Modern Makers are individuals whose sense of purpose embodies the Manufacturing USA mission to secure the future of U.S. manufacturing through innovation, education, and collaboration. We celebrate the inspirational yet relatable stories from college students to executives, who are at work in our ecosystem at manufacturing innovation institutes and member companies.
Meet the Modern Makers
Meet the Modern Makers who were nominated by the Manufacturing USA institutes and who help power the Manufacturing USA ecosystem:
We hope Modern Makers' stories inspire you to consider a career in manufacturing. There is an estimated 4 million manufacturing positions to fill by 2030.
Pathways to Manufacturing Careers
Today's manufacturing jobs offer high-paying opportunities to work with cutting-edge technologies in a wide range of fast-growing fields. Driven by a renewed investment in U.S. manufacturing innovation, the growth potential for these jobs is high – more than 1.3 million manufacturing jobs have been added to the U.S. economy over the past decade. These jobs require skills that many Americans already have and don't necessarily need a college or advanced degree to do, making it easier to upgrade to a manufacturing career than you might think.
Three Ways to Start a Career in Manufacturing:
Learn More
Explore advanced manufacturing careers and resources through the institutes’ websites or others in your region.
Find Training
Attend workshops, open houses, find courses, internships, apprenticeships, and more.
Apply
Pursue a rewarding career in advanced manufacturing through countless open positions.
Hear from the Modern Makers
Five of the Modern Makers made guest appearances on SME's Advanced Manufacturing Now podcast.
Modern Makers John Louka of CESMII and Rodrigo Perez of MxD have much in common as application and system integration engineers, and they discuss how they arrived at their respective jobs at Manufacturing USA institutes, high-tech jobs of the future, the future of AI, and much more. Listen to their episode.
Modern Maker Adonis Summerville tells his incredible story about how a CNC machining training program helped him turn his life around. Adonis became an ace machinist and is now a senior metalworking skills instructor at the Jane Addams Resource Corporation based in Chicago. He is active in the growing America’s Cutting Edge (ACE) national training initiative, which is part of IACMI. Listen to his episode.
Aeon Williams is a software application engineer at Spark Photonics (AIM Photonics), and Rachel Swamy is a research assistant at NIIMBL. While Aeon and Rachel didn’t see themselves in manufacturing, they followed their passions in science and technology and found sustaining careers, challenging the status quo along the way. Listen to their episode.
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