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In an interview with Nick Pinchuk, you will start with JFK, meander through Ralph Waldo Emerson and the New Testament, meet Mother Teresa along the way and find out only at the end that he helped send the Viking probe to Mars. And let’s not forget another achievement: he delivered his own child in the backseat of the family car.

The Snap-on chairman and CEO, an executive committee member and stalwart supporter of the NAM, sat down for a very wide-ranging interview with NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons at the NAM’s recent board meeting, at which he received the Manufacturing Icon Award. Here are some of the highlights.

Starting with Kennedy: When asked how he got into manufacturing, Pinchuk cites Kennedy’s 1961 speech promising that the U.S. would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Pinchuk was one of the “millions of young people” who pursued STEM careers because Kennedy inspired them, he said.

• He then found himself shipped to Vietnam after a stint in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. His experience in the army later helped launch him into management at Ford, when the company was looking for someone who could “run something 24 hours a day”—just as he had in Vietnam.
• He “parlayed” that experience into a business degree, then rose fast in two other organizations—United Technologies and Carrier. His experience in Vietnam helped a second time, leading Carrier to choose him to run its Asia operations.
• Finally, Snap-on came calling, looking for someone with international experience. “On a day in which the board of directors likely had too much wine,” Pinchuk joked, “they decided to give me the CEO job.”

Read the full story here.
 

NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons concluded week one of the Competing to Win Tour in Europe by visiting a Polish school supported by UPS as well as a Pratt & Whitney facility, where he reflected on the role of manufacturing in protecting democracy.

The school: Timmons visited the elementary school in Lipa, Poland, which has been supported by UPS and served as a safe haven for Ukrainian refugee children at the start of the war.

• During his visit, Timmons discussed the needs of the children and met with the students and teachers in the town, which is near the Ukrainian border.
• He also met with an administrator from a sister school on the Ukrainian side of the border to discuss how the children there are faring.

“Arsenal of Democracy”: In addition, Timmons visited the Pratt & Whitney manufacturing campus in Rzeszów, which employs 5,000 workers and manufactures commercial and defense equipment.

• Timmons not only got a firsthand look at a company that is reinforcing the U.S.–EU commercial relationship, but also learned about the company’s response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis, which includes team members providing housing, aid and volunteer hours.

Visiting Auschwitz: Timmons visited the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau on Saturday and saw the horrific evidence of the atrocities committed at the site, where more than 1.1 million people perished.

• Following the visit, he warned against the dangers of authoritarianism and the importance of standing up for democracy and common values of respect and decency. He also noted, as highlighted during the Auschwitz-Birkenau tour, that businesses acquiesced or participated in mechanisms that advanced the aims of the Axis powers.
• Timmons emphasized manufacturing’s power to improve lives and protect freedom for people around the world. However, he also noted the dangers of command-and-control governments dictating the industry’s aims, citing the Holocaust and World War II as examples of how manufacturing can be used as a malevolent force.

The last word: “The American business community has an obligation to stand up for our democratic system and to hold our leaders responsible for their actions—and their rhetoric,” said Timmons.

• “Manufacturers in America, in particular, are a force for good. But we must never let our guard down or take our democracy for granted, no matter how difficult it may be to uphold what is right in the United States and around the world.”

Next up: The tour continues this week, with Timmons visiting high-level government and industry leaders in London, Brussels and Paris.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed the first federal limits on two chemical compounds that were used widely in everyday products for decades, The Wall Street Journal (subscription) reports.

What’s going on: “The agency is proposing maximum allowable levels in the nation’s public drinking-water systems for two compounds in a class of chemicals known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which were used for decades in carpeting, clothing, food packaging, firefighting foam and other consumer and industrial products. The EPA also said it would regulate four other PFAS chemicals by requiring treatment if the combined level reaches a certain concentration.”

