by Angelo Gangone, Executive VP of AWFS®
In 1992, I was an unemployed 27-year-old with a wife and two-year-old daughter, looking to land my first professional gig. Fresh out of graduate school with an MBA, I walked into a woodworking machinery manufacturer’s showroom for the very first time, and that experience led to where I currently am in my career. I must confess, prior to that moment, I had very little knowledge in or desire to explore a career in the wood industry. However, seeing the size and scope of this high-tech equipment was truly an eye-opener. That single experience instantly changed my perception of wood manufacturing and here I am nearly 30 years (wow!) later, still part of the industry but now experiencing it from a different perspective: as a woodworking association and trade show executive.
I hear it every day – how our members and their customers have a hard time finding skilled employees and how young people aren’t clamoring to join our industry, something that I know all too well. I also know that although we have made strides, our industry still faces a problem of perception, just as it did back in 1992. In fact, in the previous issue of the Suppliers’ Edge newsletter, I listed just a portion of the initiatives that AWFS has undertaken to counter these challenges. However, we need to take a much more proactive approach in recruiting young talent as a collective and as individual organizations. We can take a few lessons from MLB teams that begin recruiting promising players at the high school level and bring them through their farm system until they are ready for the Majors.
Going back to my first exposure to the industry in 1992, I can’t help but think that our industry trade shows are the very best recruiting tools we have. I know there will be challenges to implementing the idea I will propose here, but where else but trade shows can you see such a wide array of the newest and the very best that our industry has to offer under one roof, and give young people direct access to an incredible amount of industry experience? So, let us pretend for a moment that the following idea is 100% achievable and take it from there.
In a perfect world, I would bring high school and post-secondary students to trade shows by the busload during a designated day and timeframe. I would start by welcoming the students, giving them an informative, albeit brief, overview of the opportunities that our industry has to offer. The students would then be separated into groups based on interest in particular industry segments information which would be gathered prior to the event through questionnaires and instructor feedback. Each group would then be given a guided tour of the show, with designated stops featuring product demonstrations and Q&A sessions.
Now, here is the part that would make this day complete: at the end of the tours, the students would go to a “career information” area, where they will be able to interview and apply for any available company-sponsored apprenticeships, internships, or other work-based learning opportunities., It would be critical that all students awarded an apprenticeship would not only be gaining valuable training, but once the apprenticeship is completed, will also be guaranteed a full-time position with the sponsoring organization.
Certainly a program like this would require a great deal of planning and cooperation from numerous industry partners to be successfully executed. However, this longstanding issue of a skilled workforce shortage won’t be resolved until we join together as an industry and aggressively pursue the promising talent that we are losing to other industries and sectors of manufacturing. We need to show students and workforce prospects what today’s wood manufacturing industry looks like, let them know there is a viable future waiting for them — one with opportunities for growth within organizations and even as future entrepreneurs. Furthermore, we need to let these future members of our industry feel that they are welcomed and will be a valued part of our community, which is something that I was fortunate enough to experience in the early part of my career and for which I am still grateful to this very day.