WASHINGTON  -  Manufacturing is about more than putting together pieces of a finished product.  It also involves matching workers with jobs, meeting demand with supply, and incorporating new ideas and technology.

Just like a complicated jigsaw puzzle, there are a lot of things to think about when you put a manufacturing business together.  The success of many business enterprises, and their durability, in Southern Missouri demonstrates that we are doing an excellent
job in the manufacturing.  But we must keep growing in order to continue to compete.

It is an increasingly difficult task to keep rural Missouri’s factories full of skilled workers with orders to fill, when an increasing number of our children are choosing city life over the small towns of our state.  But employers rightly value the high quality of rural life we prize in Southern Missouri.  We value the manufacturing jobs they create, as well.

In the ongoing effort to preserve and grow our rural Missouri economy, manufacturing plays a vital role. 

In the last few weeks, I have visited many manufacturers in Southern Missouri.  And though I often praise Missouri’s many producers for the variety of agricultural and value-added products they create – our manufacturers do a job equal to our farmers and
ranchers.  They make components for automobiles, household cleaners, and small engines.   Some of our manufacturers play an important role in the defense of our nation, producing new technologies to aid our men and women in uniform while they are on the field of battle.  Others make new barriers to guard the high-value targets, like government buildings, ports, and financial institutions, that terrorists would identify and
seek to destroy.  Still other Southern Missouri companies make goods that help others do their jobs better and faster: They make tools.

Those companies share the philosophy I take into the challenge of spurring on economic growth.  In a general sense, we must give businesses the latitude and flexibility to operate efficiently and to invest in themselves and their employees.

Much of the big picture is made up of tools to help our businesses, from grants to infrastructure development, to tax relief for small businesses and job training for workers.  More of it, however, relates to the quality of life in our communities themselves.  When we have citizens who participate in the economic life of their towns and companies that give back, we also have the blueprint for economic success.

New technologies promise to provide a great conduit for economic growth in rural areas.  More business opportunities and higher productivity will enable us to innovate and grow – two things we do very well here in Southern Missouri.  It is vital to remember
that, in a part of the state where spotty cellular coverage supported few cell phones five years ago, signals are more available, clear, and improving.  The next five years will bring expanded deployment of broadband and wireless Internet resources, but it will
take consistent pressure and a sustained effort to do so.

Regardless of what kinds of jobs we hold here in Southern Missouri, we all have a mutual interest in the growth of companies that provide us with opportunities in rural areas. 

Ultimately, employers and employees want the same things: to put more people to work in productive positions.  For workers, better health care coverage, lower taxes on their earnings, and a helping hand to coordinate their future plans help us accomplish these goals.  For businesses, a stable economic environment, solid local institutions, and partnerships with the municipalities and states where they operate help the bottom line.  It’s simply a matter of interlocking relationships between workers and businesses who need these services and the people and institutions which can provide them.

Often, this is easier said than done, but our local and state officials can surely benefit from spending more time on the assembly line, observing these important jobs and the skilled workers performing them.  Every manufacturer I visited is a little different from the others, and those differences lead to special needs which must be met for the company to be successful.

I have worked hard to bring experts on economic development together with the  business leaders of Southern Missouri.  The result will be better coordination when a new company considers locating here and better identification of how we can improve
the existing environment for our businesses.  I’m still impressed with the response these ideas have received from everyone involved.  And we all know that the more people we have working on a puzzle of this magnitude, the better.