Die Association (later known as the Los Angeles NTMA) generously donated machining equipment and made a donation of $4,800 to get the Training Center started. This means that on February 1, 2018, the Center will celebrate its 50th anniversary!

I really liked that the goal of the Training Centers was “to transition tax-takers into tax-payers, by training them for a career in machining.”  J.R. Ragaisis, said, “The Training Centers was a step toward creating something unheard of at the time: to develop specialized training by industry for industry.”

It was amazing to me that the training program and school survived several recessions in the last 50 years and that no other centers were ever established in other parts of the country. J.R. said, “We have been contacted by others to set up other training centers in their areas, but nothing ever materialized.”

As he gave our group the tour, JR said, “In 1999, we set up a second training center in Ontario, (also in Southern California.); currently, the NTMA Training Centers have two state-of- the-art campuses with fully equipped machine shops, modern computer labs, and all the supplies and materials needed to train for machining. Both campuses are designed to emulate actual machine shops; we have machine tools and equipment leading industry employers use while accommodating students with spacious work stations and ample break areas indoors and outdoors.”

The Santa Fe Springs facility is a two-story building with classrooms, offices, and a large meeting room upstairs, and all of the machining equipment downstairs.  J. R. said that both training centers have many training programs available to service individuals and the manufacturing community ranging from entry level training to advanced programs for existing employees. Some of the training can be funded by what manufacturers have already paid into the Employment Training Fund through their employment taxes.  The NTMA Centers are currently on their 35th contract from the Employment Training Panel of California. For a nominal $250 in-kind contribution from employers for books, and tapping into their paid tax assessments, we will train your workforce to enhance and enrich your productivity.”

He explained that in the basic Machinist Training program, students learn the set up and operation of conventional machining equipment such as grinders, mills, lathes, drill presses, and saws. Instruction time is divided between classroom, computer lab, and shop, providing a unique blend of practical theory and hands-on experience. Instruction includes; quality control and inspection procedures, shop theory, precision measuring instruments, mathematics, blueprint reading, and basic CNC operations. Upon graduation, students may find entry-level machinist employment as an operator of a lathe, mill, grinder, drill press, etc. in the machining and tooling industry. In addition, our machinist classes are usually about 15 students per session, of which we run 3 sessions per day.”

I told him that for more than 70 years, the only place to get machinist training was in San Diego at San Diego City College, where most of the students were grabbed up as fast as they graduated by companies like Solar Turbines. Now, we also have the MiraCosta Technical Career Center in Carlsbad.  Since I have always represented machine shops as a manufacturer’s sales rep., I know there has been a shortage of CNC lathe operators for more than 20 years in the San Diego area.

I asked if the classes incorporate any training in Lean Manufacturing, and he said, “We emphasize 5S + 1 of Lean, in which the +1 stands for “Safety.” We teach safety first, and all the students are trained on the safety protocol for each piece of equipment from a hack saw to a CNC machine. Meaning, students have to sign off on what they learned before they can use any of the equipment.”

J.R. provided me information on what kinds of advanced training they provide for existing manufacturing employees:

Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) – This course is designed to provide students with the principles and practices in the operation of a CMM.

Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software package called Mastercam – This course bundles theoretical knowledge that the students bring into the course applying a computer-generated graphic of manufactured components for machining. The course is designed for machinists who have no computer aided manufacturing background.

Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) – This course develops the skills to perform fundamental operations of CNC Mills/CNC Lathes, emphasizing on the basic operation of the machinery, process, and shop safety. The course is designed for machinists who have no CNC machining background.

