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U.S. commerce secretary praises work at America Makes
YOUNGSTOWN
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said the work at facilities such as America Makes “is a critical component of the administration’s competitiveness agenda and our commitment to keeping the United States on the cutting edge of innovation, research and manufacturing.”
Pritzker toured America Makes, also known as the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, on Thursday, meeting with institute officials and local and national business executives.
Participants praised the institute in downtown Youngstown, particularly “the strength of this kind of public-private partnerships” that help both big and small businesses, Pritzker said.
“It’s good for the full spectrum of the private sector,” she said.
America Makes focuses on additive manufacturing, the process of joining materials to make objects from 3-D model data.
The businesses, Pritzker said, are getting a return on research-and-development investment from 8 to 1 to as much as 20 to 1.
“It strengthens the supply chain,” she said.
Pritzker added: “It’s necessary to keep America more competitive, and that kind of cooperation [among businesses and the public sector] is something we’re very, very excited about.”
President Barack Obama created the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation to strengthen the global competitiveness of America’s manufacturing sector and its workforce. The downtown Youngstown location was the first in the nation, opening in 2012.
The $70 million institute was launched by nine research universities, including Youngstown State University and Eastern Gateway Community College, 40 companies and 11 nonprofit organizations in the Cleveland-Youngstown-Pittsburgh Tech Belt.
Of the $70 million, $30 million came from the federal government and $40 million from regional participants.
In three years, 140 public- and private-sector partners have joined America Makes, Pritzker said.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, and former Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams, head of the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, also attended the event.
“I think we are revolutionizing manufacturing here in Youngstown, Ohio, for the entire country and the world,” Ryan said.
“While we don’t have the factories opening [in the Mahoning Valley] yet, we have partners operating in Youngstown that have the capacity to make an investment,” Ryan added.
Federal government officials understand that General Electric or Lockheed Martin aren’t going to have a “huge presence [in Youngstown], but what’s happening here is driving their expansion,” Williams said. “The small local companies are seeing economic growth” that is “part of the larger companies’ supply chain.”