The Florida Regional Manufacturers Associations (RMAs) met last week at the 25th Annual Florida Sterling Conference. The conference is recognized as one of the best in the nation for practical learning in all areas of leadership and management systems. The RMA’s half day meeting and workshop was facilitate and hosted by FloridaMakes. FloridaMakes is a public private partnership supported by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) within the Department of Commerce with the mission to strengthen Florida’s manufacturing companies. The meeting focused on values and strengths that could be shared and leveraged amongst the associations to grow their organizations. Association directors, business advisors, and current officers worked and networked with one another together and with the FloridaMakes staff. Summaries of strengths and action items will be distributed and the RMA’s will use them for focus topics at their monthly conference calls.

FLATE works closely with the RMAs for community and educational outreach and provides

information about the manufacturing educational programs at High Schools and State/community colleges in their areas. This new and evolving community of Florida’s RMAs will be yet another integral part of Florida’s manufacturing ecosystem and therefore be linked tightly to our ET Forum, community of colleges offering programs that offer the ET degree. FloridaMakes and the Florida RMA’s are critical partners in FLATE’s sustainability plan as the key organizations to continue FLATE’s work to build a sustainable talent pipeline within Florida’s Educational system. This work includes outreach activities like student tours for MFG DAY, providing professional development for STEM educators and working with the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) on curriculum development, review and credential alignment to keep the school and college programs focused on preparing the manufacturing workforce.

Many of the workshop attendees stayed for an evening reception for the first ever Manufacturing Business Excellence Awards (MBE). This rigorous Award system starts with company nominations, which are open to all Florida’s manufacturers from anyone. All nominees are asked to submit a small portfolio of facts and figures. All companies that submits a complete portfolio have a screening call with a panel of judges and examiners. The 30-minute screening call leads to some being recommended for half day site visits. The sit visits narrow the field to the finalists in categories in company size groups. A single lead judge, Mr. Phil Centonze, organizes the calls and site visits and manages the volunteers for each call and each site visit. Eventually, over 40 judges and examiners worked on a three hour conference to review the results of the site visits to recommend the finalists and, ultimately the winners. FLATE was there to celebrate with many of their manufacturing partners from around the state that were finalists in one of the four 2017 categories. All are winners and will enjoy increased statewide exposure and feedback from the review process to continue to improve their businesses. I am pleased to share the winners with our FLATE readership!

Wow – As of today, May 3, we have just 156 days, or 23 weeks, or 5 months until Manufacturing Day/Month 2017! We still have the end of spring, all of summer and start the fall season. But MFG DAY is such a big event in Florida, we all know that now is the time to start planning for 2017 events. There are many MFG DAY/Month events in Florida, but the focus today, and for FLATE and its network of statewide partners has and will always be on student industry tours. In looking back post manufacturing day/month data, MFG DAY/Month in Florida has experienced exponential growth, both in the number of tours and statewide uptick in participating and enthusiasm to participate in this national event that celebrates the spirit of innovation and excellence in American manufacturing/manufacturers. Even last year, when Hurricane Matthew’s unscheduled visit to Florida last on October 2 closed nearly 80% of the schools in Florida, most tours were re-scheduled and more students and educators than ever experienced manufacturing first hand across Florida.

FLATE’s statewide MFG DAY/Month efforts began in 2013 when we developed the “recipe, a streamlined strategy and targeted techniques” that outlined an approach to organizing regional student tours for middle and high school students to high-tech manufacturing

facilities across the state. We had been doing industry tours for students for several years and had documented a significant impact on students. FLATE’s strategy for conducting Manufacturing Day tours on a single day was geared to amplify the effort, the effect, and the impact of industry tours on ALL participants, and also increase exposure and excitement in Manufacturing/STEM related opportunities in the community. FLATE started with the idea that we wanted LOTS of student tours on the first Friday of October (MFG DAY) and planned to schedule others on different days to accommodate companies and schools. We understand industry tours are challenging to set up, execute and assess. Looking at the challenges, we developed the techniques to address some of the most challenging obstacles. Here is the list we brainstormed:

• Working with local/regional school districts in getting student permission forms signed and turned in!

