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We Can’t Wait: Manufacturing - Obama Administration Announces New Public-Private Partnership

In order to create an economy built to last, America needs to make more things the rest of the world wants to buy.  - President Obama

The Obama Administration announced today a new Public-Private Partnership to support manufacturing innovation and to encourage investment in America Consortium of Businesses, Universities, and Community Colleges from as far across the country as Youngstown Ohio, to West Virginia and Pennsylvania as part of its ongoing efforts to help revitalize American manufacturing and encourage companies to invest in the United States. 

The new partnership, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII), was selected through a competitive process, led by the Department of Defense, to award an initial $30 million in federal funding, matched by $40 million from the winning consortium, which includes manufacturing firms, universities, community colleges, and non-profit organizations from the Ohio-Pennsylvania-West Virginia ‘Tech Belt.’  After losing millions of good manufacturing jobs in the years before and during the deep recession, the administration reports that the economy has added over 530,000 manufacturing jobs since February 2010 —the strongest growth for any 30 month period since 1989. Companies are also increasingly choosing to invest in the U.S. and bring jobs back.

“I’m pleased that we are taking steps to strengthen American manufacturing by launching a new manufacturing institute in Ohio,” said President Obama. “This institute will help make sure that the manufacturing jobs of tomorrow take root not in places like China or India, but right here in the United States of America.  That’s how we’ll put more people back to work and build an economy that lasts.”  

On March 9, 2012, President Obama announced his plan to invest $1 billion to catalyze a national network of up to 15 manufacturing innovation institutes around the country that would serve as regional hubs of manufacturing excellence that will help to make our manufacturers more competitive and encourage investment in the United States.  The President called on Congress to act on this proposal and create the National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI).  

Five federal agencies - the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Commerce, the National Science Foundation, and NASA – jointly committed to invest $45 million in a pilot institute on additive manufacturing.  Today's announcement of an initial $30 million award under existing authorities is matched by $40 million from the winning consortium.  Additionally, the Director of the National Economic Council Gene B. Sperling,  Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca M. Blank and Under Secretary of Defense Frank Kendall along with other Administration and local officials, will announce an award at M7 Technologies in Youngstown, Ohio.  The winning consortium is led by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining and consists of leading research universities like Carnegie Mellon and Case Western Reserve University, world-class companies like Honeywell, Boeing, and IBM.

To view the report on creating a domestic manufacturing advantage click here.  For updated information on the president's Council of Science & Technology initiative, click here.

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