Work in Progress The Manufacturing Comeback Episode 3 Recruiting women and veterans
Work in Progress The Manufacturing Comeback Episode 3 Recruiting women and veterans

Recruiting women and veterans for thousands of jobs created by the manufacturing comeback

A conversation with manufacturers about their efforts to recruit, train, and retain women and veterans
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In the final episode of the Work in Progress podcast series The Manufacturing Comeback, we look at how employers are recruiting and training veterans and women to fill jobs in the manufacturing industry.

Employers Anticipate a Surge in Hiring in Manufacturing

On my recent trip to Minneapolis for The Manufacturing Institute‘s Workforce Summit 2025, employers told me that there are a lot of new plants being built around the country, bringing jobs back to the states.

The work is more high-tech than in decades past, and employers are now competing with other industries that are also demanding skilled talent.

By one estimate from MI and Deloitte, manufacturing will need 3.8 million workers over the next eight years.

To meet that demand, they are actively recruiting military veterans and women, the latter being an underrepresented group in manufacturing.

Heroes MAKE America, Women MAKE America

In the podcast, you’ll learn about two Manufacturing Institute initiatives – Heroes MAKE America and Women MAKE America.

You’ll hear how Heroes MAKE America is working with the U.S. Department of Defense to prepare transitioning service members and their spouses for jobs in manufacturing. Once trained, the program is also making connections to employers who are hiring.

The Women MAKE America initiative is working to add more women to the industry. Right now, just about 30% of all manufacturing employees are women. You’ll hear how they are trying to significantly grow that number.

The Manufacturing Comeback

The recent uptick in manufacturing construction and hiring is fueled by the infusion of federal funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act enacted in 2021, the CHIPS and Science Act enacted in 2022, and private funding.

To better understand how the manufacturing comeback is reshaping the workforce, I speak with Gardner Carrick, chief program officer for The Manufacturing Institute, which is helping employers figure out how to build a strong talent pipeline. .

This three-part podcast series is a robust conversation about an industry that is once again looking for workers.

You can listen to the entire conversation here, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find our podcasts on the Work in Progress YouTube channel.

This series is made possible through support from The Manufacturing Institute. As a nonprofit journalism organization, WorkingNation partners and collaborates with outside organizations to make possible our mission of telling stories about solutions to today’s workforce issues. All editorial decisions on this series were made independently of our supporter.

Episode 341: The Manufacturing Comeback: Recruiting, Training, and Retaining Women and Veterans
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Transcript: Download the transcript for this episode here
Work in Progress Podcast: Catch up on previous episodes here

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.