Inspection – This course develops the skills to perform fundamental inspection techniques, emphasizing on third angle projection of blueprints and applying basic concepts of inspection techniques through the use of indicators, micrometers, optical comparator, and the CMM. The course is designed for individuals who have no inspection experience

I asked J.R. if they provide any training for veterans, and he said, “We provide training in the machining, tooling and manufacturing industry for all veterans, who have or are serving in any branch of the U.S Military.  We recognize the unique situation that veterans may face transitioning and readjusting into their life out of the military. We do everything possible to assist them in the transition while enrolled in our programs.” The website states: “There are Veteran Education Benefits available to you if:

  • You have served in the military
  •  Currently serving in the military
  •  You are an eligible dependent of a veteran
  •  You are a spouse of a veteran receiving benefits”

J.R. said, “We start new classes every few weeks, and a class just started on December 6th, and another class will start January 29th.  We have a modular program of five modules, and each module is six weeks in length. It takes students seven months to complete all of the modules, and they graduate with certification as an entry level machinist with an 86% job placement rate for graduates. We are currently in a transition mode; for the first time in years, we need more students to keep up with the demand.  Manufacturers are calling us to find out when we will have new graduates, instead of us calling them to fill job openings.

After visiting this training center, I recommend that other NTMA chapters around the country reconsider establishing a training center in their region.  They could partner with their local community college on training programs as well as apprenticeship programs. They could also partner with their local SME chapter (formerly the Society of Manufacturing Engineers) because SME is heavily involved in partnering with high schools for training in manufacturing skills.  NTMA wouldn’t have to start from scratch because SME’s ToolingU has modular curriculum available for use in the training programs.

We need more collaboration between industry associations and educational institutions at the high school and college level if we are going to solve the skills gap and attract the next generation of manufacturing workers.

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How Trade Policies Led to the Decline of American Manufacturing

Wednesday, January 24th, 2018

Many people think that the decline in American manufacturing started with American manufacturers sourcing manufacturing offshore in order to achieve lower labor costs, avoid regulations, and pay lower taxes. While the decline accelerated after China was granted the status of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) and was allowed to join the World Trade Organization, it actually began decades earlier.

PNTR is a legal designation in the U. S. for free trade with a foreign nation and was called Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) until the name was changed in 1998. Thefreedictionary.com defines it as “A method of establishing equality of trading opportunity among states by guaranteeing that if one country is given better trade terms by another, then all other states must get the same terms.”

Thus, it is a method to prevent discriminatory treatment among members of an international trading organization. It provides trade equality among trading partners by ensuring that an importing country will not discriminate against another country’s goods in favor of those from a third. Once a country grants any type of concession to a third-party country, this concession must be given to all other countries.

At the end of World War II, the United States was the dominant manufacturing country of the world.  The American manufacturing base had enabled the U. S. to win the war with Germany and Japan by outproducing these two countries in implements of war from ships to tanks to weapons.

Over the next 20 years, American manufacturing became synonymous with quality and inventiveness.  Companies like Ford, General Motors, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, and Levi Straus became household names.

One of the main reasons why the United States became the dominant manufacturing country in the world was that for over 150 years, our government protected and fostered the growth of American industry through tariffs. The first tariff law passed by the Congress, was the Tariff of 1789.  The purpose was to generate revenue to fund the federal government, pay down the debt of the government, and also act as a protective barrier for domestic industries from imports from England and France in particular.

Tariffs played a key role in our country’s foreign trade policy and were the main source of revenue for the federal government from 1789 to 1914, the year after income taxes went into effect in 1913.  During this long period of time, tariffs averaged about 20% on foreign imports, and at times, tariff revenue approached 95% of federal revenue.

During the Truman Administration (1945-52), foreign trade policies began to focus on liberalizing trade through moving from protective tariffs to free trade. The instructions given from Congress to the U. S. Trade Representative were:  Remove barriers to trade. A key concept of the liberalization of trade was reciprocal tariffs and low tariff rates. Two of the main reasons for this change in trade policy were to help Europe and Japan rebuild after the war and engender closer relations with the U. S. as a deterrent to the spread of communism. This ended the use of tariffs as a significant source of Federal revenue and began the increase of corporate and personal income taxes.

