Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray is flanked by Scott Laprade, marketing manager at Genevieve Swiss Industries, and Scott Barbanel, the company’s controller, as he examines one of the company’s products during a tour of the Westfield business yesterday. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
WESTFIELD – Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray came to the city to visit a local company yesterday during a swing through western Massachusetts in support of the Patrick administration’s efforts to promote manufacturing in the Bay State.
Genevieve Swiss Industries, a distributor of precision tool holders for use on Swiss type CNC metal working machines located on Old Stage Road, was founded in 2002 in Southampton and moved to a facility near Barnes Airport in the Whip City six years ago.
The company originally was a distributor of machining tool holders selling products mostly made in Switzerland but, two years ago, was the recipient of a state grant which allowed them to make the transition to manufacturing so they could make their own products with a high degree of precision.
Jake Hagelstein, a CNC machinist at Genevieve Swiss Industries, shows Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray one of the company’s products during a tour of the Westfield business yesterday as Scott Barbanel, the company’s controller, looks on. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
Murray was greeted by the company’s controller, Scott Barbanel, in the absence of company owner Jim Gosselin, who explained that the impetus to manufacture their own products was due in part to the strength of the Swiss franc during the economic downturn which made products made there significantly more expensive for their American customers.
Barbanel said that the company used the state grant “to push us into manufacturing” and expand the company.
Murray toured the company’s manufacturing facility and said that the current state administration is “promoting manufacturing anywhere and everywhere we can.” He called manufacturing “exciting and dynamic fields (with) wages that can sustain families and build futures.”
Barbanel said that both his company, and his customers, find it “a struggle” to find qualified machinists and Murray said that projections show that, over the next ten years, there will be 100,000 vacancies in the field due to attrition “even if we don’t create another new job.”
Gateway Regional High School freshmen students, John Rooney, left, and Brendan MacKechnie, right, explain how to safely bend a piece of steel in a 55-ton press to Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray, background, during a tour of the school’s welding class yesterday. Murray plans to visit 64 vocational schools to promote workforce training, technology, engineering and math. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
He said that parents and educators have to “get educated about today’s modern manufacturing” which can offer opportunities for “meaningful careers” he said.
“Companies want quality and that’s something we can provide here in Massachusetts” he said and that starts with education.
With that in mind, Murray said that his next stop was planned for Gateway Regional High School which would be, he said, the 63rd vocational-technical high school program he has visited to encourage education for manufacturing fields.
At the regional high school in Huntington, Murray was met by the district’s superintendent of schools, David Hopson, the high school principal Jason Finnie, State Rep. Stephen Kulik (D-Worthington) who represents Huntington and several other towns in the district and Wendy Long who coordinates grants for the school and also serves as the community relations specialist.
The Gateway high school has vocational programs in welding and woodworking to prepare students for manufacturing careers and the school officials introduced Murray to the instructors in those classrooms who explained their programs.
Long said that Murray asked if the school had applied for a vocational education grant currently offered by the administration and said that she was able to explain that the grant the school is hoping for would fund a virtual welding program to help teach the students in the program he was visiting.
Murray was able to speak with some of the students working in the welding program who briefly explained their projects to give him a better idea of how they are being prepared to join the workforce.
“The welding students, especially, were honored to explain their projects to the lieutenant governor” Long said.
