Stop Complaining About the Skills Gap and Do This Instead, Ep #527
About this episode
The episode discusses addressing the skills gap in manufacturing through effective internship programs and community involvement.
Everybody in manufacturing knows the skills gap is real. Far fewer people are doing anything about it. That tension runs through this entire conversation, and it's why we're glad to have Kyra Tillman back on the show as part of our workforce development series. Kyra runs BTM Industries, a small job shop in Woodstock, Illinois, and she's a driving force behind the Manufacturing Pathways Consortium, a group of more than a hundred McHenry County manufacturers, every local high school, and dozens of community partners who decided to grow their own talent instead of fighting over the same shrinking pool. The numbers back it up. This year 186 students applied for the summer internship program and 85 got placed, with grant funding covering 85 percent of their wages. We get into the parts most people skip. How do you actually build an internship that works when your team is already slammed? Why do so many shops still say they don't have time for an inexperienced kid? And how did this group push back on a new Illinois foreign language requirement that would have gutted high school manufacturing programs, and win? There's a bigger idea underneath all of it. The shortage isn't only a skills…
More episodes of Making Chips Podcast for Manufacturing Leaders
- How a 19-Year-Old Built a Tight-Tolerance Machine Shop, Ep #532
- Win a Machine, Grow Your Team: One Shop Owner's Playbook for Smart Growth, Ep #531
- The AI Everyone Will Actually Care About at IMTS 2026, Ep #530
- Why Starting a Machine Shop Felt Less Risky Than Another Corporate Job, Ep #529
- The Fast Eat the Slow: A Strategy Playbook for the Future of Your Machine Shop, 528
- Two Brothers, One Tormach, and the Mission to Bring Honor Back to American Manufacturing, #526
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Making Chips Podcast for Manufacturing Leaders podcast page.