WORKFORCE 2025: Exploring Non-Traditional Talent Pools
In 2025, the EACC decided to add 2 new pillar events to our calendar based on the needs and desires of our members:
- AUTOMATE, took place in April with the primary goal of helping leaders understand the opportunities - and the risks - as well as the practical steps they can prepare for and take on their automation journey (read more here).
- WORKFORCE, took place in August with a similar goal of providing leaders with practical and practicable insights and steps towards overcoming the workforce challenges faced in our region.
Local manufacturing and operating companies are facing several key challenges, but particularly maintaining skilled worker pipelines and encouraging local - and young - talent to embrace modern manufacturing careers. Traditional recruiting methods are no longer meeting the needs. College graduates aren't either. As our speaker Dr. Ross Turpeau from Cincinnati Works stated: "it's time to think outside the box, overcome old thinking and look at new and different talent pools."
Our topics and speakers
- The Veterans Opportunity - presented by A-Jay Orr
- Apprenticeships - presented by Andreas Brockmann and Amy VanDenabeele
- High Schoolers and Fair Chancers - presented by Dr. Ross Turpeau
Veterans as talent - hard and soft skills come standard
In his video below, Veteran and CEO, A-Jay Orr, describes the opportunity that veterans represent for the manufacturing industry's talent needs and pipeline, addressing both the advantages of hiring a veteran as well as the challenges their veteran experience often brings.
Click here to view A-Jay's slide deck in its entirety.
Creating an apprenticeship program - build your own workforce
Andreas Brockmann, creator and leader of United Grinding's Apprenticeship Program, and Amy VanDenabeele, Industry Partnership Coordinator for Advanced Manufacturing at Sinclair College (linked below) partnered to present how they have worked and continue to work together on the creation and growth of both United Grinding's and other regional manufacturer apprenticeship programs, as well as how the apprenticeship channel and process fills a need in a unique and long-term advantageous way.
Click here for all apprenticeship slides.
High schoolers and fair chancers - untapped potential
Dr. Ross Turpeau, Vice President and Chief Impact Officer at Cincinnati Works (linked below), further expanded on the non-traditional workforce pipeline discussion by speaking about the role of poverty, how high-schoolers - and high schools - are seeking exposure to alternatives to college, and the opportunity represented by fair-chancers, urging employers to think beyond their limiting beliefs and take concrete and practical steps, based on available resources and data, to improve their workforce situation as a whole - both recruiting and retaining.
Click here for Ross' slides.
About our host: United Grinding
Like many, if not most, industrial manufacturers, United Grinding is largely unknown outside of its industry. And, like many industrial manufacturers, their reach and impact is huge. As a global company in the precision grinding and machining space, United Grinding employs thousands worldwide, impacting local economies, and supplies the machines that make the precision parts that basically make the world go round.
Click here to learn more from their slide deck.
Select Resources
- Cincinnati Works (website)
- Sinclair College Apprenticeships
- Ohio Jobs & Family Services Apprenticeship Quick Reference Guide
- Kentucky Career Center’s Office of Industry and Apprenticeship Services
As always, we thank our SPONSORS without, whom we would be hard-pressed to provide the quality events we do
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Nicole Fenyo
- August 28, 2025
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