ERIE – GE Transportation made a $10,000 donation to the Erie Regional Manufacturers Partnership (ERMP) on December 9, 2015. ERMP was one of four organizations that GE Transportation chose to support.
A reception was held at the Customer Innovation Center to recognize these four organizations and their hard work.
ERMP is addressing the recent growth of manufacturing and declining pipeline of skilled manufacturers in Erie County. While manufacturing showed a decline during the recession, the industry gained nearly 3,000 jobs back in the five years since in Northwest Pennsylvania. Furthermore, with more than 22,000 jobs in Erie County alone, manufacturing is critically important to the economic vitality of the region.
“Our goal is to grow the pool of skilled labor to fill manufacturing labor needs of today and in the future,” said George Currie executive vice pPresident of Erie Press Systems and chair/president of ERMP. “We will do this by continuing to work with related community stakeholders, developing a workforce roadmap with dynamic goals and measurements, and opening plants to educate students, teachers, guidance counselors and others by illustrating family sustaining opportunities in the manufacturing workplace.”
The ERMP Manufacturing Workforce Summit was held on October 1, 2015. This Summit successfully engaged a wider group of approximately 200 interested regional manufacturers, educators, workforce and economic development professionals, government officials, and other community leaders to discuss ideas, establish workforce priorities, and develop a comprehensive action plan for moving forward.
GE Transportation is a founding member of ERMP and has contributed to the funding, planning and participation of this summit. Joel Berdine, General Manager of Global Materials & International Locomotive Operations at GE Transportation, served as a panelist at the event.
The information collected from the Summit participants and key stakeholders, is instrumental in developing the next steps that will allow ERMP to influence manufacturing for the next few years. The Strategic Action Plan has been drafted and will be reviewed in January to determine focus areas and action teams. ERMP plans to announce their top priorities by February.
“For the first time in recent history we have banded together manufacturers from our region with one goal in mind, to create the workforce of tomorrow,” said Roger Schultz, manager of Technical Training at LORD Corporation and vice chairperson of Erie Regional Manufacturer Partnership.
