Episode 18
The New Face of Working in Manufacturing
About BizCast Greater La Crosse
We bring you news from the business community. From startups to experienced problem solvers, you’ll get in-depth insight on the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Greater La Crosse. Our show is a collaboration between WIZMNews.com and BizNews Greater La Crosse ( GreaterLaCrosse.media ).
Full Transcript [ generated by AI]
2023-04-28 Mark G
[00:00:00] Mark Glendenning: we’ve also got people that are now executives that have no four year degree because work experience gimme common sense and work experience every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
[00:00:13] Vicki Markussen (2): Welcome to Biz Cast Greater Lacrosse, a weekly podcast from Biz News. We bring you news out of the business community. I am your host, Vicki Markson. In joining me today is Mark Glenn Denning.
[00:00:25] Vicki Markussen (2): You are the. Third generation owner of inland. Give some of the history.
[00:00:30] Mark Glendenning: What people around town would know is inland printing is actually inland packaging. A hundred percent of what we do is flexible packaging and or primary labels. Today we’ve got three factories in lacrosse plus a warehouse, and then we’ve got three additional factories outside of lacrosse.
[00:00:45] Mark Glendenning: One in Nina, Wisconsin, one in just outside of Milwaukee, and then one just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
[00:00:52] Mark Glendenning: It all began with my grandfather, John Glendenning, and so one day, 1944, he’s in lacrosse. Says, boy, I’d love to move my family here. Owner of his supplier says, well, John, you’re in luck.
[00:01:02] Mark Glendenning: Inland printing down the street is for sale. Grandpa walked down the street, bought the business, moved his family and that family included my six year old father check.
[00:01:11] Mark Glendenning: The business that grandpa bought in 1944 was exactly the same business in 1960.
[00:01:16] Mark Glendenning: Same technology same, process, same customers. And my dad, Wanted none of that.
[00:01:22] Mark Glendenning: My dad is really the one who built our vision, which is growth for customers, growth for our team members and growth for our communities. And so he took us into new technology he’s also the one that made the best decision, which was. Taking us into labels in the seventies.
[00:01:36] Mark Glendenning: We started to do more and more beer customers and a really more and more beverage customers.
[00:01:41] Mark Glendenning: And that’s really where we grew. And then I’d say in the nineties we started to pick up some food customers. And that really grew because as we really as the ocean that used to be, beer became more of a pond. We had to find a new ocean and that was food. And so then we went into food.
[00:01:56] Vicki Markussen (2): So let’s talk workforce.
[00:01:58] Vicki Markussen (2): You are a leader. I’ll just say cuz you’ve had different roles in Tuma, the Upper Mississippi Manufacturers’ Association. Right? Yep. And that group, so that’s a merger. So I used to work with Emma, which was just the metal manufacturers in Fran, which was the food manufacturers. Yeah. And so now you
[00:02:16] Mark Glendenning: have seven rivers.
[00:02:17] Mark Glendenning: Yeah. Right. When they did all the clusters. Yes. And interesting cuz we had a printing cluster. Outta that. You did. I didn’t even talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. It fell apart because other than the screen printers, there just wasn’t any, there was nothing that held us together and the Emma guys did hold together cuz they were all metal Yes.
[00:02:34] Mark Glendenning: Manufacturers. Yes. And so that was like the cluster that really stuck. Yep. And we actually used them Yep. To grow into Tuma. Mm-hmm. And, which is pretty cool, right? Yeah. So is that, Yes, that all because it’s a great idea. The idea to get like-minded people to band together, even though their products are extremely different is I think a really powerful tool.
[00:02:56] Mark Glendenning: And we talked earlier , I always equate it to a circus tent. I’m interested in a really big circus tent. I think we want to attract whether it’s, new people moving into the Cooley region and or certainly students get as many kids excited about all the different opportunities in manufacturing.
[00:03:14] Mark Glendenning: And the cool thing about manufacturing is you know, I’m a manufacturer, so I love it anyway, but we have so many different career paths in manufacturing and I don’t think people really understand that. So forget the factory floor. We have sales and marketing and finance and accounting and human resources and purchasing and IT, and engineering and, on and on, right?
[00:03:33] Mark Glendenning: Mm-hmm. So we’ve got all of these office careers. And we’re very lucky in, in our area to have, TC and UW L and Viterbo. And so that, that’s been really wonderful to be able to stock our office space. But then factory floor, TCS done a great job with their integrated technology center and all the things that they’ve been doing forever and ever.
