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Archived: Patrick Announces Manufacturing Partnership Academy

Posted on June 20, 2013

Governor Deval Patrick today announced the creation of a first-in-the-nation Advanced Manufacturing Regional Partnership Academy to provide resources to improve the training of skilled workers for manufacturing jobs across the commonwealth.

Manufacturing“Advanced manufacturing is an area of critical focus, one that can help us put people to work now and prepare our workers for the jobs of the 21st century global economy,” the governor told some 500 industry professionals attending the Advanced Manufacturing Summit at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.

“It is central to our strategy of investing today in order to create a stronger commonwealth for the next generation. Through the Advanced Manufacturing Regional Partnership Academy we are helping employers gain direct access to the talented workers that will strengthen their businesses.”

The Academy will collect and share best practices locally and nationally, creating models for education, training and workforce development efforts in support of advanced manufacturing that are appropriate to each of the state’s regions. The Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative, which includes many AIM member companies, is working with MassDevelopment, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development’s Commonwealth Corporation and the University of Massachusetts to build the Academy.

The state’s resurgent manufacturing sector, facing a wave of retirements from its aging workforce, will require some 100,000 new skilled employees over the next decade.

“With great job and career options available to workers, particularly younger potential employees, our manufacturing industry is creating economic opportunity for everyone in Massachusetts,” said Greg Bialecki, Secretary of Housing and Economic Development.

“Through the Advanced Manufacturing Regional Partnership Academy we are creating better connections and potential success for both companies and employees.”

Workforce development was a major focus of the summit, which also offered sessions and workshops on supply-chain opportunities, domestics and international marketing, access to capital and technology, and other topics.

Governor Patrick told the summit that manufacturing continues to undergo a “quiet renaissance.”

“It’s time for that renaissance to be a lot less quiet,” he said.