"Our television tells us that it's a dying industry and as result, don't send your children into the manufacturing side, see it dying," Schron lamented.
Schron, who disagrees with the opinion, is the co-founder of the company's online courses called "Tooling University," saying today's manufacturers need the right people, the right knowledge to survive and flourish.
The program offers over 800 online training classes for metal manufacturers, welders, assemblers and maintenance professionals, as well as customization tools, content-development services and multi-language support, according to Schron.
The United States lost about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs in 2000-2017, according to a study from the University of Chicago (UC).
The job losses were highly concentrated among lower-skilled positions and the manufacturing sector is hiring more highly skilled workers, said Erik Hurst, professor of economics at the UC Booth School of Business and co-author of the report.
Still, the U.S. manufacturing industry faces huge shortage of working force as nearly 10,000 Baby Boomers reach retirement each day.
"We have experimental programs where we are constantly exposing young people to why you should come into the education, be educated, why you should be in manufacturing," Schron said.
The average age of a Jergens' employee is "maybe 33, 34 years old," he said. "That's pretty good. We're pushing very hard to try and get a younger workforce, but it's not easy."
While trying to recruit younger hands, the company carries on the tradition of valuing those who have worked for it for years. A nearby hall at its Cleveland headquarters is filled with large photos of employees with 25 years of service. An adjacent wall honors former employees with 25 years of service who are now deceased.
GROWING CHINESE MARKET
Jergens has not felt the problems from the tariff battles between the United States and its trading partners including China, Schron said, because most of its products, most of the steel and aluminum it uses, are locally produced.
However, like other U.S. manufacturers, Schron is worried about more tariffs and rising prices, contributing to feelings of uncertainty as the tit-for-tat tariffs between Washington and Beijing keep escalating.
"There's always concern about (tariffs)," he said. "Trading is trading...The economic reality should not be dragged by (neither country's) political reality."
The changes China has undergone in the past decades are "amazing", he said, noting that each time he visited Beijing he found something new popped up in the streets around the hotel he used to stay.
"That means the market is for you too. That's why we started with one employee, we now have about 20 (in China)," Schron said.
The new facility of Jergens Shanghai Commercial Company Ltd. is located in a new economic development technology park in the Jinqiao District in PuDong, Shanghai, China.
"Even though we have physically had an office there for over 12 years, we've been actually selling product there for probably 15 to 20 years," he said.
Schron is making his plan to attend China International Machine Tool Show, one of the largest and most influential machine tool shows in the world, in Beijing next April.
"What's the future plan for (our) Chinese presence? I know they'll grow, grow, grow!" he chuckled.
