Manufacturing Month Opens Doors to Careers Across Southeast Minnesota

Manufacturing Month Opens Doors to Careers Across Southeast Minnesota

Every October, Manufacturing Month provides an opportunity to celebrate one of Minnesota’s most important industries. For students, though, the month can offer something even more valuable: the chance to step inside a workplace, meet the people doing the work, and begin imagining themselves in careers they may never have considered before.

Across Southeast Minnesota, Southeast Service Cooperative and its partners are helping turn that opportunity into meaningful experiences through manufacturing tours, employer partnerships, and FutureForward™.

Modern manufacturing looks very different from the image many students, and even many adults, may still have in mind. Today’s manufacturing environments combine advanced technology, automation, engineering, skilled trades, problem solving, teamwork, and innovation. When students visit local manufacturers, they have the opportunity to see that work firsthand and discover the wide range of careers required to design, produce, maintain, manage, and move the products created in their own communities.

That exposure can be an important first step in career exploration. For many students, choosing a pathway begins long before they submit a college application or apply for their first full-time job. It begins when they are given the opportunity to see what is possible and understand how their interests, strengths, and classroom learning can connect to the world of work.

Seeing Careers in Action

Manufacturing Month tours give students the opportunity to move beyond career descriptions and experience real workplaces firsthand. During these visits, students can tour manufacturing facilities, meet employers and skilled professionals, see modern technology in action, and explore careers in areas such as welding, automation, engineering, machining, maintenance, logistics, quality, information technology, and business.

The goal is not to encourage every student to pursue manufacturing. It is to help students make more informed decisions about their futures by showing them the range of possibilities available.

These experiences also help students make stronger connections between what they learn in school and how those skills are used in the workplace. Math, technology, communication, teamwork, and problem solving all take on greater meaning when students can see how they are applied in real careers.

Career-connected learning helps make those connections visible.

Connecting Schools and Employers Through FutureForward™

FutureForward™ is another resource that helps students, educators, and parents explore careers and connect with employers across Southeast Minnesota and beyond. The free, publicly accessible platform allows users to discover businesses, learn about industries, and find career-connected learning opportunities without needing to create an account.

For employers, FutureForward™ provides a way to introduce their organizations to young people and share opportunities such as job shadows, internships, workplace tours, and other experiences. For educators, it can help identify businesses and opportunities that connect classroom learning with the world of work. Students and parents can also use the platform to explore careers and learn more about employers in their communities.

Manufacturing Month is one example of how those connections can be put into practice. A student may first learn about a manufacturer through FutureForward™, visit that workplace during a tour, and then decide to explore that career further through a job shadow, internship, or related coursework.

The goal is to make those opportunities easier to find and help more students understand what is available to them.

Bus on Us: Removing a Very Real Barrier

Finding a meaningful career experience is only part of the challenge for schools. Students still have to get there.

Transportation costs can prevent schools from participating in field trips, employer tours, and other career-connected learning opportunities, particularly when budgets and transportation resources are limited. That is where Bus on Us can make a difference.

Through FutureForward™, transportation assistance may be available to help schools access qualifying career-connected learning experiences. The concept is simple: transportation should not be the reason students miss an opportunity to see a career firsthand.

By helping reduce that barrier, Bus on Us can make it easier for schools to bring students directly into workplaces where learning, exploration, and career awareness come together.

A Regional Effort

Career-connected learning is strongest when it is built through partnership. Schools understand their students. Employers understand their industries and workforce needs. Workforce and community partners bring additional expertise, resources, and connections.

Southeast Service Cooperative works with schools, employers, and other regional partners to help make these experiences possible. That includes connecting schools with participating manufacturers, helping coordinate tour opportunities, and working through barriers that might otherwise prevent students from participating. Each partner brings something different to the effort, and those relationships help create opportunities that individual schools or employers may not be able to provide on their own.

Manufacturing Month provides a visible example of what can happen when those partners work together. Southeast Minnesota is home to manufacturers representing a wide range of products, technologies, and occupations. Opening those doors gives students an opportunity to understand not only what companies make, but also who works there, what skills those careers require, and what pathways can lead to them.

For employers, those conversations matter as well. Workforce development is a long-term effort, and a student visiting a manufacturing facility today may become tomorrow’s intern, apprentice, technician, engineer, supervisor, or business owner. Often, the first step is simply giving that student the opportunity to see the possibility.

Manufacturing Day Tours

This fall, students will once again have opportunities to experience manufacturing careers firsthand through FORGE MN Manufacturing Day Tours.

The Southeast Minnesota Manufacturing Day Tours are scheduled for Wednesday, October 28, 2026, bringing students into real manufacturing environments to meet employers, explore modern technology, and see careers in action.

In Southeast Minnesota, the Manufacturing Day Tours are coordinated in conjunction with Construct Tomorrow, giving schools an opportunity to participate in both experiences on the same day, with qualifying transportation costs covered through Bus on Us. Students can explore careers in the skilled trades through Construct Tomorrow and visit local manufacturers to see the people, technology, and career opportunities available in manufacturing.

Together, the experiences give students an even broader look at the career pathways available across Southeast Minnesota and help connect classroom learning with real workplaces and industries.

Schools interested in Southeast Minnesota Manufacturing Day Tours can contact:

Mike Schnell
Southeast Service Cooperative
mschnell@ssc.coop
507-281-6683

Manufacturing Month Resources

Schools, educators, and partners can find additional Manufacturing Month resources at MM Resources, including the School Interest Form, FutureForward™ Manufacturing Month and Activity Guides, and the Minnesota Tour of Manufacturing Resource Kit. Additional resources, including information for submitting qualifying transportation invoices, will be added as they become available.

Building Awareness Today, Building Minnesota’s Workforce Tomorrow

Manufacturing Month is a celebration, but its lasting value comes from the connections it creates. When students have meaningful opportunities to explore careers, talk with professionals, and experience workplaces firsthand, career possibilities become more tangible. When employers open their doors, they help students understand the opportunities available close to home. When schools, employers, and regional partners work together to remove barriers to those experiences, career-connected learning becomes accessible to more students.

Through manufacturing tours, FutureForward™, Bus on Us, Construct Tomorrow, and partnerships across the region, Southeast Service Cooperative is helping create those connections and expand opportunities for students across Southeast Minnesota.

Sometimes, the most important step toward a future career is simply getting a student through the door.