By: Tom Edmonds

Greetings to My NAETC Brothers and Sisters,

First, I’d like to welcome our two new apprentice diemakers – Pamela Stedman, and Chad Bishop. I’d also like to welcome our new maintenance JIT – Anthony Terry. All three started as of August 4th, and are currently going through orientation and health & safety training and will be hitting the floor soon.

We did have a recent OTS transfer that I forgot to welcome in my last article, so I’d like to welcome him as well. Welcome Michael Portner, fairly fresh from Bowling Green.

We have the 25th annual Old Newsboys Charity Golf Scramble coming up on September 6th. Please get your teams registered and paid for ASAP! This is a great outing and a great cause. There are raffles in the plant and will be some at the outing.

On a business note, we still have 19 Diemakers on temporary layoff who are scheduled to be called back September 22nd. The Patternmakers recently were called back from layoff and are busy as can be cutting and laying up die shoes and details to be cast. So, at a glance, it appears the work is trickling in. Design and Engineering are working a little bit of overtime at the moment trying to keep up with the workflow.

In the coming months, the Machine Shop should be ramping up with the Bench to follow. The Toolroom continues to kick butt, making dates and getting work out under budget.

Probably our biggest hurdle continues to be manpower. That problem is across all classifications. Hopefully, this “hiring freeze” ends by the start of the fourth quarter and we are ready to go on a “hiring spree!”

The Shop Committee continues to inquire about strategies to get people fast tracked into the building when able to do so. We are losing people to attrition, and I’m concerned that experience and knowledge are leaving without the opportunity to pass it on fully. The short-sightedness of the corporation when it comes to this is mind boggling.

Anyway, thank you for your time.