The TSMA Career Manufacturing Dream Team’s school year started off with exciting news! Brenton Engineering and Orion Stretch Wrappers donated the proceeds from their recent employee golf event to the Dream Team. A $5000 check was generously donated toward the vision of attracting the next generation of manufacturing talent. We are excited to use the proceeds to continue educating students about the manufacturing industry and getting them excited about a possible future in this industry. Our sincere thanks for this wonderful donation.

The Dream Team is preparing for the up-and-coming career fairs. The Dream Team will have a booth at the Alexandria Area High School’s ninth grade career fair on October 5th. The Dream Team will also be presenting at the breakout sessions at this career fair. The theme of the breakout sessions is A Successful Career in Manufacturing Begins After High School – Many Paths Can Be Chosen on That Journey. The session lets students know there are many different careers in manufacturing and many different schooling options.

The Dream Team will then head to Fergus Falls for the annual West Central Minnesota College and Career Expo. There they will be able to connect with the future workforce which includes 1000+ high school students from Fergus Falls and the region.

The Dream Team is excited to get back into the classrooms. This includes the initiative of getting into middle school classrooms. We are also excited to promote the new Youth Skills Training (YST) program. The Youth Skills Training (YST) program encourages, promotes, and supports the development of local partnerships between schools, employers, and community organizations. These local partnerships provide students with related classroom instruction, safety training, industry-recognized credentials and paid work experience in high-growth and high-demand occupations in the industries of advanced manufacturing, agriculture, automotive, health care and information technology.

The Dream Team members are

• Melany Wolf, Massman Automation
• Sam Ewald, Massman Automation
• Brittany Wing, Vector Windows
• Jimmy Jevnager, FORCE America
• Derek Klimek, Massman Automation
• John Zipoy, Brenton Engineering
• Mitchel Nickolauson, Vector Windows
• Ryan Swiontek, Schmidt Manufacturing
• Jason Crannell, ITW Heartland.

 
If you know of a TSMA member that may be interested in having their company represented on the Dream Team, please contact Shari Petersen at 320-766-0081 or email her at DreamTeam@midwestmanufacturers.com.
 
Caption: Chris Tabery, Motion AI, and Jared Grove, Border States (far right), are pictured with Jennifer Anderson of Brenton Engineering presenting the check to TSMA Career Manufacturing Dream Team member John Zipoy.