When your business is based on extending lives and saving lives, no challenge can be left unsolved. Finding, training and retaining talented skilled workers is a challenge for almost every employer — including global giants like Pfizer. The Pfizer brand is synonymous with the entire health care manufacturing sector, meaning a lack of new talent could have devastating repercussions.

“Many of our sites, including the one located right here in Kalamazoo, are working hard to keep operations at home,” says Bob Betzig, site leader for Pfizer’s Kalamazoo facility. “This happens by controlling our costs, refocusing efforts to improve processes, and, perhaps something that still doesn’t get enough attention, bringing in the people capable of managing world class technology.”

Technology can be purchased by anyone and located anywhere in the world. However, the right people must be hired to successfully use that technology, and today those skilled men and women aren’t easy to find. Advanced manufacturing workers must have the skills to specify the equipment, configure it to meet specific standards, install and validate it based on exact government regulations, manage it, solve any problems which arise, and make sure all aspects of it remain compliant over time.

“We have an incredible team leveraging our world-class technology, but finding the next generation of Pfizer employees is becoming difficult, especially in Michigan,” says Betzig. “There is an industry-wide need for skilled STEM professionals like engineers, chemists and microbiologists. At the same time, the pool for these candidates is limited.”

Unlike professionals who can be drawn in regionally or even nationally, skilled trades talent tends to be found more locally and the resources for such training programs is very underfunded. Manufacturers like Pfizer must work twice as hard today to find half the interested workers as in past decades.

“One area we’ve worked to improve in is engaging with students earlier,” says Betzig. “We’re reaching out to educators across Michigan to help students throughout the state’s K-12 system see that STEM skills and skilled trades training are viable, exciting paths which result in well-paying careers.”

Over the next decade, Pfizer’s commitment to people will grow stronger. In addition to their support of Michigan’s talent effort, Pfizer makes huge investments to drive growth. Over the last decade, the Kalamazoo plant has invested over $800 million to modernize operations, expand capacity, improve safety, and increase efficiency — all designed to attract the next generation of talent. They expect to invest another $800 million over the next five years.

“After 33 years at this site, I’ve learned that it’s all about having the right people within the right culture,” says Betzig. “The team of leaders and colleagues we have, and the new talented young workers we are looking to hire, are capable of anything. We are making products that save lives and working at a place whose mission is the improved health of people — there’s no better feeling than being part of that.”

This article appeared in the February 2017 issue of MiMfg Magazine. Read the full issue and find past issues online.