• Tour logistics (lots!) that included pairing schools with industry partners, funding and arranging buses/transportation with local/regional school districts, working with manufacturers to provide food for tour participants

• Providing debrief time for Q &A at manufacturers

• Getting manufacturers to sign up as industry hosts

• Devising a survey strategy to survey ALL MFG Day participants from students, educators, parents to industry tour hosts in capturing feedback and tabulating surveys for each of the regional manufacturing partners

• Getting kids interested

• Ensuring impact

• Continuing the conversation afterwards and all year round

• Engagement from all participants would help provide maximum impact. Additionally, our recipe included commitment from all participants and some supporters.

• School districts (or individual schools) would provide bus transportation

• Companies would host student tours, provide giveaways, and student lunches

• Professional organizations would support giveaways and student lunches

• FLATE would provide manufacturing education resources (lesson plans, tour tips, posters, etc)

• FLATE would develop, distribute, collect, aggregate, analyze, and distribute survey data

• FLATE would help coordinate and work with regional tour coordinators

• Help expose students to the workplace environment
• Helps students determine where they will best fit in the industry workforce
• Provides a “no obligation” period for employers and students to determine if the match is a good fit for both
• Offers help at low cost and for short, temporary period
• Supports the overall development of the next generation workforce

Thank You & Good Luck to Tina Brudnicki 

In addition to the Internship Panel and tour of PTEC, we will be honoring Tina Brudnicki as she steps down as current Chair of the FLATE IAC, a position she has held since 2010. Tina had already been supporting FLATE as an IAC committee member since our very first meeting in 2005. Our IAC chair also represents that committee on the National Visiting Committee which meets annually to provide a status report directly to the National Science Foundation (NSF) program that funds FLATE. Tina has worked tirelessly not only for FLATE, but for all local manufacturing organizations to build partnerships, outreach opportunities to the community, and promote recognition of students and others in the manufacturing community. She commits her time and energy to review applicants for scholarships, participate in program curriculum reviews, sits on and leads college program advisory committees, serves in officer posts in regional manufacturing organizations, and so much more. Please come to celebrate and honor Tina Brudnicki as she retires from our IAC and transitions her professional career to one that directly supporting others.

I now invite you to read the rest of the stories in this inaugural edition of the 2017 FLATE Focus. We also have a special highlight about the manufacturing programs at PTEC including the machining apprentice program which is posted under the Announcements section in this edition of the FLATE Focus. Do send us your thoughts by jotting down a few comments below each blog post, or connect with us through our social networking platforms on LinkedIn, Facebook, and @Made_InFlorida on Twitter. From all of us at FLATE, Happy and Prosperous 2017!

A common theme among the colleges was the good news that most ET enrollments are up,

despite many colleges reporting that overall college enrollment is down. The new programs at Pasco-Hernando, Palm Beach and Lake Sumter Colleges all report strong growth as they start their second year of ET classes. Mature programs at Hillsborough, St Petersburg College, Florida Gateway, Polk, Broward, Central Florida, Eastern Florida and Jacksonville also all report solid enrollment growth. Daytona State started it’s A.S. program just this fall offering the Digital Design and Modeling and Electronics specializations with good first semester enrollment.

Ted Norman, State Supervisor for the Manufacturing cluster reported on the status of the current, 2016, ET Curriculum framework review. He also requested help with outstanding review items. He related important information about changes in the Automation and Production Technology high school and PSAV programs that included; a new name and CIP number in 2018 (Advanced Manufacturing Technology); significant alterations to reflect modern industry needs, and guidelines for the annual presentation sequence of important topics.

Additional good news came from the ET Forum round up session about new faculty. Colleges

are appointing new full time faculty. This includes Sherri Dobbins and Ron Smith, both at HCC; Henry Cabot at Polk State; Jessica Jones at TCC, and recently hired to start a new program at North Florida Community College in January, Jorge Monreal. HCC, Polk, and TCC, joining the ranks of Eastern Florida and Jacksonville, now each have two full-time ET faculty. This is great news for the E.T. degree program. Congratulations to all and good luck to the five additional colleges who will be recruiting new faculty this year. We will share news about their programs and specializations with you later this fall.

