Modernizing Manufacturing to Attract Millennials with Jake Hall, the Manufacturing Millennial

Contact Jake Hall:   Email: Jake@themanufacturingmillennial.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobrhall/ Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce you to our guest today, Jake Hall. Jake is the manufacturing millennial. He talks about the latest technology in the automation and manufacturing industry while being a business development manager at Feyen Zylstra, an electrical contractor system integrated company. I found Jake because he also posts cool manufacturing videos on LinkedIn, so make sure to check him out. Jake, welcome to the show. Jake Hall: Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Lisa Ryan: Well, you are the manufacturing millennial, and I know that that's one of the things that the listeners to this podcast have issues with: how do you find the younger generations? How do you create that type of passion that you bring every day to manufacturing? So please share a bit about your background and what got you to where you're doing now. Jake Hall: The Labor force and manufacturing is absolutely the hot topic, so for me, as a millennial and a younger person, manufacturing goes back to after graduating from college. I had the opportunity to go into automation distribution. So entering that field brought many options quickly where I'm not working at one specific company. I'm traveling around visiting machine builders, manufacturers and end-users, and all different industries. I had a unique experience seeing the diversity that manufacturing offers. It's exciting as my career developed, I started attending more professional conferences. I attend these conferences, and I'm walking around and say, man, people my age are underrepresented in the manufacturing industry. I never really looked at the statistics until one day after a conference. I said, man, I'm one of like two millennials in this room. What are the odds of that? I looked it up and said, holy cow, millennials and Gen Z are entirely underrepresented i