On Tuesday, February 26, R-V Industries participated in a regional manufacturing roundtable supported by Pew Charitable Trusts and the Brookings Institution. The purpose was to advance quality job creation, strategic cooperation, and effective use of regional resources.
The meeting, hosted by the Chester County Economic Council in Exton, PA, featured over 15 company leaders from prominent manufacturers, as well as members of the Brookings Institution, an independent research firm focused on improving government policy at all levels to enhance economic performance.
Brookings presented their findings, having analyzed various economic performance metrics across Chester Country, primarily in terms of jobs created in the manufacturing space. They concluded that while growing, Chester County was still underperforming compared to similarly sized counties across the United States. From there, they invited participating companies to provide input to help contextualize these findings.
Several common themes came up from the attending company leaders, namely the lack of advanced manufacturing employment candidates within Chester County. The high cost of living was unanimously cited as a challenge preventing experienced workers from moving to the county, despite many stating they have the demand to grow their businesses. Additionally, many pointed to a need for a general shift in philosophy at the educational level to begin pushing students towards trade/technical schools where they can develop requisite skills, such as welding, CNC machining, or PLC programming.
Employer resource constraints are another factor impacting talent development. Many of the roundtable members expressed a desire to promote from within and train their existing employee base to gain new skills but are hindered by limited funding and production requirements.
R-V’s CEO, Kirk A. Putt, suggested funding a program to incentive manufacturers to train workers in their facilities. This would enable companies to enhance the skills of their current workforce while also expanding the regional labor pool by also training candidates new to manufacturing. Without an expanded labor pool, companies are pulling candidates from each other.
While the meeting focused on opportunities for improvement, examples of success were also highlighted, particularly the regional growth of the Life Science and Pharmaceutical industries. R-V Industries has been an active participant in this expansion, with recent acquisitions of local companies focused in the Pharmaceutical and Life Science Industries: Ackley Machine (Moorestown, NJ), Beta Star Life Science Equipment (Honey Brook, PA), Genesis Packaging Technologies (Honey Brook, PA), and R.W. Hartnett (Philadelphia).
Founded in 1974, R-V Industries is a leading industrial equipment supplier with over 350 employees. R-V’s industrial equipment solutions help produce many well-known consumer products and services, creating a better life for people around the world. R-V serves a diverse set of customers across biotechnology, chemical, food & beverage, life sciences, nuclear waste, oil & gas, paper & pulp, pharmaceutical, and power generation industries.
R-V Industries is a portfolio company of Prospect Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: PSEC), a publicly traded business development company with $7.2 billion of total assets as of December 31, 2024.