In 1948, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) treaty “was signed by 23 nations in Geneva on October 30, 1947, and took effect on January 1, 1948. It remained in effect until the signature by 123 nations in Marrakesh on April 14, 1994, of the Uruguay Round Agreements, which established the World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 1, 1995. The WTO is in some ways a successor to GATT, and the original GATT text (GATT 1947) is still in effect under the WTO framework, subject to the modifications of GATT 1994. GATT, and its successor WTO, have successfully reduced tariffs. The average tariff levels for the major GATT participants were about 22% in 1947, but were 5% after the Uruguay Round in 1999.”

GATT requires that exports of all countries that are party to the treaty should be treated alike by other countries that are party to the treaty, and each member is granted Most Favored Nation status. Since GATT was first signed, MFN (now PNTR) status has been granted to about 180 countries. Only a handful of communist countries have been denied MFN status.

For over 20 years, American manufacturers experienced little competition from foreign exports, but in the 1970’s Japanese and German products began to significantly penetrate the U. S. market. Due to the focus on demilitarization and decentralization in the U. S.- directed rebuilding of the Japanese and German economies, producing consumers goods was the focus.

Japan focused on audio/stereo products, cameras, pianos/keyboards, and TVs, as well as low cost automobiles and motorcycles. Companies such as Panasonic, Sony, Sanyo, Yamaha, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Datsun (now Nissan) became the new household names in America. Mitsubishi had produced aircraft in Japan before and during WWII, including the infamous fighter plane, the Zero. Nakajima was another aircraft manufacturer that was reformed as Fuji Heavy Industries after the war and began to produce the Subaru vehicles.

Germany started focusing on automobiles such as the Volkswagen “Bug” and bus, BMWs, and then Mercedes vehicles.  They expanded into manufacturing equipment, machine tools, and scientific and laboratory instruments and equipment. Volkswagen was instrumental in Germany’s industrial recovery as their plants have escaped damage from bombing. The Volkswagen plant had been offered to England after the war as reparations, but England turned it down. Without Volkswagen being able to start manufacturing autos in 1946 after the war, the reindustrialization of Germany would have been delayed considerably.

It didn’t take long for the increased imports from Japan and Germanys to take their toll on the U. S. trade balance.  As the below chart shows, the last year we had a positive trade balance in goods was 1975:

Source:  Coalition for a Prosperous America

As a developing country, imports from China didn’t become a significant factor until the beginning of the 21st Century. The development and growth of China’s manufacturing industry was essentially funded through American companies setting up manufacturing plants in China starting in the 1990s and transferring manufacturing to Chinese contract manufacturers. Foxconn, Apple’s contract manufacturer for the iPhone and iPad, is the only Chinese manufacturer to become well known in the U.S. While Foxconn has plants in mainland China, it is actually owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturing company headquartered in Tucheng, New Taipei, Taiwan.

“In article titled “The Death of American Manufacturing,” published in the February 2006 Trumpet Print Edition, Robert Morley wrote: “Manufacturing loss is occurring because of globalization and outsourcing. Globalization is the increased mobility of goods, services, labor, technology and capital throughout the world; outsourcing is the performance of a production activity in another country that was previously done by a domestic firm or plant.

At the dawn of globalization, the elimination of trade barriers opened up access to foreign markets for American manufacturers in return for building factories abroad. In due course, more and more manufacturers set up shop overseas, producing goods to be sold to Americans.”

According to Yashen Huang author of Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, China’s “indigenous private sector is conspicuously small.” The majority of urban companies are still State-Owned Enterprises (SOE’s). Other companies are privately owned, but the owner(s) are government employees, so they are still essentially government controlled.

