Last week, a bus full of business leaders, community advocates, and generally curious folks left the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce on its way to tour Weyerhaeuser’s medium-density fiberboard plant in Columbia Falls.
It might seem like a simple thing — people getting on a bus to go on a tour — but to Kate Lufkin, marketing and communications manager for the chamber, the busload represented a new evolution in the chamber’s annual Manufacturing Month.
Manufacturing Month is held each October, with this year’s edition marking the event’s fifth year. During the month, buses are packed for tours to some of the valley’s wide-ranging and plentiful manufacturing businesses, to see what’s actually happening in the big buildings they drive by each day.
This year, Lufkin said that in collaboration with the Montana Manufacturers Alliance, the month’s focus has shifted to a focus toward workforce education. It’s about showing what manufacturing means now, as compared to how it used to be portrayed.
“We’re trying to dispel the four Ds of manufacturing: that it’s dark, dirty, dull, and dangerous,” Lufkin said. “That’s not the case anymore.”
The goal is to get manufacturing jobs and certifications into kids’ minds as they consider their futures, to let them know about well-paying jobs that don’t necessarily require a degree from a four-year college.
Manufacturing covers a wide breadth of businesses, from creating drinks at breweries and wineries to building semiconductors or making rifle barrels. You’d be hard-pressed to look around your home or office or school and find something that wasn’t manufactured in some way, Lufkin said.
The jobs pay well, are safer than ever before, and are part of one of the fastest-growing sectors of the Flathead Valley’s economy, which Lufkin said makes them community-building professions.
It’s a message she wants to get out to the general public, especially kids, through tours and other events. Recently, the chamber held a day for teachers and counselors to receive continuing education credits to show them how to include manufacturing in their lessons.
The community has been receptive.
“We’ve taken over 875 people on tours just this Manufacturing Month alone,” Lufkin said.
Her hope is those 875 people will talk to their circles about what they saw and how to see it themselves. The community is welcome to call the chamber and organize a tour, including student groups, Lufkin said.
In a couple weeks, she’ll help usher 160 engineering students from Glacier and Flathead high schools to show them what’s happening around them.
“I would love to chat with teachers, homeschool teachers, private teachers, public school teachers,” Lufkin said.
Lufkin said a great opportunity for manufacturing education is the Making Montana event in February. It should be a good time, Lufkin said, coming off such a successful Manufacturing Month.
“I get so excited to be able to share this,” she said. “This is truly my favorite six weeks of the year.”
For more information, visit www.kalispellchamber.com or call 406-758-2800.