• The suggested limits under the Safe Drinking Water Act are part of a larger move by the EPA to tighten rules around “forever chemicals”—so known because they take years to break down—owing to “a growing number of studies [that] have shown links to a variety of cancers, thyroid disease, high cholesterol and other issues.”
• The two individual chemicals under discussion are known as PFOA and PFOS, which various industries began using in the 1940s for their ability to resist grease, corrosion, water and stains, as well as to douse fires.

Why it’s important: While the EPA says the change would prevent numerous deaths and illnesses, not everyone is assured of the soundness of the science behind it—and others say it would cost companies unnecessarily.

• Critics of the new proposed standard say the chemicals are still necessary components of numerous products, from cell phones to medical devices, and there are no viable alternatives. Moreover, when used correctly, PFAS compounds do not pose a significant health risk to humans or the environment, they say.
• One source told the Journal the new limits “would cost water systems $40 billion” in compliance-related spending.

 Our take: “Everyone deserves access to clean drinking water, and manufacturers continue to do their part to ensure we achieve the highest levels of environmental stewardship,” said NAM Director of Energy and Resources Policy Chris Morris.

• “Manufacturers in America are committed to the communities in which they live and serve and are dedicated to protecting the health, safety and vibrancy of those communities. The EPA’s proposal leaves many questions unanswered on the feasibility of meeting these new standards and the economic impacts this will have on communities, especially rural communities and consumers. The NAM looks forward to continuing to work with the EPA to ensure everyone has access to clean drinking water.”

It’s been nearly a month since a devastating earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing at least 50,000 people—but manufacturers haven’t stopped lending a hand.

What’s going on: Through NAM Emergency Response Committee partners Project HOPE and Good 360, as well as other avenues, manufacturers in the U.S. were among the first to offer supplies and services to survivors. Here is just a sampling of the aid they provided.

Transport help: Manufacturers in the logistics sector stepped up to help ship necessary goods and supplies.  

• The UPS Foundation has committed $1 million in global logistics support and employee-contributions matches.
• FedEx has committed more than $1 million of in-kind shipping so far.

Funds: Others are giving sizable monetary donations to the relief efforts.

• The Caterpillar Foundation is donating $400,000 to support relief efforts.
• Boeing Charitable Trust is giving a $500,000 donation.
• Novartis is donating $1 million.
• Rockwell Automation is donating $50,000 to the American Red Cross.
• Siemens has donated more than $1 million.

Supplies: Many manufacturers have also been donating much-needed goods to the earthquake victims.

• In addition to donating $1.2 million, the PepsiCo Foundation has partnered with nonprofits Tider and Ahbap to deliver essentials, including food, water, sanitation and hygiene products, along with container shelters, blankets and other emergency supplies.
• The Kraft Heinz Foundation is sending food and care products and donating $500,000 to the Red Cross.
• The Abbott Fund has committed $1.5 million in grants and product donations.

How to help: If you’d like to help those in need in Turkey and Syria, the NAM Emergency Response Committee offers options:

• To donate needed products—including hygiene kits, cold-weather clothing or health supplies—please visit Good360’s goods-donation page.
• If you want to give funds to support humanitarian relief, you can do so via the NAM’s partnership with Project HOPE.

Share your story: The NAM Emergency Response Committee is looking to hear from manufacturers about how they may have been affected by the earthquake and how they may be helping. To share your stories, please contact the NAM Emergency Response Committee at [email protected].

Few things are more quintessentially Louisianan than seafood and Tabasco sauce, and on the third stop of the NAM’s Competing to Win Tour on Thursday, NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons got to spend some time with both.

The first stop: Laitram LLC, the Harahan, Louisiana–based manufacturing leader in seafood and nuts processing equipment, played host to Timmons, Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves (recently tapped by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as Elected Leadership Committee chair) and Louisiana Association of Business and Industry President and CEO Stephen Waguespack.