China had lost its status as MFN through suspension in 1951 after the Communists took over control of the government in 1949. It was “restored in 1980 and was continued in effect through subsequent annual Presidential extensions. Following the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the annual renewal of China’s MFN status became a source of considerable debate in the Congress…Congress agreed to permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status in P.L. 106-286, President Clinton signed into law on October 10, 2000.  PNTR paved the way for China’s accession to the WTO in December 2000…;”

  1. S. trade with China began to be measured in 1985 by the U. S. Census Bureau, and we had only a small deficit of $6 million. The trade deficit grew to $83.8 billion by the year 2000. However, after China was granted PNTR and became a member of the WTO, the trade deficit started to escalate. It doubled to $162.3 in 2002 and doubled again by 2014 to $344.8 billion. The 2016 trade deficit was $347 billion, down from $367 billion in 2015.  In 2016, China represented 38% of our overall trade deficit of $654.5 billion.

As a result of the escalated trade deficits from 2001 to 2010, the U.S. lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs and 57,000 manufacturing firms closed. Where do all the jobs go?  Well, the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that “U.S. multinational corporations… cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million.” So, we lost about half to offshoring of manufacturing to China and other parts of Asia.

The real story is even worse than this data. In an article by Terence P. Jeffrey published on www.CBSNews.com on May 12, 2015, “The number of jobs in manufacturing has declined by 7,231,000–or 37 percent–since employment in manufacturing peaked in the United States in 1979, according to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As a result of more and more American manufacturers setting up plants in China, our domestic supply chain was weakened. From 2001 to 2010:  The U. S. textile industry lost 63% of jobs since 2001. Communication equipment industry lost 47% of its jobs. Motor vehicles and parts industry lost 43% of its jobs. U. S. machine tool industry consumption fell 78% in 2008 and another 60% in 2009. U. S. printed circuit board industry has shrunk by 74% since 2000.  We even lost whole industries, such as:  fabless chips, compact fluorescent lighting, LCDs for monitors, TVs and handheld devices like mobile phones displays, Lithium ion, lithium polymer and NiMH batteries, low-end servers, hard-disk drives, and many others.

After over 40 years of trade policies that foster offshoring, it’s time to have a new goal for trade policies.  Instead of “remove barriers to trade,” we need to have a goal of “eliminating the trade deficit.”  The Coalition for a Prosperous America has recommended this goal for years, and on March, Representatives Brooks and Lipinski introduced House Congressional Resolution 37 for Congress to set a national goal to eliminate the trade deficit.  It is only one sentence long:  “Expressing the sense of Congress that Congress and the President should prioritize the reduction and elimination, over a reasonable period of time, of the overall trade deficit of the United States.”

As soon as the tax reform bill is signed by President Trump, Congress needs to pass this Resolution before the end of the year, so we can start 2018 on a new track.

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Restoring the “Maker spirit” to Thomasville that lost an Industry and Jobs to China

Wednesday, January 24th, 2018

After my article that featured The Forge in Greensboro was published, I was contacted by Joel Leonard, who informed me that he worked with the original founders of The Forge as the community developer to help uncover equipment and talent and set up initial programs “to convert Greensboring to Greensciting.”

He said, “We hosted numerous large events to get the community aware of our efforts, such as a Silo Busting Roundtable to connect various groups in our society together to have meaning conversation together about manufacturing challenges. Then, some of the area employers shipped numerous tractor trailer loads of equipment, and we were able to sell what we couldn’t use and generate capital to pay for our lease, insurance, and other operational costs.  In the first year of The Forge, we launched 16 new companies, had 9 patents filed, and helped over 50 get connected to new jobs.”

I asked how he became involved with the Makerspace movement, and he responded, “Fifteen years ago, I decided to make it my life’s mission to build the next generation of skilled technicians (i.e. makers). I realized to reach the masses, a book or magazine may not make the cut, but more may listen to a song.

I wrote the lyrics to the ‘Maintenance Crisis Song,’ which has been played at dozens of engineering conferences all over the globe, on NPR and CNBC, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and during the U.S. Congressional Forum on how to revitalize the U.S. economy. To reach a larger audience, it has been recorded in 15 different genres, that include rock, opera, hip hop, bluegrass, reggae, blues, funk, gospel, pop rock, and two Greek versions.” After our conversation, he emailed me links to a couple of the versions.

