Companies seek ‘next-generation’ makers at Manufacturing Day 2025

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by | Oct 10, 2025

by | Oct 10, 2025

PBN explores the benefit of Manufacturing Day 2025 for manufacturing leaders.

Polaris MEP thanks PBN author Jacquelyn Voghel for attending RI’s Future in the Making sponsored by General Dynamics Electric Boat, Nautilus Defense, New England Institute of Technology (NEIT), and Nordson EFD on October 8, 2025. Her story focuses on the need to promote manufacturing as a career to students.
 
By – 10/08/2025
 
PROVIDENCE, RI – As manufacturers navigate a year marked by turbulence and tariffs, a shortage of qualified workers remains a familiar concern. That’s been the case for company leaders such as Doug Travers, manager at Herrick & White architectural woodworking in Cumberland. Herrick & White offers its own training for workers, Travers said, but many new employees just don’t seem interested in the work. He’s not entirely sure why but thinks that a lack of early exposure could factor into hiring difficulties.

On Wednesday, Travers set up an informational booth at Farm Fresh Rhode Island, “hopefully to inspire kids to get into woodworking and show them the cool things that we do,” he said. It’s outreach that he feels is particularly important as he increasingly becomes aware of schools that don’t offer woodshop classes.

“We train like crazy,” Travers said, “but just to get them to come to the shop, it’s tough.”
 
Twenty-five other Rhode Island manufacturers [including Rose Wood, operations assistant at Pawtucket-based Neocorp] joined Herrick & White as part of a broader push to encourage young people to consider careers in the manufacturing sector.

Subscribers can read the full story at pbn.com.

Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Voghel@PBN.com.

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