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RFT-MII among diverse range of topics covered

Posted November 17, 2016

 

By Devin Steele (DSteele@eTextileCommunications.com)

 

BELMONT, N.C. – The Southern Textile Association’s (STA’s) recent Northern Division Fall Meeting attracted more than 70 attendees to Gaston College’s Textile Technology Center, Kimbrell Campus here.

 

Among five speakers were Eric Spackey, president and CEO of Puerto Rico-based Bluewater Defense, Inc., whose presentation covered the other entity in which he is involved, the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA).

 

In his capacity as chief marketing officer of that group, he discussed the nonprofit research and development consortium comprised of partners from industry, academia and state governments.

 

AFFOA was selected to lead the Revolutionary Fibers & Textiles Manufacturing Innovation Institute (RFT-MII), announced April 1 by U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

 

“We’re talking about creating a revolution in fiber technology,” Spackey said. “Fiber, for the most part, has been the same for thousands of years. Now we’re talking about multi-material fibers. We’ve seen it in our labs already. We can create fibers with multiple uses – fibers that have the functionality of semiconductor devices yet are produced at fiber lengths, uniformity and cost.”

 

AFFOA will lower the barrier to innovation in the advanced functional fabric space, enabling “fab-less” startups to thrive, he added.

 

“I can’t express this more – fabrics will be the new software,” Spackey said. “We have to rethink everything because it hasn’t been done yet. As a fiber, for example, how do we cut it without cutting all the connections?”

 

He also provided insights into progress AFFOA has made with the RFT-MII and provided examples of its early work.

 

The RFT-MII is the eighth institute approved by the Department of Defense, but its objectives are different than the others, Spackey said.

 

“Our objective is to make product,” he said. “My role is not to do deep research and try to figure out how to develop more technology. My role is to take this fiber and move it into industry – quickly. The key for us is to keep those jobs here.”

 

Attendees also heard an in-depth discussion on the “new workforce,” by Vance Tiller, CSP, CSC, director of Sales & Client Development, StaffMasters. He addressed the labor participation rate, economic factors affecting labor and the skills gap, as well as other issues impacting turnover, engagement and retention.

 

To help ameliorate the labor issue, he encouraged employers to focus on the four Rs – rebranding, recruiting, retraining and retention – then added another: rethink (our strategy).

 

“The attention span of this (younger) generation is a nanosecond,” Tiller said. “So we have to rethink and rebrand. We have to get away from the perception most people associate with the textile industry,” he added, showing an image of an old, dirty textile mill, “although I pay great homage to these people.

 

“We need to share the words most associated with this industry today: Clean, automated, advanced, safe, secure and protecting our heroes,” he continued. “It’s a great industry and we have to be evangelists for it.”

 

Also speaking were:

 

  • Tim Quinlan, director, senior economist, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC and Wells Fargo & Co., who said during his economic report that the outlook is for below-trend growth to continue, somewhere in the order of 2 percent or so, he said;
     

  • Karl Sherrill, CIC, CRM, MBA, National Manufacturing Vertical Leader – Private Education & Tuition, Senn Dunn Insurance, a Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC Co., who offered insights into the new Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime rule; and
     

  • Dr. Susan Roberts, associate professor, Political Science Department, Davidson College, who, in her presentation titled, “Election 2016: Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail,” discussed the polarization and incivility the recent U.S. elections had wrought.

STA Fall Meetings pack 'em in

Association is 'making textiles great again'

Posted November 17, 2016

 

By Devin Steele (DSteele@eTextileCommunications.com)

 

CLEMSON, S.C. – Nearly 90 industry representatives were on hand this week for the Southern Textile Association’s (STA’s) Southern Division Fall Meeting at the Madren Conference Center here.

 

Division Chairman Matt Shannon of Greenwood Mills introduced the program in perhaps the best post-election fashion possible: “Welcome to the 2016 Fall Meeting of the Southern Division of the Southern Textile Association, where we are making textiles great again,” he deadpanned.

 

After encouraging attendees to continue to push for new members – the association recently surpassed the 500-member mark – STA Chairman Todd Wemyss of Glen Raven Custom Fabrics asked members to take a look at the newly designed STA website.

 

Auggie Tantillo, president and CEO of the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), opened the program by covering post-election trade matters as well as the council’s #WeMakeAmazing rebranding campaign. He pointed out that most of the pollsters and pundits were wrong in their presidential predictions, and acknowledged that “we’re now in some truly uncharted waters.”

 

“Those uncharted waters, however, are not necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “As one who has worked on manufacturing issues for the better part of 30 years in Washington, I can honestly say there is a level of enthusiasm that has evolved over the last week that generally wasn’t there. The manufacturing sector in the United States, even though it is the engine to our wealth creation, has been overlooked and undervalued for at least the 30 years I’ve been here. So let’s hope that President-Elect Trump will carry through on his commitments, promises and clearly stated intentions to place a proper value on the U.S. manufacturing base, including those of us who work in the textile industry.”

 

Tantillo reminded attendees of the work the NCTO did to ensure certain provisions were included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He went on to say that there is no clear path forward for TPP with the election of President Trump. He predicted that it would not be approved in the current lame duck session of Congress and that the new president would not seek its enactment after he takes office.

 

He also noted that the NCTO fought back three efforts to weaken the Berry Amendment, adding that “hopefully, we will have an ally in the administration who will say ‘we do not just want to support the Berry Amendment, we want to strengthen it.’ ”

 

Tantillo added that, under Trump, he expects a sea change to occur in a number of areas, including immigration, trade and manufacturing.

 

He also updated the audience on the #WeMakeAmazing campaign aimed at improving the perception of the textile industry, particularly among the media, policy influencers and business leaders.

 

“We want to help people understand that what’s in your closet today isn’t what was in there 30 years ago,” he said. “There has been a tremendous amount of work to make it more durable, to make it easier to wick fluids, to keep you warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. We want people to understand that we’re the industry that’s doing that – not the brands. We also want people to understand that our products have end-use applications that people normally wouldn’t recognize, things that improve lives and save lives.”

 

Also presenting were:

 

  • Carl Tolbert, director of Engineering, B&D Technologies, who discussed his company’s technologies;
     

  • Chuck Butts, technical engineer/Sales, Murata Machinery USA, Inc., who went over his firm’s latest machinery technologies;
     

  • Oliver Meier, sales representative, Staubli Corporation, who delved into weaving technologies;
     

  • Dr. Scott Baier, associate professor, Clemson University, who provided an economic update; and
     

  • Cheryl Stanton, director, S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce, talked about ways the state is creating a “talent pipeline.'

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