b'Cultivate the next-generation workforce.By Dino Fracassi workforceandrealizethattherearenot enough of those glamorous, high-level, excit-T he cutting tool industry is dealing with theing design/engineering jobs. But there are op-very real challenge of an aging workforce.portunitiesplenty of themin manufac-Baby boomers, the people in our industry withturing industries like cutting tools.the most institutional knowledge and skills, haveYoung engineers who consider other man-been retiring at a rapid rate. According to a Jan- ufacturing industry segments, including au-uary 2020 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labortomotive and tier one suppliers, will look to Statistics, the median age of workers in our in- cutting tools if we make the environment dustry was about 49and that was almost twoattractive.years ago, before the pandemic. We need to re- Something missing from our business is an cruit, train and retain a lot of young people. internship or apprenticeship program. I dont Compared with other industries, few youngmean just the traditional trade segmentspeople choose to join our industry. Our talentapprentice, journeyman and masterbut a gap quickly could worsen and result in a seri- cross-discipline approach involving engineer-ous shortage of many critical skills. However,ing, sales and marketing. Having a true career the more progressive that our industry be- path for all the talent in our business would comes, the more success we will have attract- make it much more enticing. Attracting young ing younger employees in every discipline. workers in every discipline is important to make Appealing to engineers is particularly prob- our industry progressive and aspirational. The lematic. Colleges and universities promoteshortage of engineering talent is reflected in four-year engineering programs with thethe other disciplines that are critical to our in-promise of working with organizations likedustry, including sales and skilled trades.NASA or in high-tech, with graduates des- I look forward to the day, not long from now, tined to become creative designers and en- when young engineers, machinists, salespeo-gineers who have many flashy opportuni- ple and marketers envy their friends who work ties. The reality is that graduates enter theat ARCH Cutting Tools. We will foster such 38SEPTEMBER 2021 SkillGap.indd 38 8/17/21 3:39 PM'