News Photo by Julie Riddle Rogers City High School robotics club members Scarlett Durecki, left, and Isabella Pitts at the high school recently explain the wiring system of a robot.

ALPENA — The future of Northeast Michigan’s industry depends on the careful development of one of the region’s richest natural resources — its people, industry leaders say.

Long reliant on industry connected with the region’s rocks and trees, the Alpena region must now meet the demands of a new, technology-driven industrial age, those leaders say.

Local manufacturers employ more than 3,000 Northeast Michiganders, U.S. Census Bureau figures show, and mining, quarrying, and manufacturing companies account for nearly a fifth of the region’s gross domestic product, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Northeast Michigan workers possess the intelligence and drive, but not the know-how, to sustain those companies in the face of surging technological advancements, local manufacturing leaders say.

School programs such as robotics clubs, business start-ups, and community improvements promise the region’s best chance at producing and retaining the workforce that Alpena industry will need in the next 20 years, said Greg Winter, a venture capital investor and president of multiple companies, including Omni Metalcraft Corp. of Alpena.

“We have really good people in Northeast Michigan,” he said. “We just need more of them.”

SHIFTING JOBS,

STABLE ECONOMIC BASE

Workers who serve others may be more needed in 20 years, but workers and leaders who create products will remain the region’s economic backbone, Alpena Area Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Director Mike Mahler said.

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Historically, hotel, restaurant, and entertainment and recreation positions account for about one in 10 jobs in Northeast Michigan. Health care, education, and social service positions make up another 25%.

The job market in Northeast Michigan will probably lean further toward the service industry in coming decades than it does now, Mahler predicted.

Such a shift includes the expansion of MyMichigan Medical Center Alpena, requiring more medical workers, and increased tourism to the area necessitating more restaurants, hotels, and other service-oriented businesses in coming years, Mahler said.

While the service industry may employ more workers in 20 years than it does now, the region’s manufacturing sector provides some of the best jobs in the community, supporting the region’s economy through high wages and strong benefits, Mahler said.

Local manufacturing companies, headed by creative and forward-thinking leaders, have the leadership they need to find their way past barriers such as their distance from rail lines and major interstates to remain a major cornerstone of the region’s economic output in 20 years and beyond, he said.

INDUSTRY 4.0

Exponentially evolving technology worldwide has moved industry into what many call a new industrial life cycle, dubbed by industry insiders as Industry 4.0.

Like industrial revolutions before it — from the advent of mechanization in the 1700s to mass production 100 years later to the introduction of computers to automate production in the 1960s and 1970s — Industry 4.0 promises opportunity for communities ready to embrace it, Winter, of Omni Metalcraft, said.

Some of his job-creating investments go to communities other than Alpena, to towns with a ready supply of workers equipped to respond to an increasingly digitized work world.

Such competencies exist in Northeast Michigan, but not enough to sustain its industry as the industrial world increasingly relies on artificial intelligence, robotics, and the interconnectivity of digital devices, Winter said.

In two decades or sooner, cornerstone Alpena industries like Lafarge Alpena will use self-driving machines to transport equipment and products, said Jeff Scott, Lafarge Alpena plant manager.

Drones will fly into spaces currently inaccessible or dangerous to workers, while cameras, tablets, and computers will analyze data and conduct some of the business of the plant, Scott said.

Increasing technology means manufacturers need more people, not fewer, he said.

Lafarge filled about 20 new positions in the last three years.

About 13% of employed local residents hold manufacturing jobs. The number of people working those jobs increased by 70% between 2010 and 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

MEETING DEMANDS

A resurgence of interest in manufacturing makes Ryan Suszek, CEO and president of Besser Co., hopeful for his Alpena-based international company.

Several decades ago, local vocational programs funneled high schoolers toward local manufacturing jobs. Such emphasis dried up for a time, Suszek said, but he now sees a renewed interest in welding, machine-making, and other industrial arts.

Still, Alpena will continue to create more tech-related jobs than trained people to fill those roles, he said.

Each year, several dozen companies from outside the area interview the 15 to 20 graduates of Alpena Community College’s concrete technology program. Those graduates can choose from about 150 well-paying job openings, said Tim Onstwedder, ACC concrete tech program instructor.

Last spring, several students fielded more than a dozen job offers each, Onstwedder said.

Local schools need to prepare students to innovate and solve problems in a digital world, whether it be as engineers, programmers, or people with all-purpose technology skills — and the community needs to convince those students to stay here, said Don MacMaster, ACC president and president-elect of Target Alpena, the region’s economic development firm

Efforts to strengthen the community as a whole — from pushes to shop and dine local to new construction at the Alpena hospital, at ACC, and elsewhere — encourage talented and competent people to come and stay here, bringing their skills and ideas with them to meet the demands of Industry 4.0, MacMaster said.

“I don’t think you can put a price tag on how significant that is,” he said.

UNTAPPED RESOURCES

Manufacturers may, in the coming decades, bolster their workforce from a previously untapped local resource, said Scott at Lafarge.

Currently, women make up only 5% of his company’s workforce. That percentage could leap as the industry becomes less physical and more digital, he said.

Robotics clubs and other non-traditional routes to learning technology suit the self-learners ready to bypass higher degrees and jump into new ways of doing industry, Winter said.

The six members of the Double Negative robotics team at Rogers City High School — half of them girls — hope to someday build a robot that can help disabled students carry their books and backpacks, an idea the students developed themselves, according to team coach Ivan Bannon.

With exposure to technology skills, students “could want to do a career with this, and they might not even know it,” said Double Negative participant Isabella Pitts, 16, who last year was the team’s only member.

‘WHAT MAKES A COMMUNITY STRONG’

Numerous Alpena startup companies, from machine-building manufacturers to firms specializing in idea generation, already respond to and benefit from the fourth industrial revolution.

Two decades from now, if they can find the talent they need, such companies could each employ hundreds of people, like other large Alpena companies before them, Winter said.

Winter and several other Alpena leaders established the Economic Generator Network, funding programs that develop technology skills in local workers, to make sure small and large local industries thrive.

The workroom floors of Northeast Michigan industry will, in 20 years, reflect the increasing power of machines, said Suszek, of Besser.

Still, he said, no company can replace its true heartbeat with machines.

“People are what make a community strong,” he said. “That will never change.”