About a week ago, the President hosted a White House event called “Made in America” in order to publicize the diversity of products made in the USA. This is part of an agenda to work toward improving US competitiveness and boosting exports. To further encourage more of a manufacturing presence in this country, there are other equally important issues to address.
We at Von Ruden Manufacturing understand the vital importance of workforce training and education to increase productivity. Therefore, we have enthusiastically embraced Minnesota’s Growth Acceleration Program (GAP), a state-matching investment endeavor that is designed to assist small and medium size manufacturing companies in better accessing business improvement services.
As a small company with just under 50 employees, we strive to address the wide variety of manufacturing challenges faced by operations like us. A major challenge in the industrial sector is closing the skills-gap – which involves finding new talent to take over once the Baby Boomer generation retires.
To this end, we are also wholeheartedly engaged in a youth apprenticeship program with Wright Technical, a public educational provider in Buffalo, MN. Working with this institution, we give high school students invaluable hands-on manufacturing experience to help in closing the skills gap prevalent across our nation.
Apprenticeship programs such as this are the best way to introduce students to the manufacturing careers available to them. Without these types of efforts, they might not know about the opportunities that exist in this sector. There are many high-skilled positions being developed that didn’t even exist years ago thanks to technology. By bringing the classroom into the shop floor, the next generation can get a first-hand look at what modern manufacturing is all about.
Von Ruden is proud to provide this introduction, and we look forward to seeing some of these students in technical careers down the road.

To learn more about Von Ruden and our role in the local community, feel free to give us a call at (763) 682-3122 or email us at sales@vonruden.com. Also explore the latest news by following us on Twitter and by connecting on LinkedIn.

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Tags: Made In America, Minnesota Growth Acceleration Program, MN Growth Acceleration Program, Workforce Training and Education, Wright Technical School in Buffalo MN, Youth Manufacturing Apprenticeship