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Photo above: Jaylen Moore (left) and his co-worker, Isiah McMullen (right) at FosterWorks, both alumni of MR’s training programs, 12/15/22) “Where is it written that America can’t lead the world once again in manufacturing? We’re proving it can.” President Biden said recently in a speech on December 6, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona, about the opportunity […]

Profile: MR’s Longest Serving Board Member, Doug Gamble

For several decades, Doug Gamble often focused on the continuing challenge of fighting plant closings as a key way to save jobs, communities, and manufacturing companies. Now, he is also part of Manufacturing Renaissance’s growing efforts to help forge a strong and equitable industrial policy on a national scale. Gamble is the secretary and longest-serving […]

Hiding in plain sight: how manufacturing can save Chicago

Industrial land sitting fallow. Jobs sitting unfilled. Successful businesses with no succession plan. Young people without a clear path to the middle class. One solution? Rebuild our manufacturing sector in a way that includes all the zip codes in our region—inclusion & industry 4.0 Chicago is in an existential crisis: increasing income inequality, rebellion, a 30-year […]

The jobs are here. Skilled workers aren’t.

Unlike the ‘70s, today’s manufacturing jobs are more robots and tech than dirty assembly lines. There’s room for growth if we can build a pipeline of skilled workers. Here’s how closing the skills gap can turn a crisis into an opportunity. By Dan Swinney, Manufacturing Renaissance This is the second blog in a series on about confronting […]

A stable job for those exiting the criminal justice system

construction manufacturers

In 2013, the Chicago Community Trust convened a small meeting of workforce training providers including Dan Swinney from Manufacturing Renaissance (MR), Diane Williams of the Safer Foundation, Ray Prendergast of the Jane Addams Resource Corporation, and Brenda Palms Barber of the North Lawndale Employment Network to discuss the possibility of developing training programs that could lead to family-supporting jobs for men and women […]