He added, “Once I learned about the Maker Movement, and how it connects directly to all that I had already been doing, I quickly joined in and have been helping connect manufacturing leaders to makerspaces. Organizations around the world come to me to tell them what to do to advance their workforce development strategies, and, even better, sometimes I get paid for it.”

After leaving The Forge in the good hands of Joe Rotondi, he was freed up to consult and support makerspaces around the country like Newton Conover Middle School, Makerspace CT, Make Nashville, NASA Langley, St. Louis, and numerous others.  He is currently involved with developing a makerspace in Thomasville, NC.

When I asked how he became involved with Thomasville, he said, “Last June, Thomasville City Councilwoman Wendy Sellars of Thomasville, NC, asked me to build a makerspace in her community that had been devastated by Thomasville Furniture’s departure to China. I realized that I could not say no to helping revitalize Thomasville’s manufacturing economy because I worked at Thomasville Furniture to pay for college during the third shift starting in June of 1986. It was a great summer job because I was paid $8 per hour, which was much better than other jobs at that time.”

He commented, “If you have any pieces of Thomasville furniture made during the late 1980s, chances are the veneer on the furniture was put there by me and my team. I worked behind a veneer press. The veneer press was an old furnace that was acquired via a WWII military auction from Germany, and it heated the thinly sliced sections of wood veneer to particle board that had been slathered with glue for 10 minutes at close to 1,000 degrees. I worked on the crew that took the 4-feet by 8-feet aluminum sheets out of the oven. The veneers were used for tables, chair seats, armoires, and entertainment centers for televisions.

There was no air conditioning, and the fans didn’t help much, so I had to drink gallons each shift to keep hydrated. But, I had to keep my wits about me and keep up with my assigned partner to synchronize our movements, or one of us would get 2nd degree burns on our wrists.  Although it was hard work, it was great pay for the time and gave me a sense of accomplishment seeing the stacks of veneer we made each shift and then later see the finished goods on display in galleries and sent to the High Point Furniture Market to be sold in retail outlets all over the world.”

Leonard explained, “At that time, Thomasville Furniture offered those with just a little education the opportunity to earn a steady income. Skilled labor was getting paid $15/hour, which would be around $30/hour at today’s rates.  Now, Thomasville is without a middle-class because of loss of job opportunities and is struggling to keep crime under control.  The whole community of 27,000 is at risk of living in poverty.

Continuing, he said, “I was hesitant to agree to commit to building a makerspace immediately because I know that just building a makerspace isn’t always the solution. I visited a mall, and the idea emerged of building chairs like the successful Build a Bear franchise. I went home and put that idea on Facebook and, boom, Andrew Clement, a licensed general contractor and shop teacher at Thomasville High School, committed to making the raw material for Farmhouse Chairs from Bolivian Poplar with his students.

Andrew and I formed a partnership, established a nonprofit corporation, developed a plan, and three months later, on September 9th, the CHAIR CITY MAKERspace  hosted our first BUILD A CHAIR event to get the community familiar with makerspace concepts. Numerous area chambers sent out flyers, posted announcements, shared calendars, and several news outlets joined in spreading the news about chair making returning to Thomasville. More than 40 people gathered in the bandstand behind the famous Giant Thomasville Chair to build a chair.  Peter Hirshberg, co-author of The Maker City: A Practical Guide to the Reinvention of our Cities, even featured our event in MAKE: Magazine.”

Our second event was held on September 23rd. Tom Conley, the CEO of High Point Market Authority, led the lumber guard ceremony by carrying the first chair. This time, a group of about 45 people emerged to build chairs and offered encouragement and support for the Chair City MAKERspace quest to grow skills, jobs, and community unity.”

