Many vets have the skills, but no place to apply them.

Kaukauna, Wisconsin may hold the secrets to solving the problem of our skilled labor shortage.

Apprenticeship programs are back in the USA - sort of.

If you've been following this space with any regularity, you know that grassroots efforts among industry and academia are springing up around the country to help win the hearts, minds and talents of young people in nudging them towards a career in manufacturing. Add another partnership to the list.

Siemens is helping the state of Georgia's STEM initiative by helping develop educational programs for the public schools.

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) has been gathering, validating and sharing manufacturing knowledge for more than 80 years. Traditionally, SME resources were purchased by individuals for their own personal use or by colleges and universities as textbooks. Recently, these same colleges and universities were looking for digital resources to provide to their instructors and students. Companies were requesting SME content digitally for their employees as well.

For two days in Saline, Michigan, Liebherr's clients, customers and friends came together to discuss the latest gear products and technology. Peter Wiedemann, president of Liebherr Gear Technology Inc., along with Dr.-Ing. Alois Mundt, managing director, Dr.-Ing. Oliver Winkel, head of application technology, and Dr.-Ing. Andreas Mehr, technology development shaping and grinding, hosted a variety of informative presentations.

Bearings ain't beanbag. They are complicated. They are big-business. They are often counterfeited. They are used in virtually anything that moves. But it is the "complicated" part that challenges OEMs, job shops and other operations, and, most of all, their employees. Add to that the countless other entities around the world that are intimately involved with bearings and you can arrive at a semblance of an idea of just how important these precious orbs can be to a successful operation.

Like many Americans, I've been trained with the idea that those who see a problem should be the ones responsible for helping to solve it. If you see that something is broken, and you know how to fix it, don't wait for your dad, your boss or the government to tell you what to do. Just fix it.

"Gear Train" is a new Gear Technology section focusing on training and education in the gear industry. For the first installment, we've focused on AGMA's online and video training programs.