Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we build our youth for the future.” Extreme Tool & Engineering understands the importance of investing in our youth and that’s why we’re committed to familiarizing today’s youth with direct access to experience manufacturing industry.

Preparing anyone for a future in manufacturing ties back to our core values of being: Innovative, Responsive, Dedicated, Community Minded and Progressive. This driving force leads us to regularly participate in local middle and high school career days and even help set up a manufacturing business within a local high school, Northwoods Manufacturing.

Extreme takes great pride in being an instrumental part of creating Northwoods Manufacturing at Hurley High School, a full-service student run shop with a metals and woods division.  Our contributions include: teacher selection and training, curriculum development, and shop set up with equipment donations and installations. Also, we help coordinate donations from manufacturing vendors. Extreme is thrilled to be a devoted supporter of Northwoods Manufacturing and provide all students the opportunity to get hands on experience in manufacturing.

Uncovering the manufacturing opportunities to students is exciting for Extreme. Whenever a career day opportunity is presented you can bet we get it on our calendar. Hurley High School has hosted career days where we presented mold making and injection molding as careers in partnership with Ironwood Plastics, a local injection molder. We’ve also participated in a combined career fair coordinated with MichiganWorks!, at Bessemer and Wakefield/Marenisco High Schools, which was a booth-style event as well as a fair at Ironwood High School. In our booth, we offered the opportunity to speak with one of our Moldmaker Apprentices, Jake Zielinski.  He was able to provide a valuable perspective of someone their age working in the manufacturing industry.

Zielinski shares “coming into Extreme, I had zero experience in machining and mold making. It didn’t take me long to realize that there were several career avenues that one could gear themselves towards to make a rewarding career in a great industry. Whether it be in engineering, quality control, processing, or mold making, Extreme provides foundational knowledge to our youth with its state of the art tools and technology. It has been a privilege to work at Extreme as well as work with our local youth on discovering manufacturing.”

Knowledge is power, but it doesn’t have to be limited to the schools. Excitement is contagious! Build off industry enthusiasm! Getting involved in industry events, such as National Manufacturing Day (MFG Day) or Manufacturing Week within your state or city, helps to educate others about the industry’s career options and shows your support of the advancement of the industry. Getting today’s youth excited about a future in the industry will contribute to making manufacturing more successful in years to come.