[00:03:52] Mark Glendenning: They’re electromechanical for maintenance those types of things. But getting school kids,
[00:03:58] Mark Glendenning: Interested. You know, we, in, in the old days, I will tell you in with the amount of family farms we still have around here, we always had a ready made stock of kids who knew how, knew the sound of machinery, knew how to use machinery. Were not afraid of machinery. And typically a day of working at inland was a heck of a lot easier day of milking cows.
[00:04:19] Mark Glendenning: Yes. Right. With, without a doubt. And I think we’ve lost a bit of that. And so the important part. Of I think groups like Tuma is to connect back into schools and allow teachers, first teachers then students, and just as importantly, Parents to see what manufacturing is today, because I will tell you, the whole dirt dirty, dark, and dangerous still is there because, a lot of the kids haven’t seen modern manufacturing.
[00:04:48] Mark Glendenning: A lot of parents haven’t seen modern manufacturing, but a lot of parents worked in dirty, dark, dangerous. And I will tell you it’s just today. It’s anything. But, and as an example, our newest presses, you’re looking at a. What I would call a 60 ton locomotive that’s run by a set of computers.
[00:05:05] Mark Glendenning: And so you come in and you look at our operators and, not only do they have a couple of screens for their work instructions and SOPs and all those things but they’re also working with computer screens all over that machine to, to operate it. And so again, the amount of automation that’s come into play over the last 10 to 15 years is amazing.
[00:05:25] Mark Glendenning: And I will tell you the amount of automation the acceleration of automation into almost all manufacturing is truly breathtaking. And, the biggest issue is probably supply chain crunch, workforce crunch. They’re, everybody’s struggling with it. Yeah. And
[00:05:39] Vicki Markussen (2): you and I were. Saying that we feel like we’ve hit a tipping point. So the need has been there for a decade plus to get people to not pursue. In fact, I remember you and I having a conversation probably about eight years ago of how do we stop the four year college being an automatic that that’s the end goal?
[00:05:59] Vicki Markussen (2): How do we show these alternatives? And I think we’ve hit the tipping point and this’s my opinion, but you can share your own. I think we’ve hit the tipping point because you have such massive. School debt and the amount of money that you can make not going into debt is significant. And so we’ve hit a tipping point where it’s really, do I want the debt or do I go with less time or on the job training and make a significant career in life for my family?
[00:06:27] Vicki Markussen (2): Yeah,
[00:06:28] Mark Glendenning: future family. I totally agree. And there’s some really interesting statistics. In fact, I, there was a Harvard study done in 2018 that I’ve globbed onto because, a if it’s Harvard, then everybody believes it and or some people do. That, the amount of four year and beyond college degree Degreed jobs mm-hmm.
[00:06:45] Mark Glendenning: Would you need that college degree is about 33%. And it was maybe in the twenties in the sixties. So that’s an increase, but not nearly the increase of, sending 60, 60% of our high school seniors onto some kind of, four year school. Mm-hmm. And really the explosion has occurred in the need for some form of technical education beyond what they can get in high school.
[00:07:11] Mark Glendenning: And what’s cool and, and I’ll. Come back to this, is that and now some of that is actually being installed into high schools, which is really, really cool. Mm-hmm. So the amount of skilled or technical certified or degreed positions has grown from about. 10% in the sixties to about 60% now.
[00:07:32] Mark Glendenning: Wow. And so then the final point of the math is, so in 1960, 60% was unskilled. You could come right out of college or high school and or not even graduate from high school and get a job. And today that’s down to about 10%. Wow. Especially and again, this is based upon, what you would call a career job.
[00:07:52] Mark Glendenning: Mm-hmm. So I and I think that absolutely fits the profile that we look at when we look at what we need in our business. Sure. And quite honestly, we’re trying to, the goal the goal is to really eliminate the unskilled need and make sure that everything that we have is a really a great job.
[00:08:09] Mark Glendenning: Earlier we want, we think in terms of a professional job. Sure.
[00:08:13] Vicki Markussen (2): And the interesting thing about Tuma is it’s that collective need, right? So you have, obviously Inland has resources. You can try to make these inroads, but by showing mass and uniting, you can have a bigger impact. I know there’s.
[00:08:29] Vicki Markussen (2): Federal grants saying, oh, there’s a cluster of manufacturing in this area. Let’s provide some workforce training grants. Can you explain the benefits of Tuma?
[00:08:38] Mark Glendenning: Yeah. So that is a huge benefit. Grant givers have become much smarter around wanting to see folks working together.
