Meaghan Ziemba host of Mavens of Manufacturing

On this week's Industrial Talk we're onsite at the Digital Manufacturing Summit and talking to Meaghan Ziemba, Founder and Host of The Mavens of Manufacturing about “Advocating and Educating for More Women in Manufacturing”. Get the answers to your “WIM” questions along with Meaghan's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

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MEAGHAN ZIEMBA'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meaghan-ziemba/

YouTube: (605) Mavens of Manufacturing – YouTube

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/38th-street-studios/

Company Website: https://www.38thstreetstudios.com/

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

manufacturing, Meaghan, women, mavens, kids, industrial, important, innovation, younger ages, opportunities, talk, trade, manufacturers, exposed, symposium, chicago, blinders, iot, conversations, police officer firefighter

00:03

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge Industry Focus innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go

00:21

all right industrial talk the celebration of industrial professionals all around the world. You are bold, you are brave. You dare greatly. And our guest is right there. She's working on her iPhone. Just don't go look if you're out on video, talk to him. Don't go look at that, because she's not engaged. Now. We We are broadcasting live from the digital manufacturing Summit in Chicago had a problem with the last one I said Cleveland, which was completely wrong, because we are in Chicago. Anyway, we are talking to some of the best from around the world. And we are talking about digital transformation. We're talking about manufacturing, we're talking about solving problems from you know, that you need to be aware of so anyway, you know, Hot Seat. She's been very patient. Her name is Meaghan Ziemba. I got that right, didn't I? You did. All right, man. mavens of manufacturing. And we're going to be talking about women in manufacturing. inspiring women. Let's get cracking. Hey, Meaghan.

01:19

Hey, how are you, Steve?

01:21

Ah, see you. My name is Scott. I'm Scott Mackenzie with. Yeah, that's okay.

01:27

We need to start over now. No,

01:28

absolutely not. Now see, that's, that's what makes podcast real. Right. It's just as you know, what's the funny part about this? Meaghan, is the fact that for my life, everybody thought that my name was Steve anyway?

01:41

Well, that's terrible for me, because I should just remember your name. And I totally thought I had it. I did it.

01:53

Okay, no, because what's important, what's important is what we are going to talk about, before we get into that. Let's just sort of level set on who Meaghan is so that people understand. Oh, Meaghan is oh, if that's who Meaghan is.

02:11

Yeah, so I am in technical writer by trade, I actually have been writing for manufacturing since 2008. And I started in a trade publication industry, which was really fun because I was able to talk to a variety of different companies and learn about their products and their processes and share their stories. And then throughout the years, I've entered in the marketing aspect of things and helped industrial manufacturers, talk about their brands, and really bring their story to life and take the boring out of the technical information and humanize it a little bit. But about two years ago, I decided that I wanted to start my own freelance company. So now I'm a freelancer. And that's been pretty fun. And I also started mavens a manufacturing, in hopes to inspire the next generation workforce by sharing the stories of the amazing women who are in the sector, to inspire other girls to come join. So

03:09

noble purpose, I like that great focus must needed type of service and solutions. So I like the fact that when you're in your, your background, I think that simplifying, or the ability to simplify or communicate in such a way that is consumable for people to the manufacturing and manufacturing process, and is very important, because sometimes it's it's, I'll just be real. All flatline. Yeah, I will flatline and a jet second, if it's too hard for me to if I have to consume too many gray matter calories to figure it out. I will, I will, I will just

03:56

Yeah, and we're definitely a sector of acronyms. So if you are not familiar with engineering, or manufacturing, and you hear all these three to four letter, sometimes five letter acronyms you can start to really get confused and think.

04:15

And, you know, the best part about it is it never stops. So here, we're here, and we're talking digital transformation. So number of years ago, it used to be IoT, great, fantastic IoT, and then all of a sudden IoT was the miscellaneous file, which then included AI cloud edge, you know, data analytics, everything that you could possibly imagine is all of a sudden IoT. Yeah, no, that's not it and and, and it never stops the the lexicon continues to expand and if you can simplify, it's great.