When I asked what the Big Chair Monument was, Leonard told me that Thomasville is often referred to as the “Chair Town” or “Chair City” because of a 30-foot landmark chair that sits in the middle of the city. Later, I looked it up on Wikipedia and learned that it is a replica of a Duncan Phyfe armchair that “was constructed in 1922 by the Thomasville Chair Company (now Thomasville Furniture Industries) out of lumber and Swiss steer hide to reflect the city’s prominent furniture industry. However, this chair was scrapped in 1936 after 15 years of exposure to the weather. In 1951, a larger concrete version of the chair was erected with the collaboration of local businesses and civic organizations and still remains today.”

The third BUILD A CHAIR event was held at the Big Chair Monument on October 7th in celebration of National Manufacturing Day on October 5th.  Thomasville Mayor Raleigh York even issued a proclamation during the event.

Leonard added, “Three retired employees of Thomasville Furniture, who had over 100 years of experience between them, joined our BUILD A CHAIR event on October 7th.  Brad Myers had been responsible for the production of over 100 chairs per hour, 800 each shift, and when the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts weren’t listening to him, I told them he was responsible for more chairs being made in one hour than they will ever make in their lifetime. The Scouts had the opportunity to learn important skill sets from making their own chair, and each one had to be carry their own chair back to their car.”

Leonard said, “Because of our efforts over the last five months, we went from just having an idea to getting a city proclamation at the Build a Chair Event to getting a future building under contract.  Andrew purchased a house on 1 ½ acres of land for the facility.  We now have a GoFundMe page to seek donations of money and equipment for our Chairmaker Space”. Contact Joel@skilltv.net if you have any questions.

To put what they had accomplished in perspective, I asked why the makerspace is important to the region. Leonard said, “Thomasville Furniture started as Thomasville Chair in 1904 making chairs and soon became the town’s leading furniture manufacturer and largest employer. The company expanded into making other furniture in the 1960s. With over 5000 employees at the peak out of a community of 27,000, Thomasville Furniture earned an international reputation for producing quality furniture. However, that did not last. Thomasville Furniture fell apart when the manufacturing companies moved manufacturing to China in the 2000s. After the last two plants closed in 2014, all chair and furniture production ceased, eliminating the income of most of the middle class in Thomasville. The only part of the company still located in Thomasville is the Thomasville Furniture Industries Showroom. The entire city’s future became at risk, and the city has had difficulty rebounding. Many city officials have abandoned the heritage of the town and have considered new pathways and identities.”

He said, “A successful Chair City MAKERspace will prove that small communities can participate in the Maker movement and have more of a dire need to do so. That is why the Chair City MAKERspace is not only going to have a community workshop, but I am going to host a series of career development programs, job fairs, apprenticeship programs, and internships to help the local community locate opportunities in Thomasville and throughout the Piedmont Triad region.

We are still going to host regular BUILD A CHAIR events, and may expand to Adirondack Chair designs and then perhaps onto other projects, but we will always work to build on the furniture legacy that made this city world famous.”

I share Mr. Leonard’s opinion about the importance of makerspaces to a city’s efforts to develop new manufacturing companies to re-industrialize their community. In my new book, Rebuild Manufacturing – the key American Prosperity, I equate developing makerspaces as important as developing incubators or accelerators, and inventor forums into regional economic development.  However, I recommend that makerspaces partner with either public or charter skills to provide manufacturing skills training for high school students as part of their career technical training programs. There are still not enough high schools nationwide that have introduced manufacturing skills training (formerly called “shop” classes) into their curriculum. I also encourage manufacturers to find out if their city or region has a local makerspace, and if they do, then get involved to develop relationships with the makerspace to grow more talent for their company and region.

