As part of The Manufacturing Institute’s STEP Ahead Honorees class of 2017, I recently attended a conference in Washington D.C. focused on women in manufacturing. Meetings, networking, dinners, ice breakers and tours of the amazing city were all geared towards our unusual group. While I’ve attended numerous tradeshow events and professional organization conferences, this was my first opportunity to be with a large number of women in my industry. What I discovered is already changing me personally and professionally and my “Three Rs of Learning at STEP Ahead” could do the same for you.
It’s no secret that women are greatly underrepresented in the world of manufacturing. In 1918, during World War I, women comprised 19% of the total manufacturing workforce. Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that while women represented nearly half of the total U.S. labor force (47%), they comprised less than a third (27%) of the manufacturing jobs in 2014. That is a meager 8% increase in the manufacturing industry in nearly 100 years.
Bishop-Wisecarver Group is sponsoring four high school groups in the 2017 FIRST competitions. Today, we catch up with three 9th grade members of the TigerBots: Jade Costello, Co-Leader of Build Team, Caitlin Wallace, Build Team Member and Vineela Vandanapu, Programming Team Member. We asked them to give a one word response to each of the terms below followed by a short explanation. Take a few moments to read about the hard work and lessons learned by these incredible students!
January is National Mentoring Month – a great way to promote the benefits and needs of mentoring in our country. If you have read through even a few of the Bishop-Wisecarver Group (BWG) blog posts, it is easy to see we place a company-wide focus on mentoring, especially in STEAM-related activities for students. It’s a commitment of time, money and effort embraced by the leadership and employees to help students learn about STEAM-related opportunities, feel encouraged to pursue careers in these areas, and help build confidence that they already have connections willing to support their efforts.
Our final in a blog series about Manufacturing Day 2016 features a Q&A with Mark Orcutt, Communications and Outreach Manager of the East Bay Leadership Council (EBLC), who participated in one of the Bishop-Wisecarver Group (BWG) tours. Mark emphasizes that “more than one third of all jobs in the California Bay Area are with businesses who either make or move goods” – and that means manufacturing.
That also means a large number of employment opportunities! Hosting Manufacturing Day is one way BWG works with groups like EBLC to help educate the community on the great career options available locally.
With a corporate-wide emphasis on supporting STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education efforts, Bishop-Wisecarver Group is active in numerous student-based events both locally and nationally. This past month, we had the unique opportunity of combining some of these efforts and groups in the same place! Discussions of STEM, robots, pirates and tigers were mentioned throughout the day and it wasn’t because Halloween was coming. When BWG opened its doors for the national Manufacturing Day event this year, we welcomed two groups of FIRST robotics teams to our plant. BWG has sponsored both of these teams in their incredible work with the FIRST program and now had the opportunity to enhance their learning in the world of manufacturing.
This is our third, and final, interview with one of the Most Creative Award winners from the recent Contra Costa County Science and Engineering Fair (CCCSEF). As part of Bishop-Wisecarver’s ongoing support of STEM education, we recently helped sponsor the Most Creative Award category given to both age levels in the competition.
In 1912, a 17-year-old Long Island native became the Boy Scout of America's first Eagle Scout. Arthur Rose Eldred went on to study agriculture at Cornell University, enlist in the U.S. Navy during WWI and lead a distinguished career as an executive in the railroad industry.
A 2014 study by the American Society for Engineering Education noted that STEM education is so successful because the teaching methods are inquiry-based and centered around students. It engages students in solving real-world challenges. It encourages teamwork. It shows how to use mathematics in a meaningful way that students will actually use later in life.
The manufacturing industry has changed a lot throughout the years and will continue to do so at an increasingly faster pace. One of the most noticeable changes is the renewed awareness of government officials and economists, who publicly recognize manufacturing as the real driving force of a strong economy.