04:50

Well, and then it turned into industrial internet of things. So I OT. Just complicated even a little At my,

05:00

yeah, I was okay with IoT I got it I stick a device out on an on a motor and it just starts reading data. And I got that. But what what's what's the industrial component to it? Why why is that so? Doggone important? So with with? What is the problem that you perceive within women in manufacturing? Why is it important for this amplification to occur in women?

05:29

Yeah. So if you read a bunch of the studies that have already been put out one in specifically is by Deloitte, we're only representing a small percentage of the entire sector. So we're around I've heard different percentages, it's usually between 23 and 30%. When you break it down, in discipline, it's even less. So it's one to 2%, sometimes 3%. And the whole thing about innovation and all of these advancements in technology, you really want to have the entire talent pool included when it comes to innovation, and innovation of thought. And in order to do that, you have to kind of include everyone from different groups and different cultures in different areas. And in the United States, manufacturing sector has been predominantly male. It's also been predominantly white men. So how can we change that? And what can we do and there's a lot of different theories of why women have avoided this sector. But you know, now it's a great time to be because we are seeing a lot more women coming in, especially in leadership positions, but we're still not quite there, of having that balance. And that's one of the things that I want to work on. Because I believe that balance, hopefully, we can actually have higher numbers than the guys just because I'm competitive. And I always want to win. So we can get that balance, I feel like we have a better opportunity for more advanced innovations and technology. And that's going to actually help us to on a competitive level on a global level of competitiveness, where if we have a better manufacturing foundation versus other countries, then we can be stronger as a nation and have a lot of advantages for that as well.

07:19

You pretty much thought through this. Yeah.

07:21

Another thing that we need to consider too, is the skills gap. So we have all of these open, opportunities coming up. I think one of the studies said 2.3 million by 2030. Again, that's from the Deloitte study that I read. And if we don't start filling up those positions, we're going to lose some of that strengthen our manufacturing Foundation. And that's a national security threat. So we don't really want to do that. So

07:49

I believe we're already there. I think from a manufacturing from a security from a vital economic, you know, vital economic to our our country. I think that I think we're already there. And we've got we've got to play catch up.

08:04

Yeah.

08:05

How do you when we start talking about women in manufacturing, what do we need to do to begin, you know, inspiring these, these women have to do this to go down that road.

08:21

So I think we need to start earlier at younger ages, and we need to bring, we need to start prioritizing trades. Again. A long time ago, trades were really important, and they had a budget in our curriculum. At some point, though, that was lost. And they were sort of put on the backburner. And we're feeling that now. So we need to reprioritize the trains. And we need to incorporate that in the curriculum in our educational systems. And we need to start younger, so elementary school, middle school, we need to start exposing these kids to some of these trade skills that are very needed. And in order to do that, we need to bridge the gap between manufacturers and the communities that they're headquartered in. And they need to be more involved with what is being taught to our students, and more present, so that when, you know things are coming up, they can show the students Hey, this is what we're making in this factory. And here's some of the stuff that you can learn to help make this product that we're making. I know that you know, in kindergarten through fifth grade kids are not going to care what an engineer

09:34

I'm gonna know I'm gonna argue or push back on that

09:39

here but not know, like, really fully understand what an engineer is. That was the wrong way of saying no, no,

09:45

no, no, no, no, there's no right or wrong, but I have a I have a situation where when I was boy, and in elementary school, and I think this I remember it was second grade, and somebody brought it into film. You about how do you get baked goods to the store shelf? You know, those old ratty one is like, hey, hey, Joe, what are you doing? And this is a guy, and we go, and then I'm making that kind of sound. But it but I still remember it today. And I think that there was there's some value in just sharing, sharing what what is taking place, and I think you're absolutely spot on.

10:26

So like when you ask, so I have two toddlers at home. They're three and four. And they always talk about wanting to be a police officer. And the reason why they are talking about that is because my husband is an officer. And we actually would go and visit him and we would show the firetruck. So anytime you ask them, hey, what do you want to do? What do you want to imagine? They always say police officer firefighter, because that's what they're being exposed to. So if we can take that same thought process, and take things like what you just mentioned, where we're bringing in these videos that show how something is manufactured all the way up to the shelf life, I think kids would get more excited about these opportunities that are here in engineering and manufacturing, because it's not the dirty, dark, dark place that it used to be. Yes, there's still areas that that exists. But there's so much more with additive manufacturing, robotics, automation, it's more advanced technology is more problem solving. And I think the younger generations are attracted to that kind of stuff. Because, you know, they're the generation of technology, they've probably had a cell phone in their hands since the moment they were born. And they know how to use some of the stuff that we had to relearn ourselves because we weren't exposed to it at younger ages. So if we can figure out creative and fun ways to expose the younger kids to these opportunities, I think that's a great way to start. in the right direction. Nicholas, I