 

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California Economic Summit Sets Goals to Elevate California

Wednesday, January 24th, 2018

The sixth annual California Economic Summit was held on November 2nd – 3rd in San Diego.  The Summit was convened by CA Fwd and the California Stewardship Network, with a long-list of sponsors and partners. More than 500 civic, business, attended the event held at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront.  The theme of the Summit was Elevate California with the goal of achieving:

  • One million more skilled workers
  • One million more homes
  • One million more acre-feet of water

The statewide gathering highlighted higher education as an important component to a new initiative to restore upward mobility in the state. I was only able to attend day two, which began with a welcome by Mark Cafferty, President of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation, and San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox. Mr. Cafferty said, “California’s brand around the world is remarkable.  We need to prepare and support our most important assets – people. We need to help Californians live in sustainable communities, and we need to create one million more middle class jobs to ‘future proof’ California for Californians.”

Supervisor Cox said, “We now have 1,400 “Blue tech” companies representing 46,000 employees and making a $14 billion contribution to our economic, creating blue collar and white-collar jobs.” He mentioned that according to the recent report, the impact of the military represents 22% of the region’s jobs.

The day started with a panel of millennial and Next Gen leaders discussing their perspective on how California’s economy and the high cost of living are affecting them and their peers. Christine Werstler was the panel leader, and the panelists were:  Assemblywomen Autumn Burke, Sean Bhardwaj, founder and CEO of Aspire 3, and Laura Clark of YIMBY Action. They shared that the major challenges are:  affordable housing, access to fundamental services like health care and education, rapid change, and an unknown future.

Assemblywoman Burke said, “You can only do so much with legislation. We need to provide resources. It’s important to know that we have a college system that doesn’t have room for everybody, even if they qualify, Access to education should be a high priority.” Burke added that many of those are students from disenfranchised communities. Burke said, “We have the data, and now we need to put it into action and work with private industry to provide the opportunities and resources. It is our job as legislators to provide all of the things they need. “

Panelist Sean Bhardwaj said, “We need to teach entrepreneurism as a skill across disciplines in colleges and universities so they are prepared to find and create their career opportunities for the future. Only 19% of millennials see other people as trustworthy, 10% lower than other generations. They need to build personal relationships or they will not engage.

Bhardwaj added, “Each and every one of us has a talent and a skill that we can bring to the world. We need to break out of the thinking of what we link learning is and think what it could be. Technology is a tool to make resources more accessible.  We need to look at what are the tools we can provide so we can use the tools quickly We need to figure out what are the skills needed today and quickly provide the opportunities to learn them.”

Clark said, “Millennials are angry – 20% are living in poverty, and we need to bring them up. It is important to have clustering of industries in regions to provide career advancement.” She urged institutions to make sure college students are registered to vote so they have a voice on issues including funding.

The next panel featured leaders from all three of the state’s public higher education systems: University of California President Janet Napolitano, California State University Chancellor Timothy White and California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley. Ryan Smith was the panel leader.

“When we think about income inequality in our country and California, the single tried and true tactic that has worked over time has been access to higher education in terms of increasing social mobility,” said Napolitano. “When I remind people that 45 percent of the entering class at University of California are first-generation college students, that’s real opportunity that public higher education presents in California. In the UC system, we have increased enrollment by 10% in the last two years.”

When asked about affordability, the leaders emphasized the widespread use of financial aid to cut tuition and fees, but reminded the audience that the total cost of education also includes California’s high housing costs and other expenses.

Chancellor White said, “There is a capacity problem. We turn away about 30,000 students every year. We need to build more capacity.  If we don’t make this investment, it will be a higher cost in the future if we don’t succeed.”

Ortiz Oakley said, “We are in 114 communities and we need to design for the future jobs, so we looking at what are the job needs of different regions to create upward mobility and train more skilled workers needed across the state. We’ve spent a lot of time and fortunately we’ve had the investment over the last several years through the Strong Workforce to take a hard look at the regions of California to begin preparing ourselves to develop curricula for the jobs of today and the future, not the jobs of yesterday.”