• Laitram President and CEO Jay Lapeyre (who also serves as chairman of the Cato Institute Board of Directors) and his team led the group through a facility tour of Intralox, a subsidiary of Laitram specializing in conveyer belts and equipment that improve productivity, food safety and reliability in high-speed package sorting.
• Timmons, Rep. Graves and Waguespack spoke with line employees across the facility, and Timmons was impressed by the company’s successes in employee retention: “Nearly everyone I met had been there a decade or more … One team member recently marked 46 years with the company,” he noted afterward.

Talking policy: Timmons moderated a roundtable discussion on manufacturing policy opportunities and challenges with Laitram’s senior staff, Rep. Graves and Waguespack after the tour.

• Lapeyre and his team expressed concerns about pass-through tax rates, which impact Laitram given that it is an S-Corp. They also raised alarms about the recent phaseout of pro-growth tax deductions for research and development and bonus depreciation.
• Trade emerged as a top priority for Laitram and its global enterprise, and Lapeyre also shared his perspective on the need for more regulatory certainty, particularly in the light of a potential new rule from the Federal Trade Commission limiting the use of noncompete agreements.
• Meanwhile, Rep. Graves emphasized the continued importance of protecting tax reform and pointed to ongoing efforts in Congress to advance permitting reform.

The second stop: The NAM team then headed to Avery Island, about two hours outside of New Orleans, where they visited McIlhenny Company, the maker of the iconic red-and-green-bottled Tabasco pepper sauce.

• Timmons was given a full tour of the 155-year-old company’s facilities, which included stops at the manufacturer’s barrel-aging warehouse, blending facility, bottling and packing plant and its onsite restaurant.
• McIlhenny Chief Operating Officer Michael Terrell—a fourth-generation employee of the company—and Agricultural Manager Christian Brown—a sixth-generation employee—guided the tour around the facility, which showed off some of the manufacturer’s recent bottling-plant innovations. These included label readers, case packers and a packet line, as well as several sustainability initiatives.

The last word: As Timmons said at the outset of the competitiveness tour, “The story of manufacturing in America is one of resilience and defying the odds. All manufacturers ask is that in Washington, when it comes to policy, don’t stack those odds against us.”

Recent tax law changes that increase the costs of research, machinery purchases and key business investments will harm manufacturers “at a time when 62% of manufacturing leaders already expect a recession in 2023,” the NAM told congressional leaders Monday.

What’s going on: Beginning in 2022, businesses that had for decades been allowed to immediately deduct research and development expenses had to begin amortizing these costs over years, making innovation more expensive.

Why it’s important: The change creates a competitive disadvantage for manufacturers in the U.S., as “China, which has made no secret of its ambition to become the world leader in advanced manufacturing, currently provides a 200% deduction for R&D expenses for manufacturers,” NAM Senior Vice President of Policy and Government Relations Aric Newhouse told the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.

What can be done: Congress should reverse course to avoid harming manufacturers, Newhouse said. Here’s what lawmakers should do:

• Reverse the R&D amortization provision: Policymakers should allow manufacturers to go back to being able to deduct 100% of their R&D expenses in the same year in which they are incurred.
• Protect interest deductibility: Congress must reverse the new, stricter limit on interest deductibility (the earnings before interest and tax, or EBIT, standard) and return to the “standard in place prior to 2022, which was based on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.”
• Return to full expensing: Lawmakers should go back to allowing businesses to take 100% deductions for equipment and machinery purchases in the tax year of purchase.

 The last word: By making these changes, Newhouse said, “Congress can help ensure that manufacturers, especially small manufacturers, can continue to invest in their operations, their workers and America’s future.”

With 200,000 people transitioning out of the military annually in addition to veterans, reservists and military spouses, the military population represents a highly skilled workforce. At a recent roundtable, panelists from Smithfield Foods, Dow and National Gypsum discussed how the manufacturing industry can leverage this population’s strengths.

