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Friday, Oct. 7, was National Manufacturing Day, and Luverne’s Midwest Fire opened its doors for tours to celebrate the occasion and hopefully inspire students to choose careers in manufacturing.
Tyler LeBrun, manufacturing engineer/production manager at Midwest Fire, said it’s important to connect with young people while they’re still in high school and expose them to career opportunities in manufacturing.
“At Midwest Fire we have jobs in a clean working environment with a high degree of technology,” he said. “It’s not just working on an assembly line,”
The Luverne facility designs and manufactures fire trucks and equipment for fire departments across the Midwest and United States.
LeBrun said the process requires skilled labor and experience in all kinds of work from sales and marketing to machining and engineering.
He said he’s proud of the fact that Midwest Fire has been able to attract and retain quality employees.
“Other than the one we just hired, our newest employee has been here seven years,” LeBrun said.
In addition to community groups and interested individuals, high school students from Luverne and Hills-Beaver Creek toured the facility Friday.
Among other things, they learned manufacturing jobs start at around $60,000 per year and average $77,000 among all manufacturing workers in the United States.
Career opportunities in manufacturing can include welders, engineers, assemblers, machinists, electricians, computer programmers, fabricators, designers, operations managers, human resources, sales and marketing professionals and more.
H-BC students also toured Hills Stainless Steel in Luverne.
H-BC teacher Tom Sandager said the trip was a worthwhile experience.
“I think it showed the kids the wide range of possibilities in manufacturing and fabrication,” he said. “They got to see every step from marketing to design to fabrication.”