11:56

can't I can't agree with you more, because I agree. I think that we have to do a better job. And I think we have to really begin recognizing the necessity for doing more trade stuff. And when I was in high school, yep. I learned how to weld. Yeah, to this day, I know how to weld. Because I learned in high school. And and I think that that's, we just have to do a better job. Because to your point, manufacture is not, you know, a dirty job is sophisticated. It's it's important. And and it's not going away. Right? I just think that your purpose behind it and getting women involved?

12:41

Yeah. So I mean, for awhile, there was a way that schools were guiding boys and girls to a certain career pathway. It just happened to be that way. And it still is sort of happening today, we're getting a little bit better. And it's coming more of a priority in some of our conversations. But one example that I have is the high school that I graduated from, I did an event back in October. And it was a virtual event. And it was to show these kids in the VO tech program, the opportunities available to them from the basics that they were learning in the courses at the high school that they were taking. It was to show them Hey, yeah, these are just the basics. But these basics could lead you to here. And out of the 30 students that attended there was only four girls. And the four girls were only participating in those classes because either their family member encouraged them because their family member was in engineering or manufacturing, or the teacher in the VO tech program actually pulled them out of the hallway and said, Hey, I think you would like this class because of a, b, and c. And kudos to the teachers that did that because that meant that they were paying attention to the interest of the students that they were showing in the school setting. I think we have a lot of work to do in terms of retraining some of the school counselors because there's so much change happening on a continuous basis that school counselors aren't going to know how to talk about some of these opportunities or how to look for other skills that could be transferable over into some of these opportunities within engineering manufacturing.

14:19

I think to your point I think that that was one real challenge because I think that conventional traditional education the way it is today, there is a real disconnect between the speed at which innovation is happening. The importance of of manufacturing in other professions. I don't know if our our school systems all the way from elementary old up are a nimble enough to be able to address the realities that exist in the market today and the needs because I just don't see it and in I think that if I can, or if we can start to educate early on, and not make it as like a bunch of guys, you know, pushing a wheelbarrow, but something really sophisticated, I think you I think you plant the seed of interest and excitement at an early age and it's just a natural progression. Do you agree with that?

15:22

I do agree with that. Because I feel like when you get to a certain point in your schooling career, so when kids are at a younger age, they just have an innate curiosity about things like they want to know how things work, they, they're more, they don't have any boundaries or blinders set up. And then as they progress through school, you know, they're pointed in all different kinds of directions based off of their testing and everything. So for example, I was always good at English. I loved woodworking,

15:54

say, dog got a good, good thing. Yeah, you do, right?

15:58

Why I loved woodworking class. But I was always encouraged not to do that. I was encouraged to do home Mecca, sewing, and I hated sewing, my sewing teacher did not like me at all. And I think that was a missed opportunity for me, but because I always tested well, in English, I was always told, Well, you're going to be an English teacher. And I'm like, that's really boring. I don't want to do that. So I think we need to stop, like putting those blinders on kids, and see what their interests are, and pick up on how that can be transferable across disciplines. Because just because someone's going to English doesn't really necessarily mean they want to be an English teacher or a college professor, because that's what was attractive.

16:41

I taught college and I gotta tell you, I hit it's, it's challenging.

16:45

Yeah, I, I, my sister is a teacher, and I give her all the credit in the world, because that requires a lot of patience, and I just wouldn't be able to do that. So working with kids that aren't my own would be a huge learning experience for my patients level, I think.

17:05

Well, I just think that the reality of the future, from a workforce perspective is clear. We're not getting it done. We're not getting it done the way it is. So what do we need to do? We need to do a lot of I just begun to education. Yeah, Kashinath beginning.