Key Insights

• Manufacturers should identify a leader with military background in their organization to support the hiring process, particularly in parsing military and manufacturing lingo in job descriptions and resumes.
• Manufacturers should communicate if they will accept military experience as an equivalency to an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in their job descriptions.
• Networking can be the determining factor in getting an interview and landing a job offer. The MI will be hosting a virtual hiring fair in late February. Keep an eye on our website for more updates!
• Employee resource groups can be an excellent resource for newly hired military talent and can advocate for population-specific needs.

Read the full article here.

With one-in-four Americans possessing a criminal record, manufacturers who pursue “second chance hiring” are accessing a diverse and motivated talent pool. What do they need to know to begin?

At the Manufacturing Institute’s inaugural Workforce Summit, held in Cincinnati, Ohio, last October, panelists from manufacturers Saint-Gobain and JBM Packaging and from Envoy, a social impact advisory firm specializing in fair chance employment, shared tips on how to create such hiring programs.

Risk assessment: While safety is a concern, panelists emphasized that there is a difference between perceived risk and actual risk.

• “The data shows that second chance individuals are retained longer, have higher productivity and engage in more training than the average individual that you bring in,” said Cassi Zumbiel, managing director at Envoy.
• Saint-Gobain uses “a framework for background checks which we have developed in collaboration with our legal team. Candidates in the second chance hiring programs demonstrate higher level of commitment and a proactive approach to job searching, setting themselves up for success in future roles. We like to collaborate with our community partners in order to provide a good candidate experience and a seamless recruiting process,” explained Magda Dexter, senior vice president of communications and human resources at Saint-Gobain.
• For JBM Packaging, it’s about having honest and transparent conversations with candidates about their backgrounds. JBM also works with case managers to get referrals and assess candidates’ fit with the company.

How to get started: Dexter recommended that companies start with a pilot program, then scale it up, noting that it’s important to select a site that has the right culture, an engaged plant manager and HR support.

• Saint-Gobain has also tried out a variety of different support systems across their company, including hiring a part-time social worker as well as instituting a buddy system and a mentoring program.
• Zumbiel encouraged companies to do background checks only after a conditional offer has been made, recommending that companies should limit the look-back period to three to seven years. “That helps eliminate some of that bias and makes you really look at the candidate holistically.”
• Panelists also noted that it was important to review job descriptions to make sure they specify that second chance candidates are welcome.

From jobs to careers: Ninety percent of JBM’s second chance hires are entry-level production workers; the other 10% have mechanical or machinist skills and fill entry-level technical roles. However, Valerie Plis, director of human capital and culture at JBM, realized there was a lot of experience that the company wasn’t tapping into.

• Plis shared a story of a second chance hire who started as a machine operator. As Plis got to know her, she realized that the new hire had a background in training. The new hire progressed from an operator trainer to a lead trainer, then joined the HR team. In addition to leading training across the company, she now helms the second chance recruiting initiative, coming back full circle.
• Plis added, “At JBM, we started working on putting together some very defined career paths. It’s changed the way we conduct our performance reviews, so now we’re focused on growth and development.”

Succeed by partnering: While second chance hires come with a lot of benefits, there are also some challenges that are unique to this population. Partnering with community organizations can help, the panelists said.

• For Dexter, it’s about figuring out what the company will offer and what the community partners will offer. “We will support with on-the-job training. We will support with [providing] structure at work. We will rely on [our community partners] for job readiness and life skills training.”
• Zumbiel noted that “the community partner can advocate for the employer about the great opportunities and the benefits of working in manufacturing” and also prepare candidates to ace their interviews.

 The last word: “A lot of the things we implemented, we thought we were doing just for our second chance population, but they actually ended up becoming a huge benefit for our entire workforce,” Plis said.

How does an expert in one facility guide an engineer halfway across the country through implementing a new technology? Food and beverage packaging manufacturer Crown Holdings found an innovative answer during the pandemic, when its employees couldn’t travel freely: it equipped them with smart glasses.

