washington business
As policies are considered that add more regulations, increase the cost of doing business and create
roadblocks to educational innovation, manufacturers — the cornerstone of the state economy — need
leaders to stand alongside them as they work to grow jobs. At the same time, manufacturers are
working hard to spread the word to the next generation of workers that today’s high-tech manufacturing
operations are nothing like their grandfather’s manufacturing jobs.
Forget everything you think you know about manufacturing. The sector has changed dramatically in the last two decades,
becoming cleaner, greener and more high-tech as the world around it has changed.
Today, when Washingtonians think of manufacturing, they likely think of the aerospace sector and home-grown Boeing.
It’s a logical leap: aerospace alone generated $76 billion in annual economic activity throughout the state, according to the
state Department of Commerce’s most recent statistics.
Last year, The Boeing Company invested $13 billion in the state, most of it in salary in its operations and those of its
suppliers.
And nothing says “high-tech manufacturing” like building giant flying apparatuses and the widgets that outfit them.
But that’s only part of Washington’s manufacturing story.
Small firms like Liberty Lake’s Altek, Inc. and Vaughan Company in Montesano are an integral part of boosting economic
development and opportunity, especially in areas with the greatest need for jobs and the tax base that comes with the
manufacturing economy.
closing the skills gap, embracing
educational innovation
In 2014, AWB President Kris Johnson
joined with partners from the Washington
Alliance for a Competitive Economy
(WashACE) on 12-city tour of the state to
“I think people think that you go out to the shop and hit
a hammer for eight hours and then you go home. But,
the truth is there is so much more complexity to the job.”
— Jesse Vaughan, marketing development, Vaughan Company
The Vaughan Company has been manufacturing pumps, mixers and other precision products in Grays Harbor County for 66 years.
32 association of washington business