17:26

But I think to what manufacturers need to do, as well as the women that are working within their companies put them in a position where they can go to these schools and have conversations to because when those younger girls see these women, and they're gonna be like, I want to be like her.

17:41

Yes. It's all gone it. How do they get holy Meaghan,

17:47

you can get a hold of me on LinkedIn. Or you can go to mavens and manufacturing.com. And I have a link at the bottom of the homepage where you can schedule some time with me and I'd love to chat with you and learn more about your story.

18:01

doggone good. Her last name Z.I.E M. B. A. So if you go out to I'm sure there's not very many Ziemba’s buzz out there.

18:10

In Chicago. There is, is you're really

18:13

Yeah. So if I go on LinkedIn, and I say Meaghan Ziemba now I'm gonna pull up a bunch of Meaghan Ziemba.

18:20

Meaghan Ziemba.

18:23

Yeah, got that. All right, listeners. That was Meaghan, thank you very much for joining industrial talk. Once again. We are broadcasting from the digital manufacturing symposium in Chicago, Illinois, great venue, great people solving problems. Important important. You need to be a part of it. So put that on your bucket list. So that's important. All right. Do not go away. We will be right back with another great conversation shortly.

18:49

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

18:53

All right. Again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk and a hearty thank you to mega Ziemba. You got to check out her podcast mavens of manufacturing. She brings a tremendous amount of passion and desire to help help manufacturing succeed and definitely an advocate for bringing in more women in manufacturing. Absolutely love the purpose. Meaghan brings to the table also. You got to at least for 2023 Go out to transformative media transformative media. They're the ones that put on the digital manufacturing Summit, no symposium, excuse me, get it all confused. And I was very impressed with the caliber of professionals that are that were at the event the desire to collaborate, the desire to educate and really solve or attempt at work to solving the challenges that exist today in manufacturing that is the digital manufacturing symposium. You Go out to transformative media and find out more. They've got a ton of other events. And if it's anything like the digital manufacturing symposium, you will not be disappointed. All right. We're gonna have other great conversations. You have to be bold. Yes. Brave. Yes. dare greatly. Please, please do that. Don't Don't settle for comfort. Settle for sacrifice. Keep pushing. We need you, manufacturers. We need you. Alright, hang out with Meaghan. You're gonna change the world. Thank you once again for joining the industrial talk. We're gonna have another great conversation from this symposium shortly so stay tuned.

Transcript

00:03

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge Industry Focus innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go

00:21

all right industrial talk the celebration of industrial professionals all around the world. You are bold, you are brave. You dare greatly. And our guest is right there. She's working on her iPhone. Just don't go look if you're out on video, talk to him. Don't go look at that, because she's not engaged. Now. We We are broadcasting live from the digital manufacturing Summit in Chicago had a problem with the last one I said Cleveland, which was completely wrong, because we are in Chicago. Anyway, we are talking to some of the best from around the world. And we are talking about digital transformation. We're talking about manufacturing, we're talking about solving problems from you know, that you need to be aware of so anyway, you know, Hot Seat. She's been very patient. Her name is Meaghan Ziemba. I got that right, didn't I? You did. All right, man. mavens of manufacturing. And we're going to be talking about women in manufacturing. inspiring women. Let's get cracking. Hey, Meaghan.

01:19

Hey, how are you, Steve?

01:21

Ah, see you. My name is Scott. I'm Scott Mackenzie with. Yeah, that's okay.

01:27

We need to start over now. No,

01:28

absolutely not. Now see, that's, that's what makes podcast real. Right. It's just as you know, what's the funny part about this? Meaghan, is the fact that for my life, everybody thought that my name was Steve anyway?

01:41

Well, that's terrible for me, because I should just remember your name. And I totally thought I had it. I did it.

01:53

Okay, no, because what's important, what's important is what we are going to talk about, before we get into that. Let's just sort of level set on who Meaghan is so that people understand. Oh, Meaghan is oh, if that's who Meaghan is.

