I just read with great interest you commentary in the latest issue of The Virginia Engineer. You bring up a lot of valid points but I think there is a missing piece in the jobs puzzle people on all levels are not willing to address.

I have a long background in manufacturing and currently own an engineering firm and manufacturing facility and what I have found is that there is a significant portion of the population for whom more education is not necessarily the answer. With the severe lose of our manufacturing base we have done away with an important part of society from which people could work a modest job at a livable wage. Our society has become bi-polar with jobs available at the $8/hr range and the $100/hr range when there used to exist a large section of the workforce working at the $25/hr range.

These living wages for skilled trades allowed for people to buy homes and send kids to college so there children could move up in the world. My experience is that there is a large gap now in that area. This is where engineering comes into play in the job creation where we are developing new products to be manufactured here by skilled trades.

Bob Amacker
Process Engineering & Fabrication