One exciting adventure this fall is the fact that many colleges have ventured into offering hybrid and non-traditionally scheduled classes. Several colleges have added online sections of their courses, others have added optional home lab kits that the students either purchase or check out for a semester. Margi Lee reported that this “check-a-kit” process is working great for her rural students in the Lake City area. She is now running most of her program using this augmented learning process.

So what are the bottom line items for the colleges in the Florida College System that offer the

E.T. degree? The programs are growing, everyone reports strong industry partnerships and high industry satisfaction with graduates and training and the Florida Department of Education is developing improved high school program interactions with college A.S. programs. One final tidbit of great news. Additional resources are important but hard to come by. However, 2016 brought NSF ATE funding to North Florida, Lake Sumter, Seminole, and Florida Keys Colleges to support their new Engineering Technology degrees. A few colleges also have been awarded Department of Labor grants that will support manufacturing. Congratulations to these FLATE partners!

Don’t forget to check out the other parts of this month’s FLATE Focus which is heavily focused on ongoing Manufacturing Month activities which just kick started on October 7. The sTEm-at-Work Puzzle provides an opportunity for you to keep up with the concept of “lead” and “lag”. Send us your thoughts and comments at news@fl-ate.org. You can also jot down your thoughts on our social networking platforms on Facebook, LinkedIn, and on Twitter @Made_InFlorida #FLMFGMonth16 and #MFGday16.

FLATE tries to work diligently to be sure students are exposed to and learn about Florida’s

great manufacturing industry and the great careers pathways that they can follow right in their own community, or anywhere across the globe. But it typically takes more than one encounter or one experience. How do we extend and deepen the impact of a “Made in Florida” Industry tour, or summer robotic camp experience? How can we make relevant career and job information integral part of student learning? It’s not unexpected, but many teachers do not much about our industry sector, nor about the lucrative and exciting technical careers in manufacturing. A workshop can be a good beginning, providing a spark of interest, the beginning of a passion. But a workshop is not typically enough for teachers to bring the materials to life in a classroom. To provide more opportunities for teachers to teach each other and collaborate, FLATE is working to re-activate FAITE, (Florida Association of Industrial Technical Education), a division of FACTE, the Florida Association of Career and Technical Education (FACTE). FLATE, together with the Florida Department of Education Adult and Career Education (FLDOE) is providing foundational support for building a collaborative learning community. Such a “Community of Practice” have three simple components:

• a common goal (enhanced student learning)
• shared time (regular in person and/or virtual collaborative meeting spaces), and
• passion for the focus of the community

As an infant organization, FAITE’s goal will be just that, to build a Community of Practice that

will sustain itself with the passion of its members. Keeping it simple is important so that the community can focus on its passion and not on maintaining the infrastructure of the group itself. With regular opportunities for industrial technical educators to come together in person and virtually, FAITE aims to build capacity and confidence in participants, provide a platform to share promising practices, finding solutions, and voicing common concerns. Working in isolation can be tough, and can be frustrating and demoralizing in the world of frequent changes in policy and processes. Working together with our peers, sharing experiences in a collaborative environment is invigorating. FLATE strongly encourages educators to join us and the FL DOE to participate in FAITE. Reasons and incentives to join include, but are not limited to:

• Advance your career
• Advocate
• Get Legislative Updates
• Connect with Industry to
• Lead
• Learn
• Network
• Share Ideas
• Sharpen Skills

For more information on FAITE and/or technical and industrial education throughout Florida

visit the FAITE website, or contact Alan Lynch, president of FAITE at alan.lynch@ocps.net, and Dr. Marilyn Barger, Executive Director of FLATE at barger@fl-ate.org. I now invite you to enjoy the stories in the September issue of the FLATE Focus. Our primary efforts in the next month, or two will be focused on MFG Day/Month. We invite All across Florida to celebrate and participate in the various tours and events that have been planned starting October 7 through the end of the month. As always jot down your thoughts and comments under each of the stories in the blog, or contact us news@fl-ate.org and follow us across our social networking platforms on Facebook, connect with us on LinkedIn, or Tweet us @Made_InFlorida using the Hastag of the Month #FLMFGMonth16 and at #MFGday16.