By Ben Miller, Chicago Business Journal
Erica Swinney Staley, executive director of Manufacturing Renaissance, has been named to a manufacturing committee that will advise President Biden.
Staley was appointed by the National Skills Coalition and Business Leaders United for Workforce Partnerships to serve on a national manufacturing panel that will advise the Biden administration on its “Made in All of America” initiative and related policies. She and the Chicago-based Manufacturing Renaissance nonprofit were the only appointees from Illinois.
The panel is expected to meet in the coming months with the Biden administration officials at the Department of Commerce, and meet with members of Congress to discuss federal recovery policies for the manufacturing industry.
“Since before the pandemic, youth and young adults from low-income, Black and Brown communities typically do not have the opportunity to learn about or prepare for these exciting, good paying careers from home or school. Meanwhile, in the Chicagoland area we have tens of thousands of good paying manufacturing jobs going unfilled while we have crisis-level unemployment among youth and young adults,” Swinney Staley said in a statement.
Manufacturing Renaissance was founded in 1982. According to the nonprofit’s website, it’s purpose is “to advance sustainable development anchored in manufacturing.”