Gov. Snyder Touts Program to Lure Young People Back to Michigan

TRAVERSE CITY, MI – Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announces a new jobs program here at the Management Briefing Seminars aimed at luring young people into the auto industry and skilled trades.

Now that automotive and related industries are coming back strong, Snyder wants Michigan to become not only a center for engineering, but also for skilled trades and Silicon Valley-related programming jobs.

“We should be the center for the development for intelligent vehicles, and we are going to stay focused on that. We have more mechanical engineers than any other state, but we can do more.”

Snyder says he wants Michigan to be No.1 in the country, particularly in the skilled trades and technology areas such as robotics and 3-D printing.

However, he acknowledges Michigan and the auto sector have gone through tough times, and that has scared many young people away from the state and its biggest industry. In many cases, parents who once encouraged their children to follow them into the auto industry now discourage them.

“This is the time to get back in the industry, because the industry is making a tremendous comeback and it is at the forefront of more emerging technologies compared with any other product in the world,” Snyder says.

“In many respects we have a marketing issue,” he adds. “When you go through tough times, people are hesitant to go into the industry. We need people to be louder and prouder and proactive to get young people into this field.”

To further this effort, Snyder announces a new Michigan Economic Development Corp. website, werunonbrainpower.org that promotes careers in the auto industry. The website will feature short day-in-the-life videos of people talking about the exciting things they are doing in the automotive and related fields.

Snyder asks attendees to partner with MEDC to help develop content for the website and provide employees to talk about their jobs. The website currently features videos on Michigan’s new Mcity automated, connected-vehicle test site in Ann Arbor and Lawrence Technological University, as well as information on supplier Faurecia.

“We need to get the word out, because you (the auto industry) are the most exciting place to be in terms of careers today, but we have to be more proactive about telling people,” the governor says.

“Let’s be proud of that and let’s figure out how to get more people fired up to say this is where you need to be.”

[email protected]