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69 | DOING BUSINESS IN CONNECTICUT | 2018 2018 | DOING BUSINESS IN CONNECTICUT | 69 Planting the Seed Susan Palisano and CCAT work to interest kids in future manufacturing careers By Cara Rosner When it comes to manufacturing in Connecticut, Susan Palisano has her sights set on the future. More specifically, she strives to ensure there are qualified candidates to meet the growing demand for manufacturing jobs – and starts planting the seeds in young people as early as fifth and sixth grade. Palisano is the director of education and workforce development at East Hartford-based Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology Inc. (CCAT). She has been at the nonprofit, which was founded in 2004, for more than 12 years and spearheads efforts to develop interest in, and awareness about, manufacturing careers among young people in the state. "We (CCAT) were always committed that the only way to engage students, in a different way than a typical classroom, is to put things in sort of a contextual backdrop," she said, noting that students need to see real-life manufacturing in action in order to know whether it's a career they want to pursue. "That kind of evolved into us really seeing a niche: a real lack in what was happening to introduce kids to opportunities in manufacturing." With Palisano at the helm of CCAT's workforce-development initiatives, a growing number of young students are learning what modern manufacturing jobs look like, how well many of them pay, and what viable career paths they hold. One of the organization's most successful efforts is the Young Manufacturers Academy, a summer program for students aged 11 to 15, which marks its 10th anniversary this summer. Last year, CCAT ran eight two-week sessions of the academy at various sites throughout the state, teaching students about safety on the job, how to use machinery, cutting-edge manufacturing techniques and other skills needed to land a job in the field. Participants also visited manufacturing businesses. In addition, CCAT ran a series of mini- academies in partnership with the Hartford Recreation Department. "It's a high-impact program," Palisano says of the Young Manufacturer's Academy, intended to get youths thinking seriously about their futures. "It really highlights the importance of introducing these kids to manufacturing early on." The summer program, which will continue, has been so well received that it recently led to a full-year program being established at nine schools in Bloomfield, Hartford and East Hartford. The summer and academic-year programs both receive funding from the state Department of Economic and Community Development through its Manufacturing Innovation Fund, and have become model programs used in other states, said Palisano. With a shortage of qualified candidates to fill manufacturing jobs in the state, she said, it's increasingly important to introduce students to manufacturing early. First approaching students once they are in high school, for instance, may be too late. "We've really begun thinking broadly about what that pipeline looks like, from fifth grade all the way through high school," she said. PROFILE Susan Palisano " " "That kind of evolved into us really seeing a niche: a real lack in what was happening to introduce kids to opportunities in manufacturing." - Susan Palisano