02:11

Yeah, so I am in technical writer by trade, I actually have been writing for manufacturing since 2008. And I started in a trade publication industry, which was really fun because I was able to talk to a variety of different companies and learn about their products and their processes and share their stories. And then throughout the years, I've entered in the marketing aspect of things and helped industrial manufacturers, talk about their brands, and really bring their story to life and take the boring out of the technical information and humanize it a little bit. But about two years ago, I decided that I wanted to start my own freelance company. So now I'm a freelancer. And that's been pretty fun. And I also started mavens a manufacturing, in hopes to inspire the next generation workforce by sharing the stories of the amazing women who are in the sector, to inspire other girls to come join. So

03:09

noble purpose, I like that great focus must needed type of service and solutions. So I like the fact that when you're in your, your background, I think that simplifying, or the ability to simplify or communicate in such a way that is consumable for people to the manufacturing and manufacturing process, and is very important, because sometimes it's it's, I'll just be real. All flatline. Yeah, I will flatline and a jet second, if it's too hard for me to if I have to consume too many gray matter calories to figure it out. I will, I will, I will just

03:56

Yeah, and we're definitely a sector of acronyms. So if you are not familiar with engineering, or manufacturing, and you hear all these three to four letter, sometimes five letter acronyms you can start to really get confused and think.

04:15

And, you know, the best part about it is it never stops. So here, we're here, and we're talking digital transformation. So number of years ago, it used to be IoT, great, fantastic IoT, and then all of a sudden IoT was the miscellaneous file, which then included AI cloud edge, you know, data analytics, everything that you could possibly imagine is all of a sudden IoT. Yeah, no, that's not it and and, and it never stops the the lexicon continues to expand and if you can simplify, it's great.

04:50

Well, and then it turned into industrial internet of things. So I OT. Just complicated even a little At my,

05:00

yeah, I was okay with IoT I got it I stick a device out on an on a motor and it just starts reading data. And I got that. But what what's what's the industrial component to it? Why why is that so? Doggone important? So with with? What is the problem that you perceive within women in manufacturing? Why is it important for this amplification to occur in women?

05:29

Yeah. So if you read a bunch of the studies that have already been put out one in specifically is by Deloitte, we're only representing a small percentage of the entire sector. So we're around I've heard different percentages, it's usually between 23 and 30%. When you break it down, in discipline, it's even less. So it's one to 2%, sometimes 3%. And the whole thing about innovation and all of these advancements in technology, you really want to have the entire talent pool included when it comes to innovation, and innovation of thought. And in order to do that, you have to kind of include everyone from different groups and different cultures in different areas. And in the United States, manufacturing sector has been predominantly male. It's also been predominantly white men. So how can we change that? And what can we do and there's a lot of different theories of why women have avoided this sector. But you know, now it's a great time to be because we are seeing a lot more women coming in, especially in leadership positions, but we're still not quite there, of having that balance. And that's one of the things that I want to work on. Because I believe that balance, hopefully, we can actually have higher numbers than the guys just because I'm competitive. And I always want to win. So we can get that balance, I feel like we have a better opportunity for more advanced innovations and technology. And that's going to actually help us to on a competitive level on a global level of competitiveness, where if we have a better manufacturing foundation versus other countries, then we can be stronger as a nation and have a lot of advantages for that as well.

07:19

You pretty much thought through this. Yeah.

07:21

Another thing that we need to consider too, is the skills gap. So we have all of these open, opportunities coming up. I think one of the studies said 2.3 million by 2030. Again, that's from the Deloitte study that I read. And if we don't start filling up those positions, we're going to lose some of that strengthen our manufacturing Foundation. And that's a national security threat. So we don't really want to do that. So

07:49

I believe we're already there. I think from a manufacturing from a security from a vital economic, you know, vital economic to our our country. I think that I think we're already there. And we've got we've got to play catch up.

08:04

Yeah.

08:05

How do you when we start talking about women in manufacturing, what do we need to do to begin, you know, inspiring these, these women have to do this to go down that road.

