September 01, 2026 by Manufacturing the Workforce of Tomorrow Manufacturers across the country are facing a familiar challenge: how do we find and retain the skilled workers we need? While many organizations focus on attracting new talent, Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC) takes a different approach. The organization looks for untapped labor pools, people with the talent and potential to succeed in advanced manufacturing but who may face barriers that make traditional employment difficult. In a recent conversation, JARC CEO Regan Brewer Johnson and Director of Advanced Manufacturing Adonis Summerville shared what they call the “secret sauce” behind their approach: serve the whole person, not just the worker. Connecting Untapped Talent to Manufacturing Careers JARC began in Chicago and now operates three sites in the city, as well as locations in Baltimore and Providence, Rhode Island. The organization is expanding to Philadelphia and plans to enter Detroit in the future. Its focus is middle-skilled positions in advanced manufacturing, providing training to both new and incumbent workers. But technical training is only one piece of the model. “While they're in training with us and learning those technical skills, they're also getting a variety of wraparound support services,” Johnson explains. Those services can include financial education and coaching, assistance accessing public benefits, emergency help with rent or utilities, transportation support, childcare and housing resources, and traditional work-readiness training. The goal is simple: remove the barriers that can prevent talented people from succeeding in a new career with opportunities for advancement. JARC also builds its training programs to resemble an actual manufacturing workplace. Students learn technical skills while experiencing workplace expectations and norms firsthand. That approach helps bridge the gap between classroom training and what graduates will encounter on the shop floor. From JARC Student to Manufacturing Leader Summerville is a powerful example of what that model can accomplish. Today, he oversees advanced manufacturing programs across JARC's locations, including CNC machining and robotics. But he first came to JARC as a student. At the time, Summerville had recently been released from incarceration, was couch surfing, and was unsure what his future would look like. A chance encounter with a former high school classmate introduced him to JARC and CNC machining. “I went home, I checked it out,” Summerville recalls. “I saw they had an application session on Wednesday.” He enrolled and initially struggled. But after a couple of weeks, something clicked. “I felt like my light bulb kind of turned on, and it all made sense to me.” Within about a month, he was encouraged to interview for a manufacturing job. Despite having no car and facing an extraordinarily long commute, he took the opportunity. For months, Summerville traveled roughly four hours round trip by public transportation and walked two miles from the train station to the shop. He started at $10 an hour. After one year of long bus commutes, he received a raise to $15 an hour. Then, just 16 months after first walking into JARC, he landed a position with a larger company, making $25 an hour. This was life-changing money for the then 22-year-old, and he was able to buy a car. The story demonstrates what can happen when someone has access to training, an employer willing to recognize their potential, a strong work ethic, and the opportunity to prove their capabilities. Skills First: Rethinking Justice-Impacted Talent Summerville's experience also highlights an important issue for employers: how to approach candidates who have been justice-impacted. Johnson says JARC leads with skills, “the fact that people are coming into the workplace with the skills that companies need and are looking for” can help employers reconsider who they include in their talent pool. She also acknowledges that employers need to be transparent about background requirements and understand their own policies. But companies should also ask an important question: Why does this policy exist? Johnson recalls asking employers why certain restrictions were in place, only to discover that the answer was sometimes simply, “That's how we've always done it.” For manufacturers struggling to find skilled workers, examining those policies can open the door to qualified candidates who may otherwise be overlooked. The broader point is that a person's past does not necessarily tell an employer what they can contribute today. Recovery Requires More Than a Job JARC also works with individuals who are in recovery, particularly at its Maryland location, where communities have been significantly impacted by the opioid crisis. Rather than trying to provide every service itself, JARC builds partnerships with organizations that specialize in recovery and behavioral health services. Those partners help stabilize individuals before they enter JARC's programs and provide ongoing support when needed. That partnership approach recognizes an important reality: getting a $25-an-hour job doesn't instantly erase the challenges someone was facing before they were employed. A new job may provide an important path toward financial stability, but a graduate could still be dealing with housing instability, debt, transportation challenges, or other pressures. “Life is life out there,” Johnson says. “Trauma is real, and it can happen at any point in time.” For employers, understanding that reality can make the difference between simply hiring someone and creating an environment where that employee can actually succeed. Not Every Employer Is the Right Employer JARC's responsibility doesn't end when a graduate gets a job. The organization also pays close attention to whether its employer partners provide a workplace where graduates can thrive. That means having honest conversations when graduates report concerns about workplace culture, harassment, or other problems on the shop floor. Johnson says transparency is critical, “if there's something happening, if our graduates come back and say there's something happening on the shop floor that they're not comfortable with, like as an employer, I would want to know that.” Most employers, she says, want to do the right thing. But occasionally, JARC has had to stop working with companies because the environment wasn't a good fit. In some cases, however, those relationships have eventually been restored after changes in leadership or workplace culture. The lesson extends beyond JARC: building a stronger talent pipeline isn't just about changing who gets hired. It's also about changing the workplaces they're entering. Building a Workforce Means Building Communities JARC's approach offers a broader lesson for manufacturers facing persistent workforce challenges. The people who can fill critical manufacturing roles already exist in many communities. They may simply be overlooked because of transportation challenges, childcare needs, housing instability, justice involvement, recovery or other circumstances that have little to do with their ability to learn and perform a job. The solution isn't to ignore those challenges. It's to build systems that help people overcome them. That requires manufacturers, workforce organizations, educators, community organizations, and other partners to work together. It also requires employers to look beyond traditional talent pools. As Summerville's story demonstrates, the right opportunity can do more than fill an open position. It can create a career, change a family's trajectory, and help strengthen an entire community. The future of manufacturing may depend not only on finding more workers, but on finding the workers we haven't been looking for, and giving them the support and opportunity to succeed.
