RCAAN Luncheon on October 31st. David Cole talked about the automobile industry.
Posted
on Oct 31, 2013
Auto Industry: Fast and Furious.
Don Patterson introduced our guest speaker, David Cole, an expert in Michigan's auto industry. Dr. Cole, who holds a doctorate in engineering and taught at the U-M with Don, now heads up "Auto Harvest", an organization that recruits new talent for the industry.
Dr. Cole maintains that manufacturing is key to the success of our economy because one manufaturing job creates ten additional jobs; one job finace or IT creates only one additional job.
The challenge is that people do not understand how high-tech modern manufaturing jobs are. Parents do not want their children to "get their hands dirty" in auto plants, but today's factories are filled with computers and today's factory workers must be completely comfortable with interacting with computers. The old-school foreman is gone and a high schiil diploma isn't enough.
Our speaker said that we will need more and more skilled trades people and technicians and engineers with electro-mechanical experience, particularly as the boomer generation retires in the next 10 years.Technology is moving so quickly that the US manufacturing is just not keeping up.
Dr. Cole praised Alan Mullally, CEO of Ford Motor Company, for being a true business coach and team leader. Dr. Cole said the day of the CEO as "king" were over; today's industrial leaders must know how to coach a team. He credited Bill Ford for knowing that Ford Motor Company needed a leader outside of the Ford Family to survive and succeed.
