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12 n e w h a v e n B I Z | A p r i l 2 0 2 3 | n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m By Liese Klein W hen she joined the family business 20 years ago, Mar- ietta Lee saw few women on the shop floor or in the executive ranks at the third-generation manu- facturing firm, e Lee Company in Westbrook. A maker of fluid control technology for the aerospace industry, e Lee Company at the time offered few ben- efits that were helpful to female work- ers and little in the way of mentorship or networking for women. "When I started at our company, from a different industry altogether, and joined a manufacturing company, there were no women, really, in lead- ership roles," Lee said. She quickly realized the core of the issue: "When I started, I was a young mother. And certainly, child care was challenging." Now, Lee has helped her family company offer more benefits and support to women, and the female workforce has grown at all levels. In recent years, e Lee Company named its first female chief engineer and first woman manufacturing manager. Lee herself currently holds the posi- tions of chief operating officer, general counsel and corporate secretary, in addition to serving on the boards of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA) and Yale New Haven Hospital. "ere is a huge population of po- tential workers out there," Lee said of women who could help manufacturers fill open positions. "If they were able to get good, reliable, affordable child care, they would consider entering the workforce. But because that's hard to find, a lot of these mothers stay home because it's beneficial and makes the most sense for their families." Affordable and reliable child care is one of the main obstacles to more women entering the manufacturing workforce, according to a new report from the national Manufacturing Institute and Colonial Life. e situation is urgent: Bringing more women into manufacturing could help solve the sector's ongoing workforce issues, according to Carolyn Lee, president and executive direc- tor of the Manufacturing Institute, a partner of the National Association of Manufacturers. "Women are actually our biggest talent opportunity for manufactur- ing, because only about 29% of our workforce is made up of women," Carolyn Lee said. "If we could close the gender gap by 6% by 2030, we would add 100,000 new women to the sector, which would fill all the open jobs." e manufacturing sector has proven it can bring more women into the industry by improving childcare options and job flexibility, in addition to promoting female role models, the report said. "What we've learned over the years, through research and programs aimed at bringing women in and helping retain them, is that there are things that companies can do to attract and retain women," Lee said. Support system investment In Connecticut, manufacturers benefit from a high proportion of women in lead- ership, in part due to the prev- alence of small and midsize family business- es like e Lee Company, said CBIA President and CEO Chris DiPentima. e state is also set to spend more than $100 mil- lion in initiatives to attract and retain women into the workforce, including investments to stabilize the childcare industry, which faced major disrup- tion during the pandemic. "I think over the past year, we've also done a really good job investing in the support system needed to get more women involved in manufacturing and really get more women involved in the workforce in general," DiPentima said. "I think it's a huge opportunity for Connecticut to address the manu- facturing workforce shortage that we have today." DiPentima points to a 2022 CBIA report that found that 87% of manu- facturers reported difficulty finding and/or retaining employees, with 44% saying the lack of skilled applicants is the greatest obstacle to growth. e state has averaged almost 10,000 job openings in manufacturing for the last several years, with fewer than 3,000 new workers entering the sector annually. "We're well short of where we need it to be to meet the demand," DiPentima said. "Where are we going to get them? e impact of getting more women into the manufacturing sector … really resonated with us," he said of the na- tional report. Highlighting women leaders "ere is a tremendous opportunity for us here in Connecticut, to tap into the talent that we already have in man- ufacturing," said Paul Lavoie, the state's chief manufacturing officer, citing the many female executives at Connecticut PHOTOS | CONTRIBUTED Manufacturers seek to recruit women to meet workforce needs Gender Gap Marietta Lee, chief operating officer, general counsel and corporate secretary at family business The Lee Company, says companies can do more to attract more women into the manufacturing workforce. Chris DiPentima

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