Meghan Shea-Keenan Workforce Development Program Analyst SME
www.sme.org
FOCUS ON THE
WorkForce O
ct. 4 was the second annual National Manufactur- ing Day. SME had promoted the national event to all our members and encouraged them not only to participate but to hold events and tours of their own on this day. I looked at the MfgDay website at their events listing for Michigan to see what was available.
I found a tour and presentation at Emergent BioSolu- tions in Lansing. I decided to bring some students with me to get their feedback on the event as well. I took three of my cousins, all with different perspectives. One is a 22-year-old economics major interested in business. Another is a 19-year- old bio-chem major, unsure of what the future will be, thinking about medicine or laboratory research. And the other is a 17-year-old high school senior without a defined career path
MfgDay Success: Inside Anthrax Vaccine Lab
importance walking though the building. The day began with a presentation about the company and its history. Even though Emergent was founded in 1998, this manufacturing plant be- gan in 1937 and was originally a state of Michigan laboratory until 1998 when it was turned over to the private sector. Next, there was a presentation on anthrax itself. We learned about the disease and the history of using anthrax as a biological weapon. I thought this was a very effective combi- nation of presentations. Besides my cousins, there were three student groups there, one from a Lansing high school, one from Lansing Community College and one from MSU. During the presentation, I began thinking about the last anthrax-related threat I could remember. It was when anthrax was being mailed in 2001. Although this wasn’t
“This was a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be.”
This, of course, was just the thought of one student from one event. There were 832 events listed on
www.mfgday.com.
with interest in communications, most likely advertising. I was very interested in getting their reactions to the information that would be presented.
What we knew about this company before arriving was that they produce the anthrax vaccine, BioThrax, for the US govern- ment. As we were walking up to the building, with terrifying se- curity fences that would surely gore you were you to try to climb them, my cousins decided that we could be entering the lab of a comic book villain with the name “Emergent BioSolutions.” This increased the excitement for the day. As we went through security, giving our photo IDs in exchange for a visitor’s badge, there was instantly a feeling of
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that long ago, it was long enough that the students in atten- dance wouldn’t remember. So learning about the worldwide threat of anthrax gave a real purpose to what was being manufactured there.
The presentations were followed by the Lansing Mayor standing up and welcoming us to National Manufacturing Day. He spoke about manufacturing and its importance to Lansing, Michigan, and the country. We were broken up into smaller groups of ten for the tour portion of the day. This was nice because it was easier for the group to ask questions along the way. We got to enter a few buildings, and had to use the safety goggles and ear protec-
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