GFC

It is such a dirty word - let's not talk about it.  And by all means, let's not support it in our own community.     Was this where NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) was born?    

The word is manufacturing.   Not a word that is friendly to many policy makers and government officials these days.  When did that happen?   Remember when business and government officials bent over backwards trying to stimulate or attract manufacturing to their communities?     I guess that was in the past, but I'd like someone to explain why, especially in these economic times, that manufacturing is such a bad word.    Doesn't manufacturing create jobs?    

Last year, I was watching laws being made in Juneau while exercising.     Lawmakers were asking what ever happend to Alaska's efforts on adding value.   The testimony was pathetic and the conclusion was that there just wasn't any of that going on in Alaska.   I got off my bike and wrote immediately to the committee and suggested they go visit Alaskan Brewing, Alaska Glacier Seafoods, Alaska Protein Recovery, etc.   "Ask the people who are adding value about Alaska's efforts and hear directly from those who are adding value, right in the Capital and then branch out to the hundreds of small and medium businesses throughout Alaska," I bluntly suggested.        

I got one response.  The lawmaker said they didn't realize constituents watch them.    As I relayed this to my friends, I explained that I went pretty fast on my bike that day out of frustration.    

We can call it adding value, primary processsing, making stuff, fabricating, secondary processing or producing, but it is officially, legally and globally called manufacturing.     Making something that someone wants to buy creates jobs.   Isn't that a good thing?  I'm beginning to wonder.

I had a discussion the other day with a well meaning official who again explained that using the word manufacturing is highly sensitive as it isn't well received in Alaska.     Excuse me.    Should I get my money back from my 6 years of college studying business, because we sure studied a lot about manufacturing?  It seemed like a fundamental sector at the time.  

Last night, I saw an auction ad for a large scale manufacturing plant that a friend of mine used to own.  It is located in a small community that never really recognized it for the year round jobs it created.   A colleague of mine responded to the ad by saying how sad the closure would be for that community, but honestly, I'm not sure the officials of that community or the area ever really even knew it was there.       I know they never recognized the owners or asked how they could help - if at all to further support that business and the resulting jobs they created.   It will probably go away and a government funded program will be proposed to go into the facility and create jobs for the community.   (Mark my words.)

Listen, manufacturing is not necessarily polluting smokestacks and producing products nobody wants to buy.   We're not talking auto's and bailouts.   Manufacturing can be clean.  It can be a magnet for other leading edge businesses.   It can help create a knowledge-based labor force.   It can create not only products the world wants to buy - but products the world needs to buy -- like healthy food.    

Manufacturing is not a dirty word.    It creates jobs.   Maybe not as fast as government at all levels seem to be creating jobs, but manufacturing jobs can offer communities sustainability.    If you're uncomfortable with the word manufacturing, call it green manufacturing, but stop ignoring that it exists and support the businesses doing it.    Listen to them and respond to them with policies and recognition to urge them to do more of that thing they do - creating jobs, wealth and economically stable communities.      

Who couldn't use a little bit or a lot of that?