The World of Steel Sets an Example for Student Outreach
Ellwood and Patterns of Meaning show the way for youth engagement in manufacturing
A students works on a sketch in the Patterns of Meaning studio
Photo by Patrick Fisher, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council - image provided by Patterns of Meaning
I’ve said it for a long time: if you’re an industry owner or leader and you’re not actively involved in promoting manufacturing careers to our young people, you’re falling behind.
If you’re in the dark on how to go about that, you’re in luck. Some very good folks in the Pittsburgh area are busy showing just how it’s done.
For Anna Barensfeld, VP of Strategic Initiatives at specialty metals producer Ellwood Group Inc., it’s all about building the future workforce the company needs. “Kids know what a welder does,” she told me. “Our challenge is educating them in why they should be interested enrolling in industrial electrical or electronics or mechatronics or automation, and we’re not doing a very good job of explaining that to them.”
The first way Ellwood attacks that problem is by hosting youth visits to its own factories in the Pittsburgh area—but Anna took things a step further by founding the Lawrence Mercer Manufacturers Coalition (LMMC) to involve other local industrial companies in the efforts as well. LMMC members, including Elllwood, have recently been helping local students compete in the area’s “What’s So Cool About Manufacturing?” competition by opening their doors to students wanting to compete.
The company also provides support for trades training to directly support its technical hiring needs. “At Elwood, we have industrial maintenance scholarship and development program,” Anna explained.”Industrial maintenance is one of the huge crunch areas for us and all manufacturers, I think.” Ellwood provides scholarships for students pursuing related education such as mechatronics, and offers further in-house education opportunties. “If they’re interested, we have our industrial maintenance development program, where they spend about 18 months working in various shops of ours… different business units, different shops, different types of work, and that gives them a great basis to understand, here’s what we do. They get to know our different teams, and they find a place where they fit in.”
Ellwood also supports its local United Way chapter to fund manufacturing-specific summer camps that are very popular and well-attended.
Students visit the Ellwood steel mill for Engineering Day 2025
Image courtesy Ellwood Group Inc.
Parallel to the direct industry involvement in youth outreach that Anna and her compatriots are driving is the work by Cory Bonnet, a Pittsburgh artist and founder of Patterns of Meaning, a collection and exhibition of antique steel-making casting patterns and prints. Cory introduces students to the world of steel and educates them about manufacturing through in-school presentations and visits to his exhibit, an effort that arose when he partnered with the IACMI METAL program. (Read more about both Patterns of Meaning and METAL in my Forbes columns about those programs.)
His focus evolved quickly when he first got started. “I was going into it thinking I really had to focus on foundry, forge processes and teach these kids how this all works,” he told me. “And after a few schools that weren’t right in the heart of Pittsburgh, they didn’t even know what a steel mill was. They didn’t understand that molten steel was molten—it was lava. So there was no connection to the fact that, you know, our entire built environment has to be made by somebody, and this is how we make it. So that was really eye-opening and changed how I was presenting to the kids. Really seeing that, especially for that K through five grade levels, like it’s a blank slate to start with them, and you really have to just build it up. So the in class presentation, that introductory presentation, does that. And then the next step is our field trips down to the Patterns workshop.”
Corey Bonnet does a student presention
Image courtest Patterns of Meaning
Cory plans to get the kids into some hands-on learning as well.
“We’ll do plaster molds and mold making, model making for the older kids. We’ll start to get into 3d design and software so that they can actually build their molds, and then we’re gonna hopefully do some hot pours on larger scale for the project these kids are working on. We’re just tying all these groups together who are doing similar things and getting them to share ideas and hopefully share resources, so we have a more concerted effort.”
Cory shared how rewarding it is to see how the real-world industry lessons he brings to the students makes their academic work come to life.
“Getting them to bridge the gap between their math and science classes to their art classes and show how the math and science principles are directly applicable to their creative process and actually enhance it and open up possibilities has been really fun,” he said.
For Anna, that work has only just begun. “We’re struggling, trying to figure out how to communicate career pathways to our audience better,” she said. “And not just for the kids, but it’s really advanced to career pathways that are available in manufacturing across the board—how do we get that across in an effective way?
With the numbers game working against industry, as our Baby Boomer experts retire and we don’t have the education systems producing the skilled graduates to replace them, the outreach, education, and marketing work like the efforts Anna and Cory are doing will become increasingly vital.
Everyone in manufacturing has a part to play.