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The second annual West Georgia Manufacturing Day was held at West Georgia Tech on Thursday.

The all-day event was hosted by the LaGrange Development Authority in partnership with the college to introduce students to manufacturing career opportunities in Troup County and West Georgia. 

Kelley Bush helped create the trade-show-style event that allows students to learn about local manufacturing and meet with companies in the West Georgia area. Hundreds of students attended the event from schools throughout Troup County and beyond.

About 1200 students were introduced to 23 regional manufacturers. Most were from Troup County, but there were also some from Harris County, Meriwether County and Newnan.

Bush said the event is important because we are a manufacturing community.

“Sixty percent of our economy is manufacturing. They’re great jobs,” Bush said. “We had a lot of conversation around negating the stigma around manufacturing careers because they are the highest paying jobs in our community. The average manufacturing wages in Troup County is almost $70,000 a year.”

Bush said the event helps strategically engage youth within the community into our future workforce pipeline and negates the stigma by showing kids the advanced technology involved and the wages they can earn.

LaGrange Mayor Jim Arrington and Kia Manufacturing CEO Stuart Countess kicked off the show before students arrived with opening remarks.

“Manufacturing is not just about creating products,” Arrington said.  “It’s about building the future, supporting our economy and providing careers that strengthen our communities. That’s the part that I’m interested in. Strengthening our communities and giving our people jobs to come to, giving them the learning capabilities and teaching them how to do manufacturing.”

“This stigma that we continue to talk about that manufacturing is dull, dirty, dangerous and a dead-end job. It is not. It’s what you make of it, and that’s what we need to share with these young people about what their opportunities can be,” Countess said.