Manufacturing has an image problem. Think manufacturing and you’re likely to conjure up scenes of abandoned factories in dying Rust Belt cities; laid-off workers; filthy, backbreaking labor in polluted environments; and an exodus of high-paying jobs to low-wage countries like China.

Washington’s reality, however, is very different. Well-known manufacturers like Boeing, Paccar, Nucor Steel and Genie Industries are thriving. Numerous lesser-known but equally vital smaller manufacturers supply the larger firms. Jobs are so plentiful in manufacturing that many positions go unfilled.

At approximately 23 percent of Washington’s economy, according to the Northwest Industrial Survey, manufacturing is anything but dead and dying.

Capital goods
The secret of Washington’s success is that, with few exceptions, it doesn’t manufacture retail goods.

“If you are in the United States of America and you make a low-cost retail item that can be sold at Wal-Mart or any other retail outlet, you’re either out of business already, or you’re facing an enormous challenge with how to stay in business, or you have a fabulous niche product,” said Dave Gering, executive director of the Manufacturing Industrial Council of Seattle, which publishes the Northwest Industrial Survey.

In contrast, Washington’s manufacturers specialize in capital goods — industrial equipment sold to other companies, instead of the general public, by way of retailers.

Capital goods manufacturing has deep roots in Washington. Seattle, circa 1900 — remote as it was from the major U.S. markets — was not a practical location for manufacturing retail goods like shirts or shoes.

Capital goods production, however, was viable, which led to the rise of a whole slew of manufacturers that still contribute to Washington’s economy today.

Seattle Steel, now Nucor Steel Seattle, got its start building railroad cars. The Pigott family, who also started Seattle Steel, began building trucks at the Seattle Car Company. Their company is now known as Paccar, the third-largest heavy-duty truck manufacturer in the world. Bill Boeing came to Seattle to tap into the talent pool of a great shipbuilding center and put it to use in building airplanes utilizing products from Washington’s already enormous timber industry.

Geography also drives Washington’s importance as a manufacturing center. “We have a captive market in Alaska: 640,000 people who depend on companies in Washington for almost all of their needs, especially their industrial needs,” said Gering. “All of their equipment and a surprising amount of their food are made and processed in Washington. Ninety-eight percent of it is shipped from Washington to Alaska by water.”

Surprisingly, however, despite the success of Washington’s manufacturers, the number of people employed in the sector has decreased almost every year since 1960. Nevertheless, this decline does not apply to each segment of the manufacturing sector, nor does it reflect on the health of manufacturers in general.

“It seems like a contradiction, but we are actually producing more goods now than we were before when we had more workers,” said John Vicklund, president of Washington Manufacturing Services. “In many cases this is because we’re able to make people more productive through the use of superior technology. This doesn’t mean people are working harder. People are working smarter and not having to work as hard physically now because they’re using their brains and technology to do what people used to do manually.”

Gone are the old clichés of the sweatshop and grunt labor. Today’s manufacturing sector is a place where skilled labor is a must, not an option. As a result, wages are very good in Washington’s major manufacturing industries, including aerospace, metal machining, food processing, high-tech assembly, electronic manufacturing, and the assembly of biomedical devices.

From composites to wood products
While giants like Boeing get most of the attention, small companies that produce a wide range of goods, including components for use by the larger firms, make up much of Washington’s manufacturing sector.

Janicki Industries, a family-owned business in Sedro-Woolley with more than 400 employees, is typical of this quiet sector. This $50 million-a-year company is growing so rapidly that it’s building a new, larger facility — including two new five-axis milling machines that will be among the world’s largest — in nearby Hamilton.

“We make high-tech composite tools for the marine, transportation, and now the energy industries,” said Danyel Lyons, a Janicki spokesperson. “We do work for Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman — [many of] the major aerospace companies around the world, and also the large marine manufacturing companies like Bayliner and BMW.”

One of Janicki’s most interesting projects is creating composite fabricators for NASA’s Orion project, an Apollo-style next-generation spacecraft that will replace NASA’s current space shuttle fleet sometime after 2010.

In addition, Janicki is moving into the alternative energy market by constructing molds for 150-foot long wind turbine blades for an undisclosed customer. With rising energy costs, wind power is likely to become a major area of growth for the company.

Another important component of Washington’s manufacturing sector is the wood products industry.

“While the construction boom was going, we had dramatic growth in wood products, which literally went unreported in the news media,” said Gering.

Although troubles in the housing market have slowed down construction in Washington, the state’s wood products industry is still in full swing.