[00:08:45] Mark Glendenning: They wanna see again, that bigger 10. So the larger tent, you’re able to show that, hey, this is, this has broad appeal. This isn’t just, a fraction of the potential workforce. This has broad appeal across a lot of the potential workforce that’s much more enticing to people that are giving, trying to give money to, things.
[00:09:01] Mark Glendenning: And, you and I talked earlier too about Wisconsin and the whole a c p academic and career planning and mm-hmm. That, that getting, really traction into high schools has been fun to see. And it got not back again. You and I talked a little bit about covid.
[00:09:14] Mark Glendenning: It certainly knocked a lot of things back, but it’s coming on hot and heavy. And then the whole idea of youth apprenticeship the whole idea of work experience, actual work experience in potential careers is really exciting. And I will tell you that unites the Touma members because we do tours.
[00:09:30] Mark Glendenning: We, all of us. We’ve got a couple of youth apprenticeships going right now and we’re working on actually creating our own in, in a couple of high-need areas as an example. And then, like I said, it, there’s no welding at inland, so if you want to be a welder, it’s great that I’ve got other partner manufacturers within Tuma who do welding.
[00:09:49] Mark Glendenning: Mm-hmm. And the other thing is, what a kid thinks he wants to do in eighth grade or ninth grade is welding. Maybe by the time he’s a senior, he would prefer to be a printer or doing a graphic artist or whatever. So that’s the other thing you want that big tent so that he can get a multiple experiences and yeah, I thi this isn’t quite what I thought it was gonna be.
[00:10:08] Mark Glendenning: I like this a lot better. And that’s why I think you want the big tent.
[00:10:11] Vicki Markussen (2): Yeah. And you want the flexibility for them to do that exploration before they spend $1 on higher education. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, higher education, but No, and,
[00:10:21] Mark Glendenning: and we’re gonna need it, right? Yeah. But we don’t need it to the extent that it’s grown and, the old days of four year degree got you a good job.
[00:10:27] Mark Glendenning: That was true 30, 40 years ago, but it cost a lot less too. And so today if you’re not getting a specific skill out of your four year degree quite honestly, you’re foolish to go to college. And it just act absolutely crazy. And quite honestly, we, you come to inland as let’s say you, let’s say you youth apprenticeship.
[00:10:46] Mark Glendenning: In high school with inland, and you show promise you’re gonna have a job with good money right outta high school. And then let’s say you show additional aptitude and maybe, hey, I started out on this machine and now I want to fix those machines. Mm-hmm. We’re going to send you to TC and you’re gonna get a two year degree on.
[00:11:02] Mark Glendenning: On our dime. And then you show competence in that career and all of a sudden you, hey, I wanna manage people. We’ve sent people to then get their two plus two and now get a management degree and we’re happy to do it. And we’ve also got people that are now executives that have no four year degree because work experience I, I will, gimme common sense and work experience every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
[00:11:25] Vicki Markussen (2): Yeah. So it’s been interesting over the last, I’d say 10 years to see federal programs, state programs, really embracing how do we develop that the acp, academic career. Academic plan. Academic career planning. Yep. Acp. Yeah. Yeah, so they have to have, they have to identify what career their abilities and their interests align with.
[00:11:43] Vicki Markussen (2): There’s now going to be some workforce requirements actually getting jobs as a graduation requirement. I’m, I know this because you told me this, so I don’t look like I’m the expert, but
[00:11:54] Mark Glendenning: you regurgitated that very well. I
[00:11:55] Vicki Markussen (2): did. Thank you. Thanks for the words. So the point though is that there’s actually a pathway that they understand where they’re headed and can get some applied knowledge, get their hands.
[00:12:07] Vicki Markussen (2): We get their brains engaged.
[00:12:09] Mark Glendenning: That’s scary. Do you know it’s actually called pathways. They’re career pathways. Yeah.
[00:12:13] Vicki Markussen (2): Yeah. I had kids on those career pathways, so Yeah, it’s, yeah, they were part of, that’s exactly,
[00:12:17] Mark Glendenning: yeah, it’s exactly it. And and the cool thing is there’s 11 already identified in Wisconsin.
[00:12:22] Mark Glendenning: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:23] Mark Glendenning: The cool thing about being a manufacturer is eight of those 11 pathways, we have those careers in manufacturing. Mm-hmm. So that’s really, really cool.
[00:12:31] This has been biz cast. Greater lacrosse with my guest, Mark Glenn Denning, owner of inland packaging. I’m your host, Vicki Marcus. And we’ll catch you next week.
