Why are summer camps are so important to manufacturing?

Summer camps help keep manufacturing in America vital by developing the next generation of a skilled workforce. Ideally, after a student attends a camp, and upon high school graduation, he or she will enroll at the same college that hosted the camp where their passion for a career in manufacturing began. After graduation, they have the necessary technical abilities to begin immediate employment in their community — keeping skilled labor local. Area businesses save time and money by avoiding extensive training programs and continue to grow and prosper.

Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs® (NBT), the foundation of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International® (FMA), awards grants to community colleges and technical schools to offer summer camp experiences focused on manufacturing for youth. 131 programs across the U.S. will receive grant funding and support to hold manufacturing camps in summer 2019.

NBT will award a total of $259,500 in funding grants, ranging from $1,000 to $2,500, along with support materials to community colleges and technical high schools offering summer day camp experiences. Camps introduce young people, ages 12 to 16, to careers in manufacturing and engineering. NBT also provides each camp with entrepreneurship curriculum guides, customized T-shirts, marketing help, and other materials. In addition, each camper receives a free license to SolidWorks® CAD/CAM software.

See a complete list of 2019 NBT manufacturing camps

The camps target middle and high school-aged youth, introducing them to practical applications of math, science, and engineering principles. The camps afford students the opportunities to tour local manufacturing companies, work directly with technology, and design and manufacture a product they can take home. SolidWorks Corporation supports NBT camps with a generous donation of 365-day licenses of their CAD/CAM student edition design software.

“Finding highly skilled and motivated professionals continues to be a challenge in the manufacturing industry,” said Mike Cattelino, NBT Board Chair and Instructor at Fox Valley Technical College. “It is NBT’s mission to support individuals in discovering their interest in manufacturing. Summer manufacturing camps expose and engage the future workforce in ways that ignite their passion for ‘making stuff.’ Having hosted camps, I have seen the effect that these experiences have had on young adults and their families. There are so many ‘ah-ha moments’ that the camp participants experience when they recognize how products that they rely on every day are manufactured. The NBT camps and campers’ experiences continue to have a positive impact on technical education programs, build a foundation for a qualified workforce, and ensure that American manufacturing will remain strong for future generations.”

Edward Youdell, president and CEO of FMA and NBT added, “the manufacturing skilled labor shortage won’t solve itself. These camps provide youth with exposure to vocational and technical trades that no longer is available in most public education systems. For most of the young people who attend these camps, it is their first introduction to how things are made and what skills are required for entry into the world of manufacturing. They often discover that the training they will need to get started is readily available in their local community at the very school where they are attending camp.”