As the school year winds down and summer approaches, we know many of you are already looking ahead to the fall and thinking about how to make the most of Manufacturing Day and Manufacturing Month this October. Now is a great time to start planning with local partners like your city’s economic development department, workforce organization, and/or community college. By opening your doors, you give people a firsthand look at real-world careers in manufacturing and introduce them to local training opportunities.
How to Get Started
If you’re a manufacturer interested in hosting a manufacturing day event this year, we encourage you to reach out to your local economic development department, community college, adult school program, and/or Regional Occupational Programs (ROP). Many of these organizations have organized successful manufacturing events and partnerships and can help support your outreach efforts. For example, the Eden Area ROP and Chabot College shuttled students to visit area manufacturers, which included guest speakers at each facility. Another great partnership would be Earn and Learn, a work-based learning nonprofit, which organized tours with local manufacturers in Contra Costa County, while highlighting training programs at local community colleges. A typical company tour is around 1 to 1.5 hours with brief remarks from a company leader.
Most events are typically promoted on cities’ Economic Development websites and newsletters, and the Bay Area Community College Consortium’s Bay Area Manufacturing Careers Calendar, so it’s important to plan early and promote in the months and weeks ahead.
How to Level Up
If you’re an economic development professional or educator interested in expanding what your local area does for Manufacturing Day, here are some ideas that could augment and amplify what you’re already doing:
Consider expanding the target audiences for your events:
- Reach out to your local adult school and invite them to the tours. In addition to your typical GED programs, some offer manufacturing-focused training, such as Electrical Motors and Math for Trades.
- Organize tours that are open to the general public and consider inviting local training organizations.
- Every year, the City of Berkeley’s Office of Economic Development (OED) plans a series of tours at local manufacturers to coincide with National Manufacturing Week. In 2024, OED coordinated over 15 tours that were open to the general public, cross-promoted with the accompanying local #DiscoveredInBerkeley marketing campaign, and advertised to community members at large to showcase how Berkeley’s manufacturing is boosting the city’s economy.
Use Manufacturing Day/Month as a way to raise the profile of your local manufacturers:
- Contact local journalists to invite them to write stories about your local manufacturers and their impacts on the local economy. For example, the City of Berkeley’s #DiscoveredinBerkeley campaign has a partnership with Berkeleyside to produce news articles.
- Plan a tour with key stakeholders and industry champions that support the manufacturing ecosystem. Invite local elected officials and regional organizations such as East Bay EDA and AMBayArea, who are champions of the manufacturing sector.
- The City of Oakland Economic Development Department planned a VIP tour at Oaklandish that highlighted local manufacturers specializing in innovative sustainable production processes; the event brought together civic leaders and innovators to learn about the city’s growing climate tech cluster.
- The City of San Leandro and its Chamber of Commerce hosted a Manufacturer’s Appreciation Event at Drake’s Brewery to celebrate the maker’s community, inviting elected officials, business leaders, and other community leaders.
Make a stronger connection between tours and actual employment at the businesses:
- Before the tour, ask the businesses if they have any open positions, and ask them to mention them in their remarks/tour narration.
- Ask the young people coming on the tours to bring copies of their resumes. Even if the businesses they tour aren’t currently hiring or they aren’t yet available for full-time work, it teaches professional networking skills and potentially forges future connections. For example, the Fremont Economic Development Department has been asking the educational partners to have students bring resumes on tours, and prepping the businesses to think of the students as potential employees.
You might even want to think of creative events like design sprints, product pitches, or STEM workshops to bring the community and businesses together. For example, FlexFactor, an education program run by NextFlex in San Jose with national reach, has incorporated immersive, hands-on workshops into their Manufacturing Day events.
If you’d like to chat about these or other ideas about how to use Manufacturing Day/Month to showcase the manufacturing industry’s potential for economic mobility here in the East Bay, email EASTBAYWorks’ Regional Manufacturing Careers Specialist, Claire Michaels.
