MILWAUKEE, WI — Five nonprofit organizations developing the future of the manufacturing and trades workforces were awarded $10,000 each at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers’ (AEM) 2019 Annual Conference as part of their Next Gen Grant Program. The winning organizations — from Missouri, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Kansas — focused on training for and encouraging careers in construction, manufacturing, technician service and business and financial skills development.

“We knew there were a lot of organizations encouraging and preparing youth for careers in manufacturing and the trades,” said AEM Workforce Development Director Julie Davis. “All the same, we were still surprised by the degree of diversity and innovation in these programs, and how they are tackling genuinely challenging workforce development issues in their communities.”

This grant, in part to celebrate AEM’s 125th Anniversary, was available to qualifying organizations. In order to have been considered for the AEM Next Gen Grant, organizations must have been a registered 501(c)(3) organization engaged in outreach toward a K-12 audience, engaged with an educational organization (e.g. school district, tech school, college, etc.) and nominated by someone from an AEM member company.

The winner for 2019 in the Midwest Contractor area is:

Transition to Career Program in Harper, Kansas: The Transition to Career Program (T2C) was nominated by Luke Thornton of Harper, Kansas-based agricultural, turf and landscape equipment manufacturer Harper Industries. T2C acts as a liaison between Harper County school districts and community businesses, provides speakers to area high schools to talk about careers, sets up job shadows and supports businesses who train student interns. T2C also hosts a Manufacturing Day and a Reality U financial literacy program once each year.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers aims to bring the equipment manufacturing industry together to develop and share best practices and tools to help recruit the workforce of tomorrow. AEM is the North America-based international trade group representing off-road equipment manufacturers and suppliers with more than 1,000 companies and more than 200 product lines in the agriculture and construction-related industry sectors worldwide. The equipment manufacturing industry in the United States supports 1.3 million jobs and contributes roughly $159 billion to the economy every year.