08:21

So I think we need to start earlier at younger ages, and we need to bring, we need to start prioritizing trades. Again. A long time ago, trades were really important, and they had a budget in our curriculum. At some point, though, that was lost. And they were sort of put on the backburner. And we're feeling that now. So we need to reprioritize the trains. And we need to incorporate that in the curriculum in our educational systems. And we need to start younger, so elementary school, middle school, we need to start exposing these kids to some of these trade skills that are very needed. And in order to do that, we need to bridge the gap between manufacturers and the communities that they're headquartered in. And they need to be more involved with what is being taught to our students, and more present, so that when, you know things are coming up, they can show the students Hey, this is what we're making in this factory. And here's some of the stuff that you can learn to help make this product that we're making. I know that you know, in kindergarten through fifth grade kids are not going to care what an engineer

09:34

I'm gonna know I'm gonna argue or push back on that

09:39

here but not know, like, really fully understand what an engineer is. That was the wrong way of saying no, no,

09:45

no, no, no, no, there's no right or wrong, but I have a I have a situation where when I was boy, and in elementary school, and I think this I remember it was second grade, and somebody brought it into film. You about how do you get baked goods to the store shelf? You know, those old ratty one is like, hey, hey, Joe, what are you doing? And this is a guy, and we go, and then I'm making that kind of sound. But it but I still remember it today. And I think that there was there's some value in just sharing, sharing what what is taking place, and I think you're absolutely spot on.

10:26

So like when you ask, so I have two toddlers at home. They're three and four. And they always talk about wanting to be a police officer. And the reason why they are talking about that is because my husband is an officer. And we actually would go and visit him and we would show the firetruck. So anytime you ask them, hey, what do you want to do? What do you want to imagine? They always say police officer firefighter, because that's what they're being exposed to. So if we can take that same thought process, and take things like what you just mentioned, where we're bringing in these videos that show how something is manufactured all the way up to the shelf life, I think kids would get more excited about these opportunities that are here in engineering and manufacturing, because it's not the dirty, dark, dark place that it used to be. Yes, there's still areas that that exists. But there's so much more with additive manufacturing, robotics, automation, it's more advanced technology is more problem solving. And I think the younger generations are attracted to that kind of stuff. Because, you know, they're the generation of technology, they've probably had a cell phone in their hands since the moment they were born. And they know how to use some of the stuff that we had to relearn ourselves because we weren't exposed to it at younger ages. So if we can figure out creative and fun ways to expose the younger kids to these opportunities, I think that's a great way to start. in the right direction. Nicholas, I

11:56

can't I can't agree with you more, because I agree. I think that we have to do a better job. And I think we have to really begin recognizing the necessity for doing more trade stuff. And when I was in high school, yep. I learned how to weld. Yeah, to this day, I know how to weld. Because I learned in high school. And and I think that that's, we just have to do a better job. Because to your point, manufacture is not, you know, a dirty job is sophisticated. It's it's important. And and it's not going away. Right? I just think that your purpose behind it and getting women involved?

12:41

Yeah. So I mean, for awhile, there was a way that schools were guiding boys and girls to a certain career pathway. It just happened to be that way. And it still is sort of happening today, we're getting a little bit better. And it's coming more of a priority in some of our conversations. But one example that I have is the high school that I graduated from, I did an event back in October. And it was a virtual event. And it was to show these kids in the VO tech program, the opportunities available to them from the basics that they were learning in the courses at the high school that they were taking. It was to show them Hey, yeah, these are just the basics. But these basics could lead you to here. And out of the 30 students that attended there was only four girls. And the four girls were only participating in those classes because either their family member encouraged them because their family member was in engineering or manufacturing, or the teacher in the VO tech program actually pulled them out of the hallway and said, Hey, I think you would like this class because of a, b, and c. And kudos to the teachers that did that because that meant that they were paying attention to the interest of the students that they were showing in the school setting. I think we have a lot of work to do in terms of retraining some of the school counselors because there's so much change happening on a continuous basis that school counselors aren't going to know how to talk about some of these opportunities or how to look for other skills that could be transferable over into some of these opportunities within engineering manufacturing.

14:19

I think to your point I think that that was one real challenge because I think that conventional traditional education the way it is today, there is a real disconnect between the speed at which innovation is happening. The importance of of manufacturing in other professions. I don't know if our our school systems all the way from elementary old up are a nimble enough to be able to address the realities that exist in the market today and the needs because I just don't see it and in I think that if I can, or if we can start to educate early on, and not make it as like a bunch of guys, you know, pushing a wheelbarrow, but something really sophisticated, I think you I think you plant the seed of interest and excitement at an early age and it's just a natural progression. Do you agree with that?

