<\/p>\n
A handful of home-schooled students stood above a conveyer belt Friday inside a large building at Western Excelsior in Mancos as a large piece of machinery roared to life.<\/p>\n
As the students stood in awe, they watched aspen logs being shaved into excelsior, the stuff the plant on the western edge of Mancos is famous for.<\/p>\n
Ray Bolles, a longtime veteran at Western Excelsior, grabbed some of the stuff and showed it to the kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow,\u201d most of them said, as they watched logs turned into the fiber that Western Excelsior turns into erosion control products and even swamp cooler pads.<\/p>\n
For the first time, Wester Excelsior opened its doors to the public and employees\u2019 families for Manufacturing Day, a national day aimed at highlighting manufacturing jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is our first time participating,\u201d said Kyle Hanson, Western Excelsior\u2019s business unit manager. \u201cNationwide, there are about 1,500 manufacturing plants doing this today.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 90 people toured the plant, and Hanson said he plans to bring it back next year.<\/p>\n
Participants were treated to tours, hay rides, music, a barbecue lunch, candy and ice cream.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom our point of view, it was awesome,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n
Hanson said he and the 100 employees enjoyed showing off their work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just so excited for the employees,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cWhat they do is not easy, and they watched people come through, and those people were listening to them talk and finding what they do every day interesting. If you aren\u2019t careful, there can be a stigma associated with working in a manufacturing plant. But after Friday, there was a great sense of pride.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to National Manufacturing Day organizers, the day started as a grass-roots movement to help with a growing problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most pressing issue is a gap in skilled labor. Eighty percent of manufacturers cannot find the skilled workers they need. This gap continues to widen. Manufacturers\u2019 ability to address this issue has been hindered by the public perception that careers in manufacturing are undesirable by insufficient preparatory education. Both these problems stem from a lack of understanding of present-day manufacturing environments,\u201d Manufacturing Day Producers stated in a press release.<\/p>\n
Hanson said that couldn\u2019t be farther from the truth. His employees often solve problems and design equipment.<\/p>\n
To illustrate this, the plant tour was filled with educational stops, some of which had challenges for participants, one of which involved using large square metal tubing called \u201cflex craft\u201d to solve a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a big boys erector set,\u201d said Matthew Betts.<\/p>\n
Betts challenged children to design a structure that would support a drainage tube, yet allow drainage.<\/p>\n
Ryan Benally, 13, took the day off school to see the plant that his dad, Eugene Henry, has worked at for three years.<\/p>\n
He came from New Mexico with his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great, and the challenges are fun,\u201d Benally said.<\/p>\n
Tilda Henry, Benally\u2019s mother, agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis tour is very informational,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Justin Ross, of Bayfield, signed up for the tour and brought along his home-schooled children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic,\u201d he said. \u201cWe heard about the tour and thought it would be educational.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even at the end of the tour, his kids were grinning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey make blankets,\u201d one kid said with excitement, of the erosion-control products.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved seeing the big saws,\u201d Rylan Ross, 13, said.<\/p>\n
Hanson hopes to get more community members involved next year and make the tours a bit shorter. Some of the tours were well over an hour long.<\/p>\n
Tour participants saw how bark was taken off the aspen logs, how the logs were cut into smaller pieces, how the logs were shaved, how the excelsior was baled, how it was then turned into blankets, and how straw was made into logs, called \u201cwattles.\u201d They also learned about how the by products from the manufacturing process was used. Sawdust is turned into wood pellets; and bark, into cattle feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they do is not easy,\u201d Hanson said. \u201cBut it is also very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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