Sachin Shivaram, the CEO of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, argued for fixing instead of defunding the Manufacturing Extension Partnership programs in an opinion piece for Industry Week.
“The MEP has bipartisan support. It has the backing of small businesses. And it is doing what policymakers say they want: helping American industry grow, compete, and modernize,” Shivaram writes.
In April, it was announced that funding for MEPs in 10 states, not including Wisconsin, had ended. That left the future of the Wisconsin MEP and the Manufacturing Outreach Center in question. State leaders have committed to continued funding of the WMEP programs.
Shivaram argues that instead of defunding WMEP, the efforts should streamlined and made more efficient.
“In Wisconsin, the administrative structure is a legacy of a workaround to federal rules, patched together to keep good people and institutions in the game. The result is a structure with too many people managing the process and not enough delivering services,” Shivaram writes.
