Strengthening the Employers Who Power Our Region
Manufacturing is a major driver of northeast Indiana’s economy, accounting for nearly one-quarter of all jobs across the region—and more than 40% in some manufacturing-intensive counties—all well above national averages.
Manufacturers provide high-quality jobs, drive innovation, and anchor community prosperity. As technology, work, and global competition evolve, the region's long-term strength depends on manufacturers' ability to adapt and lead. That is why Empowering Manufacturing is one of the Don Wood Foundation’s three core Levers for Change.
Empowering Manufacturing focuses on strengthening employers themselves—supporting their ability to adopt new technologies, develop their workforce, and collaborate across systems. When the manufacturing ecosystem is positioned to innovate and grow, the benefits extend beyond individual firms to workers, learners, and the broader regional economy.
Why Empowering Manufacturers Matters
Manufacturers are often best positioned to identify emerging technologies and anticipate future skill needs for their own firms. Yet even the most forward-thinking employers face real barriers to change. Integrating advanced technologies, keeping pace with rapid innovation, and building a future-ready workforce all require significant time, resources, and coordination. Too often, these efforts happen in isolation—firm by firm—limiting scale and impact.
The Empowering Manufacturing lever recognizes that regional competitiveness depends on collective solutions rather than isolated ones. By investing in shared infrastructure, aligned partnerships, and industry-led collaboration, the Foundation aims to help manufacturers move beyond individual adoption toward systems-level change that supports sustained innovation and learning across the region.
Northeast Indiana’s workforce dynamics make this an urgent and practical focus. With roughly 35% of the region’s workforce ages 45–64 and 6% already age 65 or older, the manufacturing talent challenge is fundamentally an incumbent-worker challenge. Youth pipelines matter, but they cannot replace the scale and pace of upcoming retirements or the pace of technological change.
The most immediate workforce strategy is to invest in incumbent workers. Experienced workers bring more than technical know-how: they carry specific knowledge, reinforce cultural norms around safety, quality, and productivity, and frequently mentor early-career colleagues. They are also the workers most likely to experience the day-to-day impacts of automation, AI, and process change while still on the job. By focusing on extending careers, increasing productivity, and aligning skills with advanced manufacturing technologies, our region builds a stable foundation that supports the next generation of talent.