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Hey kids what time is it?  Those of you that grew up in the 1950′s remember the lead in to the Howdy Doody Show.  Those where the good old days, you baby boomers probably remember sitting in front of the TV watching the test pattern until the Howdy Doody Show came on the air. 

Let’s take a look back and see what has changed over the last 50 or so years that have been a direct impact on our economy.  Our unemployment rate was below 4%, manufacturing was at its height, gasoline was 25 cents per gallon and it was the norm to maintain employment with the same company for your entire career and virtually every (production) car was manufactured in the US.  My how things have changed over the last half century.  Fast forward to 2009 need I go into the details, how did we get into such and economic mess?  In my opinion it was lack of vision and our resistance to change (living in the past).  While Europe and Japan rebuilt (at our expense) to state of the art technology we chose to set back and continue operating our plants using post war manufacturing technology.  As we lost our competitive edge companies began moving off shore rather then modernize to remain competitive.  We are on the brink of becoming a call center / service provider!  Imagine going from a manufacturing giant to service provider in 50 years!  Where did we go wrong?  I suspect you already know the answer, resistance to change.  Before I go any further let’s list some of the major industries we have lost, textile, steel, automotive, to name a few. 

We are about to enter the next decade and I would imagine their will be some discussion about the changes we have witnessed in the past 10 years.  Here’s a suggestion look back a bit further say 25 years and think about what we could have done differently (Lessons Learned) and most importantly what we can do to salvage what little we have left.

There are those that say you can’t go back, as a society we seem almost obsessed to relive the past.  Why don’t we use this “trend” to our advantage?  I’m all for bringing back the “good old days” I would love to see major industry return to US soil.  Am I living in fantasy land?  I don’t think so, all we need to do is learn from our past mistakes, being competitive does not mean moving ”off shore”.  Think efficiency the Europeans and Japanese certainly did, a little loyalty wouldn’t hurt either, shame on me for being patriotic.

There is no reason why a US manufacturing facility cannot compete with other countries, we have a talented work force and the technology to build and operate cost effective profitable plants its just a matter of change.  Change the way we design and build plants, commercial buildings, rethink how we specify equipment (1st cost is not the answer), energy conservation and efficiency is the key. 

As you toast the new year I leave you with these parting words “In vino veritas” (In wine there is truth).  While your reflecting on the past year or decade think about the future.