Manufacturing camp provides new opportunities for an overlooked population

At VPI in Appleton, Wis., NBT summer campers organize laminates so that they can be fed down the conveyor to the riveting machine.

Editor’s Note: The Fabricators and Manufacturers Association’s foundation, Nuts, Bolts & Thingamajigs (NBT), supports summer camps that aim to introduce young people to the skills and tools normally associated with manufacturing careers to spark an interest that they might not have realized existed. To provide an idea of what’s happening at some of these summer camps, The Fabricator sent out its editors to take a closer look.

The Kensington Drive location of VPI in Appleton, Wis., looks like many other manufacturing facilities throughout the Fox Valley, but something completely different is going on inside.

You’ll find many of the familiar elements of a shop floor: workers assembled around production lines, lift trucks moving product, and pallets of finished goods waiting to be shipped or moved to the warehouse. The people, however, are what stand out. They’re super friendly and typically engrossed in their tasks, with supervisors working close by. They also likely live with some sort of disability that has not allowed them to be exposed to all of the life experiences that prepare a young person for a job and the other factors associated with being a young adult. They need a little extra support.

That’s what VPI offers. Established in 1965 when an executive at Kimberly-Clark Corp. recognized a need for co-packing services and a possible career path for his own special needs son and others like him, VPI works to help those with disabilities or the disadvantaged “develop their optimum level of social, vocational, and economic independence in the community,” as the organization’s mission says. For a significant portion of the 1,600 people VPI serves, this means introducing people to the world of working on the shop floor and teaching them the soft skills associated with working as part of a successful team.

“We work very hard at figuring out what these people want to do. We place people in the community and place people here,” said Tim Riebau, VPI president and CEO. “This camp in particular is just great in introducing them to manufacturing jobs.”

Last year, VPI hosted its first camp with a small group of students, mostly between the ages of 16 and 21. This year, the group grew to more than 20.

“I think it’s way better this year in that more campers are getting to see more equipment. And we have better tours,” Riebau said. One of those tours was to visit Pierce Manufacturing, a nearby company that specializes in building custom fire-fighting equipment.

Over the four weeks the young people are at VPI, they actually spend time on an active shop floor. A visit to the facility in late summer revealed a hive of activity helping a major retailer get ready for the holidays. Workers took board games and filled Christmas-themed end caps made from corrugated fiberboard, which were then wrapped and prepared for delivery to a discount retailer somewhere in the U.S.

Most of the NBT summer campers worked in the back of the 400,000-sq.-ft. production area, where production lines were in operation. Some worked on a line that cut laminates to size and added rivets, so that they could be used as the bracing for packaging. Others assisted in using those laminates to construct packaging for a medical device manufacturer, ensuring the packaging met customer specification and then breaking it down into a kit for shipment to the manufacturer. Another camper assisted with running a machine that took a coil of paper and created two smaller coils of specialized packaging materials.

“From the FMA standpoint, when our members talk to us, their No. 1 issue they have is human resources,” said Ed Dernulc, NBT’s director. “So what we’re saying with this program and this inclusion camp is let’s think outside of the box. Let’s not exclude any part of society because we want to help you with your No. 1 concern.”

An NBT summer camper at VPI watches how packaging is constructed for a medical device.

Riebau said that many of the NBT campers from last year are actually working with new campers this year.

“At the end of last year’s camp, one of the parents said, ‘Would you hire any of these kids?’ And we said, ‘We’d hire every one of them,’” Riebau said. “I think we’d probably say the same thing this year.”

The VPI program also extends beyond the two Appleton-area facilities. The organization, for example, has set up a production line at a food manufacturer in Manawa, Wis. The workers are all employed by VPI, making at least minimum wage like all VPI manufacturing staff, but the line is at a facility closer to the workers’ homes. Riebau said it would be good to find more partnerships like that to serve people around the Fox Valley without having them travel long distances.

The NBT summer camp also has helped VPI capture the attention of local school officials. VPI officials made connections to school districts about this offering for their current students, and it also opened communications about possible pathways for these special needs students once they graduate.

“The NBT summer camps really gave us a chance to go out and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got this great new program, and the school districts are all over it,’” Riebau said.

A VPI camper runs a machine that cuts paper into a special shape and then coils it for packaging in a box.