EDITORIAL: Industry emphasis deserved

Feb. 26--Not long ago, Heartland Foundation led a region-wide discussion about the best way to promote health improvements. It determined this objective required a focus not only on health, but also on education.

Education, the participants in this exercise learned, would translate into better-paying jobs, and these better jobs would lift household incomes, and greater incomes would give people the best chance to afford health insurance and to access needed health services.

This same dynamic is at work in promoting a better economic future for our community.

The first instinct might be to improve the roads, encourage development of new housing subdivisions and work to attract more of the retailers people look for in choosing a community. But these ideas -- all with some merit -- miss the bigger need. To make a better future, our community needs a laser focus on high-quality manufacturing jobs.

These are the kinds of skilled, well-paying jobs that take some raw or underdeveloped material, add value to it, and then produce a brand new income stream for the business and the community.

The St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce is tasked with multiple roles, but none ranks above promoting the interests and growth of our existing businesses -- particularly our manufacturers. This is why it is so important the chamber has chosen to try again to gather our manufacturers under one umbrella and promote their collective growth.

The chamber's new Manufacturers Council met two weeks ago for the first time and will meet again May 8. All local manufacturers are encouraged to participate, look for areas of common interest and explore opportunities to work together to improve the local manufacturing climate.

The formal topics -- such as legislative issues, city spending for infrastructure and job training initiatives -- may not matter to everyone, but can be of intense interest to our manufacturers. Information shared in these sessions could help these businesses prosper and potentially pave the way for attracting new employers.

Providing a regular forum for these conversations and for industry cooperation serves all of us, because we all benefit from a strong base of manufacturing jobs.

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