This pilot program, the subject of a new case study by the Innovation Research Interchange (the NAM’s innovation division), has shown a great deal of promise. Here’s some of what the company has learned so far.

How it worked: The glasses make it possible for experts to connect with on-site workers in real time, thanks to their built-in cameras, microphones, speakers and high-resolution display. The glasses can even be integrated with Microsoft Teams.

• “When the pandemic started, we were trying to coordinate commissioning activities through email and WhatsApp messaging,” said Crown Holdings Project Industrial Engineer Leon Azzi. “Tasks that normally took two to three days were taking weeks.”
• But with the glasses, “[The workers] could share with each other the PLC (programmable logic controllers) electrical diagrams and pictures using the glasses viewer, and the remote experts could point them to areas to focus on in real time,” said Crown Holdings Digital Optimization Team Head Alberto Rodriguez.

Working out the kinks: The company is still perfecting its use of the glasses, which do need some optimization for a manufacturing environment.

• One issue is with the Wi-Fi, since the glasses need a consistent connection that is sometimes hard to find in a manufacturing facility.
• In addition, the integrated noise cancellation headphones that come with the glasses need some upgrades, as the workplace can be incredibly loud and impede easy communication.
• Workers also found the weight of the glasses on their heads to be uncomfortable at times, especially as they were already wearing other safety equipment.
• And last, the screen in the smart glasses is relatively small, which can make it difficult for workers to read.

The path ahead: Crown Holdings considers the program to be a success and plans to expand its use of smart glasses in other areas, including worker training and the mapping of visual data onto equipment. It also hopes the glasses can improve worker interactions with machines via their voice recognition technology, which could allow remote workers to zoom in or capture photos from afar through voice commands.

Learn more: Read more about Crown Holdings’ experience at the IRI Learning Center.

It’s been nearly a year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but NAM partner Project HOPE hasn’t let up on its humanitarian aid efforts. With the generous support of many NAM members, it has helped tens of thousands of people who have seen their lives torn apart by the conflict.

What’s going on: Project HOPE—the global health and humanitarian aid organization on the ground providing relief in Ukraine and supporting refugees in Poland, Romania and Moldova—is delivering millions of dollars in medicines, medical supplies, trauma care training, mental health assistance and more to those in need.

What’s been accomplished: To date, the humanitarian relief organization has:

• Delivered 24 generators to health facilities and 34,000 hygiene kits and nonfood items in Ukraine;
• Launched 10 mobile medical units that have treated more than 35,000 patients in Eastern Europe;
• Partnered with 13 local organizations in Eastern Europe to support emergency response;
• Helped provide medical care to more than 5,800 Ukrainian refugee children in Poland;
• Provided nine child playrooms in Moldova that have provided services to more than 3,750 Ukrainian refugee children; and
• Donated more than 300 wheelchairs and other mobility equipment to refugees and others living with disabilities in Romania and Ukraine.

Helping those in need: “Manufacturers are committed to giving back: saving lives, protecting communities and responding quickly in times of trouble,” said NAM Emergency Response Committee Co-Chair and Senior Director of International Trade and Regulatory Affairs Ryan Ong.

• “That includes efforts to stand with the people of Ukraine through strong support to those providing badly needed help in the region. That’s why we’ve been pleased to support and partner with Project HOPE, which is making a difference on the ground.”

The last word: “We are so grateful for the support of the NAM community who has been an integral partner in our Ukraine response,” said Project HOPE Executive Vice President of Global Health Chris Skopec.

• “As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we at Project HOPE remain committed to continuing to deliver medicines, medical supplies, mental health support and other urgent assistance for the people of Ukraine.”

Get involved: If you’d like to donate to those in need in Ukraine and the region, you can do so via the NAM’s partnership with Project HOPE. For more information about NAM efforts or to share what your company is doing, contact the NAM Emergency Response Committee at [email protected].