15:22

I do agree with that. Because I feel like when you get to a certain point in your schooling career, so when kids are at a younger age, they just have an innate curiosity about things like they want to know how things work, they, they're more, they don't have any boundaries or blinders set up. And then as they progress through school, you know, they're pointed in all different kinds of directions based off of their testing and everything. So for example, I was always good at English. I loved woodworking,

15:54

say, dog got a good, good thing. Yeah, you do, right?

15:58

Why I loved woodworking class. But I was always encouraged not to do that. I was encouraged to do home Mecca, sewing, and I hated sewing, my sewing teacher did not like me at all. And I think that was a missed opportunity for me, but because I always tested well, in English, I was always told, Well, you're going to be an English teacher. And I'm like, that's really boring. I don't want to do that. So I think we need to stop, like putting those blinders on kids, and see what their interests are, and pick up on how that can be transferable across disciplines. Because just because someone's going to English doesn't really necessarily mean they want to be an English teacher or a college professor, because that's what was attractive.

16:41

I taught college and I gotta tell you, I hit it's, it's challenging.

16:45

Yeah, I, I, my sister is a teacher, and I give her all the credit in the world, because that requires a lot of patience, and I just wouldn't be able to do that. So working with kids that aren't my own would be a huge learning experience for my patients level, I think.

17:05

Well, I just think that the reality of the future, from a workforce perspective is clear. We're not getting it done. We're not getting it done the way it is. So what do we need to do? We need to do a lot of I just begun to education. Yeah, Kashinath beginning.

17:26

But I think to what manufacturers need to do, as well as the women that are working within their companies put them in a position where they can go to these schools and have conversations to because when those younger girls see these women, and they're gonna be like, I want to be like her.

17:41

Yes. It's all gone it. How do they get holy Meaghan,

17:47

you can get a hold of me on LinkedIn. Or you can go to mavens and manufacturing.com. And I have a link at the bottom of the homepage where you can schedule some time with me and I'd love to chat with you and learn more about your story.

18:01

doggone good. Her last name Z.I.E M. B. A. So if you go out to I'm sure there's not very many Ziemba’s buzz out there.

18:10

In Chicago. There is, is you're really

18:13

Yeah. So if I go on LinkedIn, and I say Meaghan Ziemba now I'm gonna pull up a bunch of Meaghan Ziemba.

18:20

Meaghan Ziemba.

18:23

Yeah, got that. All right, listeners. That was Meaghan, thank you very much for joining industrial talk. Once again. We are broadcasting from the digital manufacturing symposium in Chicago, Illinois, great venue, great people solving problems. Important important. You need to be a part of it. So put that on your bucket list. So that's important. All right. Do not go away. We will be right back with another great conversation shortly.

18:49

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

18:53

All right. Again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk and a hearty thank you to mega Ziemba. You got to check out her podcast mavens of manufacturing. She brings a tremendous amount of passion and desire to help help manufacturing succeed and definitely an advocate for bringing in more women in manufacturing. Absolutely love the purpose. Meaghan brings to the table also. You got to at least for 2023 Go out to transformative media transformative media. They're the ones that put on the digital manufacturing Summit, no symposium, excuse me, get it all confused. And I was very impressed with the caliber of professionals that are that were at the event the desire to collaborate, the desire to educate and really solve or attempt at work to solving the challenges that exist today in manufacturing that is the digital manufacturing symposium. You Go out to transformative media and find out more. They've got a ton of other events. And if it's anything like the digital manufacturing symposium, you will not be disappointed. All right. We're gonna have other great conversations. You have to be bold. Yes. Brave. Yes. dare greatly. Please, please do that. Don't Don't settle for comfort. Settle for sacrifice. Keep pushing. We need you, manufacturers. We need you. Alright, hang out with Meaghan. You're gonna change the world. Thank you once again for joining the industrial talk. We're gonna have another great conversation from this symposium shortly so stay tuned.

Scott MacKenzie

About the author, Scott

I am Scott MacKenzie, husband, father, and passionate industry educator. From humble beginnings as a lathing contractor and certified journeyman/lineman to an Undergraduate and Master’s Degree in Business Administration, I have applied every aspect of my education and training to lead and influence. I believe in serving and adding value wherever I am called.

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