Charlotte Business Journal - Freightliner Plant Works to Interest Students in Manufacturing

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By Ken Elkins

Production in the three Charlotte-area Daimler Trucks North America plants is on the upswing and the question becomes whether the assembly lines can find qualified workers.

That's the message from plant manager Henning Bruns at the Cleveland facility.

Henning Bruns, plant manager at DTNA's Cleveland truck plant, addresses students and employees during a town hall-style meeting on Manufacturing Day.

"If we are talking about manufacturing in the Carolinas, it is strong and growing," Bruns says. He spoke Friday afternoon at the Rowan County plant, an event that also included U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-5th District of N.C.).

It's Manufacturing Day and local manufacturers are working to attract the interest of students as employees. About 100 students from three high schools near the plant were treated to factory tours and speeches.

"We need the best of the best working for us," Bruns continues. Today, about 2,800 work at the sprawling plant that makes Freightliner and Western Star brands of trucks that are used in tractor-trailer rigs.

The Cleveland plant is hiring about 20 new employees each week, some of them traveling as far away as Virginia and South Carolina, Bruns says.

Roger Nielsen, DNTA chief operating officer, says about 150 of each 1,000 applicants check out as being qualified for work in the local Daimler truck and parts plants. Many don't have the aptitude or interest in taking manufacturing jobs, he says.

Changing those numbers is one of the purposes of holding events like Friday's Manufacturing Day activities, Nielsen says. The idea is to show students that making trucks isn't the dark and dirty work of the past.

"It's not your father's factory anymore," Nielsen says.

Foxx says DTNA's commitment to provide more than 6,000 jobs in those three Charlotte-area plant shows how important manufacturing is to North Carolina.

"North Carolina has always been a major manufacturing state. Now manufacturing is coming back. You have the opportunities here," Foxx told the students as they completed their tours.

In Cleveland, the students also got to touch the Western Star 5700 truck that is one transformation of Optimus Prime in one of the Transformers movies. The Freightliner Inspiration truck, which DNTA says is the first licensed autonomous commercial vehicle, was also on display for the students.

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