By Mike Drummond
Full story appears in Inventors Digest, June 2011 print edition.

The former Cheers star and veteran voice of Pixar films is on a mission to revitalize U.S. manufacturing.

“The reason the world is free is because of American strength,” he says. “And America’s strength is based on manufacturing. And manufacturing is based on invention.

“Every single industry, and there’s no exception to this rule, started with one person inventing one thing. And every single one of those people started off as a child tinkering.”

In his estimation, there’s not nearly enough tinkering going on these days, which he fears will have dire long-term consequences.

America, he says, has lost its manufacturing mojo. There aren’t enough students entering vocational schools or the industrial trades, he says. With a dearth of wrench-savvy workers, there aren’t enough people to repair the nation’s crumbling bridges, buildings and water systems, let alone operate the gears of America’s mighty military machinery.

The 64-year-old Ratzenberger, who once was a carpenter and is the son of a factory worker and truck driver, says the nation is facing an economic “tragedy of epic proportion” stemming from a decline in U.S. manufacturing and the men and women who know how to run, make and fix things.

“We may never recover if we lose our manufacturing edge to other countries,” he says. “The pervasive impact of this crisis has the potential to turn America into a second-rate economy.”

The work owes its origins to the John Ratzenberger’s Made in America, which aired on the Travel Channel between 2004 and 2008 and honored American inventors, factory workers and the like.

That show also inspired the book he co-authored, We’ve Got it Made in America, A Common Man’s Salute to an Uncommon Country, as well as the genre of blue-collar reality shows, including Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, among others.

There’s little reason to doubt Ratzenberger’s latest media project won’t succeed.

“You know there are 137 cities in the United States with water systems that are failing, where the water pipes are over 100 years old,” he says. “There are 250,000 bridges in disrepair and not enough people to fix them.

“The reason Third World countries are Third World,” he says, “is because nothing works. Basically, that’s where we’re headed.”

Full story can be found at http://www.inventorsdigest.com/archives/6646

By: John Ratzenberger
DailyCaller.com

“We don’t build that here anymore.” The words hung in the air like fog. I heard the same statement repeated by many of the small businesses we profiled on the “John Ratzenberger’s Made in America” series on Travel Channel.

Despite amazing innovations and inspired workers, the tragic reality is that American industry and trades are under assault from within — we don’t have enough skilled workers to make America work anymore. Many companies are literally begging workers to come on board, offering well-paying, high-skilled work and training just to stay afloat.

The most popular phrase in today’s political lexicon is “job creation.” Americans of all persuasions are demanding that something be done about jobs. Seeking a fast fix, leaders in Washington and in the states are offering up tax cuts, low interest rates, and the promise of “green jobs,” all of which have some merit.

But in an American economy that’s losing its industrial base, “fast fixes” won’t prevent the coming tide of job loss and the entire culture of American productivity that goes with skilled work. The impact will be devastating.

The average age of a skilled worker in the U.S. is 55. Credible statistics from the U.S. Labor Department and elsewhere suggest that somewhere between 3 million and 15 million jobs go unfilled due to skilled worker shortages. Every major sector is affected, from crane operators and welders to high-tech producers and health care providers. We’re talking about trillions of lost dollars and a repositioning of America as a debtor-consumer, rather than the global leader-producer. This is the perfect storm.

Some critics have said that the American economy is too resilient to fold, and that we will innovate our way out of the “old” manufacturing economy and into a bright and shiny future in which Americans will find new ways to work and produce. I enjoy “first principle” discussions as much as the next guy. But these discussions have little value when America is staring down the barrel of a failing economy, crumbling infrastructure, and a workforce made up of college graduates and unskilled labor.

I prefer to focus on what is, rather than what might be. The warning lights are blinking on overdrive — America is in trouble. We need a long-term effort to educate, train, and deploy America’s skilled workforce. We have very little time to get this right.

We are currently producing a documentary and education program, “Industrial Tsunami,” for national release in early 2012. In “Industrial Tsunami,” I will showcase programs across the nation that are providing hands-on, meaningful training to a new generation of Americans. There are some terrific efforts underway, primarily in the private sector, to bring skills to young people. Bradley Tech high school in Milwaukee is a prime example — high-tech and practical skills taught by professionals alongside excellent academics. This is promising. But there’s more that needs to be done to right the ship.