All three of the Democrat gubernatorial candidates appeared at the Summit.  I missed the appearance of Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom the first day, but day two, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and State Treasurer John Chiang were interviewed. Villagorosa said, “If it were a country, California would rank sixth in the world economies, but we rank down with Romania in the level of poverty.”  He agreed with Assemblywoman Burke. “If we’re going to survive and thrive, we’re going to have to do a better job at growing middle class jobs,” adding that 60 percent of high school kids are Latino and African American, but only 13 percent go on to a four-year college. He said, “We’ve got to address that. We’ll be a million and half down in college graduates by 2025 and a million down in people with specialized skills.”

Chiang said, “We have to understand that we ought to celebrate the diversity of our resources. It’s all about the people and I believe we have an area that is the magnet that draws people. It’s the idea of what California is, so we can flourish uniquely because of the extraordinary diversity that we have.”

“The 2017 Summit sought to advance these ambitious themes during the event and in the coming year:

  • Create a unifying triple-bottom-line vision for increasing economic security and upward mobility
  • Expand the strength and diversity of the Summit network to increase its influence on state and local policy decisions
  • Mature the Summit as a formal civic partner with government to advance triple-bottom-line policies:

While I applaud the goals of the Summit co-conveners and partners, I wonder why no one seemed to connect the fact that our losing 33% (618,000) of our higher-paying manufacturing jobs from the year 2000 -2010 might be a major cause of our increased rate of poverty.

According to data from the California Manufacturing Technology Association, we have only regained about 50,000 manufacturing jobs since then.  As shown by the following chart from CMTA Champions of Manufacturing blog by V.P. Gino diCaro, California is lagging behind the rest of the country in regaining manufacturing jobs, and California only attracted 1.6% of reshored jobs from 2013 – 2016.

I also fail to see how we can achieve the goal one million more skilled workers without addressing California’s adverse business climate that is driving manufacturing companies to leave California. Not one speaker even mentioned the topic of California’s business climate.

For 20 years, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council has published a report, titled the Small Business Policy Index, by their Chief Economist, Raymond J. Keating, which ranks the states on policy measures and costs impacting entrepreneurship and small business growth. According to the 2016 report, California ranks dead last, and has been dead last for several years. The report “ties together 50 major government-imposed or government-related costs impacting small businesses and entrepreneurs across a broad spectrum of industries and types of businesses, which include: corporate and personal income tax rates, individual and corporate capital gains taxes, property taxes, sales, growth receipts, and excise taxes, death taxes, unemployment tax rates, gas and diesel tax rates, Workers’ Compensation premium costs, energy regulation, State minimum wage, paid family leave, etc.  It even ranks states by the number of government employees, Per Capita State and Local Government Spending, Per Capita State and Local Government Debt, and various categories of lawsuit reform.

A brief look at how California ranks reveals:

  • California has the highest personal income tax rate and individual capital gains tax at 13.3%
  • California ranks 50th in Workers Compensation premiums cost at 3.48
  • California ranks 49th in energy regulatory costs
  • California ranks 43rd in corporate income taxes and 44th in corporate capital gains tax at 8.84%

On the plus side, California ranks first in the lowest unemployment taxes at the low rate of 0.81. Thanks to Proposition 13 still being in effect, California only ranks 22nd in property taxes at 2.835%. In 2016, California only ranked 46th in gas taxes at 0.409 cents per gallon, but would rank 49th now after raising its gas taxes by 12 cents per gallon the week after the Summit.

As long as California’s legislators and other leaders have their “head in the sand,” nothing will be done about improving the business climate of California. I challenge the State legislature to do their job as legislators to provide all of the things business needs to grow and expand employment.

At the conclusion of the Summit, Oscar Chavez, assistant director at the Sonoma County Department of Human Services, announced that Sonoma County will be the site of the 2018 California Economic Summit. He said, “You cannot sit on the sidelines. This state needs you.” I would say, “This state needs leaders who address the issues affecting manufacturing if we want to achieve the lofty goals of the Summit.

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