Published in The Salt Lake Tribune on December 6, 2016
No longer “dark, dirty and dangerous,” Utah manufacturing is a business increasingly driven by knowledge and technology, say those who want to help it grow.
After months of preparation, the University of Utah’s College of Engineering launched a new expertise-sharing center Tuesday to assist the state’s more than 3,000 manufacturing companies boost their productivity and expand jobs.
With 125,000-plus Utahns employed in the sector — 9.1 percent of the state’s workforce — the U.’s new Manufacturing Extension Partnership, or MEP, has dramatic potential for improving the state’s economy, officials said.
“I see a lot of promise in what is happening here,” said Carroll Thomas, director of a national network of state MEPs with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, an arm of the U.S. Commerce Department.