One wood products firm, Sierra Pacific Industries — a third-generation, family-owned and operated company — has Washington operations that employ nearly 600 crewmembers. The company operated two state-of-the-art dimensional lumber mills in Aberdeen and Burlington in addition to a stud mill in Centralia. Sierra Pacific’s products include dimensional lumber, molding and millwork, remanufacturing, studs, bark for landscaping and custom wood windows.

Unfortunately for Sierra Pacific and other manufacturers, while there is plenty of work to go around, finding new employees is often difficult.

“We face the challenge of finding entry-level workers who are interested in manufacturing positions as well as skilled workers such as millwrights and electricians, many of [whom] are retiring from their trades,” said Sierra Pacific spokesperson Sheri Nelson. “With limited manufacturing training programs available for the workforce and less exposure on the secondary education level to introduce students to welding, woodworking, mechanics, etc., the incoming workforce lacks the knowledge of opportunities that lie within the industry.”

Finding workers
Sierra Pacific’s problems finding new workers are common throughout much of the manufacturing sector.

“Baby Boomers are retiring in the next five to 10 years in a lot of industries, impacting the workforce because up to third — perhaps more in some industries — of all skilled workers who’ve been there 25 to 30 years will be retiring,” said Vicklund.

Complicating matters is the fact that the younger generation is not sufficient in numbers to replace the workers who are retiring. In turn, companies work around the growing labor shortage by offering employees overtime or, in some cases, outsourcing their work. These, however, are stopgap measures, not long-term solutions.

“Ideally, we need to educate the public on the opportunities that lie within our industry and recruit the support of our educators to plant seeds of interest in the students for a career in manufacturing,” said Nelson. “In addition, we need to encourage students to experience hands-on classes such as wood shop or mechanics whenever and wherever available. As an industry, we need to open our doors to this process and visit the classrooms, promote the industry at career fairs, talk to parents, counselors and engage students in the business whenever possible.”

Dream It, Do It
Manufacturers are rising to the challenge of tooting their own horn and promoting manufacturing careers to the young people the sector needs. Four years ago, the National Association of Manufacturers created a manufacturing career awareness campaign called Dream It, Do It, involving a Web site to connect students with training programs, career information and employment opportunities.

Manufacturers must continually fight the misperception that their jobs are low-skill and low pay.

Increasingly, Washington’s education system is getting the message that there is a real need for training people in manufacturing skills. Edmonds Community College now offers a highly reputable training program for aerospace and other manufacturing workers. Recently, the college applied for a multi-million dollar grant to build a research building for the program.

The state’s education system, especially at the secondary level, still has a long way to go in getting the message out about manufacturing’s opportunities.

“In the Seattle area — much less so in some other parts of the state — the education system fails to orient kids to this kind of work and the career opportunities, which are lively and healthy with fairly easy entry-level pathways,” said Gering. “It’s a tragedy.”

A bright future
If Washington’s manufacturers can attract new workers to replace the retiring Baby Boomers, the sector’s future looks bright.

“Boeing is in a spectacular position so long as the world economy doesn’t fall off,” Gering said. “Boat building is dramatically growing in this state, in terms of the high-end luxury yachts and the most basic work boats, both of which we make in this state. And the metal trades — the people who make metal machines, metal parts, gizmos — are on a remarkable growth run.”

“The thing I’m really excited about is that we have a lot of very specific niche-type industries,” said Tom McLaughlin, executive director of the Center for Advanced Managing Practices. “These industries have very specific capabilities in areas like making equipment to support alternative energy, which is growing tremendously. We need to get the word out that there are real opportunities out there.”

As in the past, geography is playing a major role in creating opportunity for Washington’s manufacturers. While neither as isolated nor as captive a market as Alaska, the Canadian province of Alberta is developing a strong economic connection with Washington.

“Energy development in Alberta is now a $29 billion investment,” said Gering. “It’s probably the biggest single economic development initiative in North America, and Sea-Tac International Airport — the closest major U.S. airport — is only 90 minutes away from Edmonton International Airport, which serves as the hub for this activity.”

The metal trades, which make two-thirds of the products needed in Alberta, are the biggest beneficiaries of the energy boom up north. Nevertheless, demand for Washington’s wood products is growing and is expected to continue growing as the development in Alberta expands.

The question remains: Will Washington’s manufacturers be able to meet that demand and claim the bounty that should rightly be its own?

“We will only get the benefits from manufacturing for our state if we can get the workers we need,” Gering said.