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It’s Only Common Sense: Getting Young People Interested in Manufacturing

Let me tell you about my son, Damon. From the time he was 13, he has been fascinated with everything Japanese. I’m not sure how that started—maybe video games? Anyway, when we moved to Maine in 2012, he was about to enter his freshmen year of high school, and he asked his mother to find him someone who could teach him Japanese. After making a few calls, she found an excellent tutor—a Japanese woman who had married a local American and moved to Maine. She was his tutor for years before he went off to college.

For college, he chose Earlham in Indiana because of its strong Japanese program. After graduating, he moved to Japan through the ALS program and taught school there, eventually getting a job in a private English-as-a-second-language school. After a year of living in Japan, he became proficient enough to be a DJ on a crazy radio show where he spoke Japanese, laughed in Japanese, and played terribly loud and awful music.

After five years in Japan, he decided it was time to come home. Of course, we thought that was a great idea. He came home one July, parked himself at our dining room table, and started his job search. His idea was to work as an independent contractor translating documents from Japanese to English and vice versa. He quickly discovered that this was a terrible job that paid next to nothing. So, we talked and came up with an idea of looking at Japanese-owned companies in America.

He posted his CV and availability on job sites like Monster, and lo and behold, the phone was soon ringing off the hook (or whatever happens these days—I guess his email blew up). Many Japanese-American companies were looking for people just like Damon, and soon, he was flying around the country interviewing with these companies. In just a few weeks, he was hired by a company called THK with a division in Columbus, Ohio.

THK is a huge manufacturing company with locations all over the world. They manufacture anything to do with linear motion as well as automotive parts. At THK, Damon does interpretations for not only the executives but also the engineers and everybody else who needs it. The pay is great, there is a solid future there, and guess what? He just married his Japanese sweetheart last week. He’s all in.

Yes, my kid works in a manufacturing company and loves it! He enjoys the excitement of building something, engineering, and of course, he loves the whole idea of speaking Japanese every day. The interesting thing is if you had told Damon that he was going to work in a huge manufacturing company when he graduated from college, he would have made a face and said, “No way!” in both English and Japanese. But now that he has been part of the company for almost three years, he has been completing taken in by the fun of everyday life and the highs and lows of working in a real business—a business where he would never have expected to work in a million years let alone be excited about it.

And that’s my point. If we can find a way to expose young people to what we do—whether it’s PCB design, assembly, or fabrication—they would get caught up in it and find that they like it just like we did so many years ago. If you think about it, could be argued that what we do is as interesting if not more than making linear motion devices—no offense to Damon or THK. Heck, we make products that touch the stars and go to the moon, Mars, and Saturn—products that go into electric cars, keep us safe from bad guys, and help save the world for democracy. The products we work on are an integral part of every single new and innovative product that comes out. If we could get young people to get a taste of that like Damon did, maybe—just maybe—we could solve our labor shortage problem.

Let’s not forget that young people today are more tech-savvy, focused, educated, and possibly more passionate about things that they find interesting and important than we ever were. So, let’s invite them in and show them what we do. Give them a taste of what it’s like to work on products that matter and are changing the world both today and into the future. Just like Damon, I’m pretty sure that they will get hooked too.

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.