Manufacturing jobs plentiful in our region

As I have shared before, responding to a request for information (RFI) is something I regularly do as I work with the state to attract new businesses to Hamilton County. Each response is different, so the research I complete and information I provide varies widely from project to project.  
This month the company I was working with was part of the manufacturing sector. One of the pieces of information I needed to provide was information on the competitive environment and specifically the largest manufacturing employers within a 30-minute drive of Aurora. I am very familiar with the manufacturers in Hamilton County, but a 30-minute drive time pushed my baseline knowledge, so I decided to reach out to my go-to research source -- Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD).  
The NPPD economic development team is involved in all large and small business expansion and development projects from an electrical standpoint, but they also help by providing a significant amount of data quickly. Given that I usually have less than a week to respond to an RFI, NPPD is a very valuable resource to me. 
Truth be told, I sent the research request assuming there would be a handful of manufacturers that didn’t come to mind within our 30-minute radius in the Grand Island area. Boy was I wrong. I almost fell out of my seat when I opened the spreadsheet to see 296 manufacturers listed.  
Looking at all of the towns that are included in our 30-minute radius includes a large section of the region with communities like Sutton, Hastings, Doniphan, Alda, Grand Island, Central City, Clarks and York, in addition to all of Hamilton County.  Given that this radius covers a large area, it makes sense that there would be many manufacturing companies, but it is still surprising that there are almost 300 companies in our immediate region that account for 11,642 jobs. 
So what? It is fun to learn more about our community and region, but why does this information matter? For someone in my position, this information is important for telling the story of the skilled workforce we already have for businesses who are considering an expansion project or new businesses who are looking for a place to land.  
For a current business owner looking to hire employees, it is important to know because workers have a lot of options. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to struggle to find the right candidate, but it does mean that employers need to be intentional about how and where they advertise a position and how they treat their employees. The main reason is because it is easy for your employees to find another company to work for that meets their needs. 
The second reason is because it is likely that employees at other companies are looking for a supportive work environment with opportunities for upward mobility within their career field as well.  If you can establish this within your company, quality workers will gravitate to you.
For people who live in our community or students considering moving back here later in life, knowing that there are 296 manufacturers within a reasonable commute time means there are many opportunities for employment. While all these companies, large and small, have line workers, many of them also employ engineers, office managers, accounting and HR professionals, safety managers, marketing and sales departments, shipping and logistics managers and more. It is easy to get caught thinking that the job opportunities are limited to the businesses we drive by every day or the companies where our friends and family work, but when we look further than our comfort zone, we realize there are far more options than we even considered.    
I have always been a huge supporter of rural Nebraska and particularly Hamilton County.  Learning more about our manufacturing sector just reiterates the vast amount of opportunity that we have right here in our backyard.    

 KELSEY BERGEN serves as executive director of the Aurora Development Corporation. She can be reached at kelsey@growaurora.com