GRANITE FALLS — Hailey Francis thought her career options were limited. She worked for a year and a half at a fast food job she hated because she believed that was all she could do.
That was five years ago. Now she’s part of Snohomish County’s bustling manufacturing industry. She works at Cobalt Enterprises on the Mountain Loop Highway in Granite Falls, where her energy and eye for detail serve her well in making a variety of items, including pieces of airplanes, military equipment and the occasional trash can lid. The 24-year-old, who went to school in Lake Stevens, has been at the job for about four years and loves it, she said.
On Friday, she led groups of middle and high school students around Cobalt’s two buildings, showing them different niches within the business. Francis was one of four guides who each led about a dozen students at a time for Manufacturing Day, put on by the Center for Advanced Manufacturing Puget Sound or CAMPS.
The goal was to introduce teens to careers they might not have considered. A manufacturing job is a good fit for an array of personalities and skills, Cobalt Vice President Paul Clark said. The region needs more skilled workers, he said. Employees can learn on the job or study in a school setting, depending on what they want to master.
He hoped to overcome stereotypes about manufacturing being simple or boring.
“What we do here is not push-button work,” he said. “It’s fast, complicated, what we call heart-attack work for aerospace and defense. It’s a very different world than people picture.”
On the tour, students saw how computer programs simulate tools, materials and movements in a machine before any actual parts are run. They watched a machine big enough they all could have crammed inside whir to life and start cutting a chunk of metal down to size. They learned how sandpaper, stones and small blades carefully cut away sharp edges and how a laser can bite into metal or etch into glass to leave an intricate design.
They also got a better idea of what it means to be precise. Like most precision manufacturers, Cobalt’s products can become scrap metal if final measurements are off by even a hair. Cobalt employee Daniel Sturgeon explained: A strand of human hair is generally a few thousandths of an inch thick, and many of the parts he measures have a tolerance — a permissible margin of error — slimmer than that.
Manufacturing calls for creativity, problem solving, teamwork and a healthy dash of math and science, Clark said. There are hundreds of companies with opportunities for young workers.
The average age of Washington employees in manufacturing is 56 years old, according to CAMPS. There’s a shortage of young workers, spokeswoman Krystal Fitzpatrick said.
“But manufacturing is on fire in Washington,” she said. “The jobs are out there, we just have to make those connections.”
Cobalt has workers of all ages, Clark said. He credits younger hires to word-of-mouth referrals. Workers are willing to try something new but you have to get them through the door first, he said.
Alexa Burnett, 16, and Cammi Heuser, 15, of Lake Stevens High School went on the tour Friday. They were surprised by the variety of tasks and how different jobs relied on each other.
“I didn’t expect it to be so interesting and for there to be so many different parts that all combine into one,” Heuser said.
Burnett was impressed by the way computer programs translate into action on enormous machines. There’s not much room for mistakes and everyone has to do their part.
“I didn’t realize how hard they worked,” she said. “People put a lot of work into the little things.”
Burnett and Heuser think they’d be happy with some of the jobs they saw at Cobalt, they said.
That’s the response Francis was hoping for.
“Every single person in here has a broad amount of potential,” she said. “No one told me that when I graduated from high school. At first I didn’t know that I could have a job where I didn’t hate going to work.”
Before handing out goody bags and waving students back toward their bus, she offered some final advice.
“Just remember that selling yourself short doesn’t help anyone,” she said.
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com
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