MOSES LAKE — Association of Washington Business President Kris Johnson said the Manufacturing Week tour that stopped in Moses Lake Thursday is designed to demonstrate that the manufacturing sector is alive and well. Johnson said Grant County is an example.

“There are 93 companies in Grant County, 4,300 women and men who go to work for them every day,” Johnson said.

The Moses Lake stop was part of a statewide tour that visited manufacturers big and small, as well as schools and colleges working on innovative programs for workforce development. Tour participants visited the Moses Lake School District’s Vanguard Academy, the Workforce Education Center at Big Bend Community College, the Port of Moses Lake and the Terex/Genie facility.

As the group started its tour of Vanguard Academy, Johnson said workforce development is a crucial component of maintaining a strong manufacturing sector.

“Every manufacturer we’ve visited on this tour is looking for workers,” he said. “So this connection of hands-based, skill-based education experiences in the pathway forward to a career is really important. The average wage for these jobs in Grant County is north of $60,000. These are great career opportunities.”

Vanguard Academy principal Kelly Cutter said the school opened Aug. 31 and has 387 freshmen and sophomores. Junior and senior classes will be added over the next two years.

Cutter said its curriculum is what she called project-based learning, one of the few of its kind in the nation - maybe the only one.

“Not a lot of schools have done project-based learning and mastery-based learning at this size,” Cutter said.

Part of project-based learning is to encourage students to explore areas they’re interested in, she said. Teacher Amador Castro, who led the tour, said the school’s grading system requires students to prove they know the material at one level before they move on to the next.

The group finished their visit in Grant County at Genie, whose parent company is Terex. Clad in bright vests, safety glasses, headphones and steel toe shoe covers, participants received a tour of the facility where they got to see the process to build aerial lifts from start to finish.

John Sanders, Operations Manager, explained that each sector was responsible for a different step in the process, from welding to painting to testing.

Sanders said that the cost of supplies has gone up about 30% in response to a question by a group member.

There are a number of different types of lifts that Genie manufactures, one of them being an

extra capacity lift called the SX-135 XC.

According to Genie’s website, the SX-135 XC telescopic boom delivers 660 pound/1,000 pound dual platform capacity with a range of motion to lift heavy loads in challenging job site applications, the website states.

Johnson said the goal of the tour is not only to highlight current businesses but also to encourage business leaders and state officials to start thinking about the future.

“We know how important things like hydroelectric power have been for this economy, the whole state’s economy. One of the great reasons why manufacturing is so alive in Grant County is because of our low-cost energy,” said Johnson.

“Energy has been a game changer for the mid-Columbia and for Central Washington. If we’re going to double manufacturing, which is the state's goal, we need to preserve our energy leadership. We’re going to need every ounce of clean energy and every ounce of hydroelectric energy we have today and a whole bunch more going forward to power our economy.”

State officials have established the goal of doubling the size of the state’s manufacturing by 2031, he said.

“If we’re going to realize our goal, we’ve got to solve the people challenge, we’ve got to solve the power challenge, we’ve got to solve the tax and regulatory challenge, and we’ve got to solve the permitting challenge,” he said.

“We make really cool things here. They go sometimes across the state, sometimes they go across the globe, but in the case of this tour we found two companies that are sending their products to Mars,” he said. “And by the way, the two companies that are going to Mars, one of them is an eight-person company. So size doesn’t as much matter as your product does, your process does and your people do.”

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