Mary Isbister is president of GenMet Corp., a metal fabricating company located in Mequon. The company’s revenue has quadrupled since 1999. Isbister serves on the US Manufacturing Council as well as several state professional boards. Hers is a growing business having difficulty finding skilled workers.

Specifically, what kinds of skills are you looking for that many applicants lack?
Our workers need problem solving abilities, the ability to work in a team environment, the ability to recognize that they have a responsibility to their employer and coworkers to come to work on time. It appears that there is a generation — and it isn’t just the young people — where that is missing.

In manufacturing, it makes a huge difference to have people who have advanced problem solving and team-based work skills. Unfortunately, it’s even missing in the older workers who came from a manufacturing experience of 10-15 years ago. They may have stood on a production line and maybe welded one seam every day. They didn’t have much interaction and it wasn’t necessary to be a good problem solver. Today’s manufacturer is very different. The equipment’s complex and most manufacturing teams are interdisciplinary.

Are you teaching it on the job?
It is our culture. In the old days, the person who was going to be your boss, that’s who you spoke to and that’s who made the decision whether to hire you. Today at GenMet, there’s a team of people who interview and cast votes on whether or not you are going to become a member of the team.

We need people who are problem solvers, who bring new ideas to work. It’s often easier with younger people because folks who had previous manufacturing positions learned “we’re paying you to use your hands, not to think!” That’s a very hard habit to break.

How important is it that many parents don’t want their children to go into manufacturing?
It is something that manufacturing is truly struggling with. My facility is in Mequon. You can imagine that Homestead High School is not a big funnel in to manufacturing. I think there has to be an acceptance that not everyone is cut out for a college-based career. And we shouldn’t de-professionalize the skilled trades. All of skilled trades pay salaries that are equivalent to any of the traditionally professions. Is it more honorable to be an accountant than to be a welder or a machinist?
 
The other thing I hear is that manufacturing is going away. There is no guarantee in any profession. Who would have guessed two years ago that bankers, architects, construction people would all be laid off?  We are the number one manufacturing state in this country. The problem is that people don’t know it.

How hard is it to get people with the math, computer and communications skills you need?
My frustration is that we like to hire people out of the technical schools because we assume they will have some of the basic things — computer, maybe blueprint reading, some welding skills. What we have discovered is that the technical colleges vary tremendously. When workers come to us, we spend the first 90 days training them in blueprint reading, inspection skills, lean manufacturing techniques. If they are welders, we make sure they are certified within 90 days. It’s a big investment. What I hope will happen — now that the business community is rallying — is that we get involved with the education system before the crisis we have gets any worse. We need to help develop programs, curriculum and capability-based testing.

Do you have sense of how many of those from tech schools who land jobs are retained?
I can give you our small example. For 2010 and 2011 to date, GenMet received either applications or resumes from over 1,100 people. We interviewed 150, hired 25 and retained 12.

Would you be OK with your child going into the skilled trades?
So much so that this summer when my son worked here, I bought him a welding helmet and had him train with one of our lead welders. When you ask him what he wants to be he says “my father wants me to be an engineer but I don’t really know.” I told him to do what he loves. If this is something you are good at and you love, you can make a good living. I wouldn’t hesitate to have my son do that one day.