It starts with kids. We must foster the love of tinkering and the self-reliance and creativity that come with it. The old “shop class” model has essentially disappeared. Let’s develop and promote hands-on learning at home and in schools.

Government needs to help; in some respects, it can do so best by simply getting out of the way. Too often, regulations are disconnected from good intentions and become economic roadblocks with little social value. Add to that a lawsuit-crazy culture that makes every job and activity a liability waiting to happen. Government policies that drive young people into a “college or failure” mindset make skilled work career choices a practical impossibility.

We must also expect and demand that our media culture change its portrayals of skilled work and workers. Workers were once honored as the backbone of America in our movies and books. In today’s celebrity-driven media, however, skilled work is demeaned and skilled workers are often portrayed as a grimy cautionary tale. Who’d want a job like that?

The stakes are too high to hope for a changing economy that will innovate and create fast enough to offset our shrinking skilled work-reliant manufacturing, construction, and infrastructure building and maintenance industries. We face an epic challenge, but it’s also an unprecedented opportunity to take advantage of the need for skilled work and workers. These jobs exist today, and they don’t require billions in “stimulus” to develop down the road. Note to lawmakers and policymakers across America: The window of opportunity is closing fast. Will America get to high ground before the Industrial Tsunami hits?

John Ratzenberger is an actor, author,  and advocate for America’s skilled workers. He is currently producing a documentary and education program, “Industrial Tsunami,” on the devastating loss of skilled workers and its impact on American prosperity and culture.

John’s recommendations on how you can support American products appears in the December issue of Reader’s Digest.

It’s easier than you’d think.

Reader’s Digest, December 2010

by Natalie Van der Meer

Actor John Ratzenberger, perhaps best known as the barfly postman Cliff Clavin on TV’s Cheers, now plays an even more engaging role offscreen as an activist. He has spoken out for American manufacturers at congressional hearings, and in 2004, he created, produced, and hosted Made in America, a show for the Travel Channel, in which he visited 200 iconic U.S. companies to celebrate the men and women still making products on American soil. He is also completing an independent film about the current job crisis, Industrial Tsunami. Here, his recommendations for keeping jobs at home.  [More]

America’s bailout culture leads away from practical employment

The Washington Times, Nov 12, 2010

by John Ratzenberger

The “jobs crisis” is nothing new. In fact, the current political debate misses the bigger picture. It won’t be elected officials and bankers alone who save the day. What our leaders have been doing – and not doing – has consequences for American jobs and the future of American enterprise. We’ve each got a stake in the game, and we each have a role to play in fixing it.

[More]

Join Steven Maggi as he hosts John on Radio Free Washington to discuss the upcoming Industrial Tsunami.  Also in this interview, some rarer facts about John….

Listen  HERE.

The Equal Opportunity Awards Dinner will celebrate enlightened corporate leadership on behalf of women and girls.  The group has been highly focused on winning opportunities for women to join the skilled trades in NYC subsequent to 9/11.

Ratzenberger, a leading advocate fighting the skilled worker shortage, is scheduled to present to this prestigious group Nov 17 on behalf of Foundation for Fair Civil Justice.

[More]

Global Toy News, October 27, 2010

by John Ratzenberger

Making and fixing things with your hands is a dying art in America, as I see it.  Based on lessons I learned from creative play as a child, I’ve made “be creative and work with your hands” into a national campaign to save the American skilled workforce.

As a child, I tinkered with toys, boats and radios.  I learned at the feet of my parents and neighbors in Bridgeport, Connecticut, one of the nation’s manufacturing hubs.  My curiosity and old-fashioned work ethic taught by my family and neighbors turned into a career as a carpenter, innovator and entrepreneur, never losing my love of hands-on productive play.

[More]

Missed, the show?  You can hear it right HERE.

John highlights Industrial Tsunami, a documentary about our shortage of skilled workers in this interview.

Industrial Tsunami is in production now.

www.legalreforminthenews.com