What’s Brewing? With Becky Hauschild, CMMA and the 2024 Central Minnesota Tour of Manufacturing

We’ve final­ly reached that time of year when we can dive into cher­ished fall tra­di­tions like pick­ing Min­neso­ta Grown apples, bundling up to watch soc­cer and foot­ball games under the sta­di­um lights, and vis­it­ing some of our favorite leaf peep­ing spots. But did you know that anoth­er Min­neso­ta fall tra­di­tion was start­ed by a group of com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed man­u­fac­tur­ers in the St. Cloud area?

The Cen­tral Min­neso­ta Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (CMMA) is the orig­i­na­tor of the now statewide Tour of Man­u­fac­tur­ing. The annu­al Octo­ber tour is free to attend and allows man­u­fac­tur­ers and col­leges to show­case their facil­i­ties and pro­grams, and edu­cate poten­tial employ­ees about careers in manufacturing. 

Bell­mont Part­ners is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the asso­ci­a­tion to sup­port media rela­tions around CMMA’s man­u­fac­tur­ing tour in the St. Cloud region. We chat­ted with Becky Hauschild, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor for CMMA, about the state of the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try in Cen­tral Min­neso­ta and how to get involved in the Tour of Manufacturing. 

Tell us about your role with CMMA – what are you work­ing on these days?

I work on all aspects of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for CMMA includ­ing news releas­es, web­site, newslet­ters, social media, col­lat­er­al and ini­tia­tives like the Cen­tral Min­neso­ta Tour of Manufacturing. 

What’s the cur­rent state of the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try across Minnesota? 

Accord­ing to the Depart­ment of Employ­ment and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment (DEED), the Min­neso­ta man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try is a crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant and sol­id part of the state’s diverse econ­o­my, con­tribut­ing $57.2 bil­lion (12%) to the econ­o­my in 2023. There is also a big demand for peo­ple to work in man­u­fac­tur­ing posi­tions in Min­neso­ta, mak­ing it a strong career path choice. In fact, the state expects more than 93,000 job open­ings for man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­duc­tion posi­tions through 2032. 

How­ev­er, the indus­try isn’t with­out chal­lenges. A 2023 sur­vey of man­u­fac­tur­ing exec­u­tives con­duct­ed by Enter­prise Min­neso­ta, report­ed that the biggest chal­lenges that could put a damper on indus­try growth include attract­ing and retain­ing a qual­i­fied work­force (39%), infla­tion (32%) and increas­es in costs of mate­ri­als need­ed to make prod­ucts (31%).

What are some of the unique things about man­u­fac­tur­ing in Cen­tral Minnesota? 

Here in Cen­tral Min­neso­ta, we’re home to more than 1,100 man­u­fac­tur­ers who pro­vide over 41,700 jobs. The area is a pow­er­house in the goods-pro­duc­ing space and accounts for over 15% of all employ­ment in the region; plus, these jobs pro­vide aver­age annu­al wages of almost $66,000–that’s $11,000 high­er than typ­i­cal for the area. 

Tell us more about Min­neso­ta Man­u­fac­tur­ing Month – what is it and how can peo­ple get involved?

The Cen­tral Min­neso­ta Tour of Man­u­fac­tur­ing takes place dur­ing Man­u­fac­tur­ing Month in Octo­ber and is an excit­ing con­ver­gence of open doors, curios­i­ty, pride of place and pur­pose. It’s a time when future oppor­tu­ni­ties and career path­ways can become real­ized. The Tour of Man­u­fac­tur­ing serves to dis­pel incor­rect per­cep­tions of mod­ern man­u­fac­tur­ing from “dark, dirty, dan­ger­ous” to “clean, safe, and rich with tech­nol­o­gy and opportunity.” 

As orig­i­na­tors of the now statewide Tour of Man­u­fac­tur­ing, CMMA has cre­at­ed and enhanced events with man­u­fac­tur­ers, schools and com­mu­ni­ties by cel­e­brat­ing “who we are and what we make” in the dynam­ic and high-tech world of mod­ern man­u­fac­tur­ing. We also pro­duce a vir­tu­al mag­a­zine that serves as the cen­ter­piece of the event and includes infor­ma­tion on how to get involved.

We wel­come every­one inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about careers in man­u­fac­tur­ing, local man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties and our com­mu­ni­ty to join an in-per­son or vir­tu­al tour in the month of Octo­ber. You can find tour sched­ules and more details by click­ing here.

What are you brew­ing these days? 

Tea! My go-to drink is Kan­gen Ukon tea, con­tain­ing high-qual­i­ty cur­cum­in pro­vid­ing amaz­ing antioxidants! 

 

To learn more about how Bell­mont Part­ners sup­ports local man­u­fac­tur­ers with strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, media rela­tions, thought lead­er­ship and more, click here.