“Upskilling workers is absolutely essential for our future prosperity and the seminal issue of our time. Snap-on comes naturally to this issue given our ten decades serving the makers and fixers of our society.” - Nick Pinchuk, Chairman and CEO
On manufacturing floors, in automotive garages and aviation hangars, and even in harm’s way, serious professionals are performing critical tasks where the cost of failure is high. Without these professionals, our economy and our society as a whole just wouldn’t work.
Snap-on has held a deep respect for the dignity of this work since our founding over a century ago. In the early days, while making sales calls, Snap-on salesmen would carefully lay down the mechanic’s tools on green felt as if they were surgeons’ knives, illustrating the importance and stature of the profession and the pride mechanics should take in their work. Those jobs are no less important today. And while the skills needed to perform them have increased dramatically, the respect for those jobs has dimmed.
Over the last few decades, fewer and fewer young people have chosen a technical career path, resulting in a shortage of skilled workers and a serious skills gap. As a result, thousands upon thousands of good and honorable jobs are going unfilled. At Snap-on, we view the upskilling of the workforce as the seminal issue of our time. No path to prosperity is possible without hard working, skilled professionals and a strong middle class.
When it comes to CTE (career and technical education) and technical jobs, we realize there is a serious public relations problem. Snap-on continues to drive for change in how they are perceived by students, parents and society. Some say these jobs are the consolation prize of our society. We say they are a national calling, critical to our future and deserving of our utmost respect.
Snap-on is fully committed to tackling this issue with numerous collaborators across the U.S. and the globe. For example, we advance solutions through…
Snap-on has developed an extensive network of:
This extensive network works with local industries to deliver career and technical education (CTE) students that are trained and certified in the skills businesses are looking to hire today. A leading example is Gateway Technical College in our hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Our partnership with Gateway serves as a national model for collaboration between education, industry and government.
NC3 (National Coalition of Certification Centers) fosters globally competitive industry partnerships with leading educational institutions in order to develop, implement, and sustain industry-recognized, portable certifications built on national skills standards that have strong validation and assessment standards. Thus far, NC3’s network has:
NC3 is demonstrating that they can produce a sustainable, highly skilled workforce at an ever increasing rate on a national basis, and slowly and deliberately, outside of the U.S.
SkillsUSA intersects and integrates education and industry while it engages nearly 400,000 career and technical students and teachers nationwide. These students are primarily training in U.S. high schools and community colleges in a variety of skilled careers such as:
The SkillsUSA framework incorporates these technical skills grounded in academics along with professional skills (e.g. teamwork, communication, leadership) and personal skills (e.g. work ethic, professionalism, integrity). SkillsUSA orchestrates local, state, and national skills competitions across 100+ technical areas and truly celebrates these students' achievement within all three elements of the framework, and, most importantly, their chosen careers.
Snap-on groups are also involved with advancing career and technical education on a global level. Across six continents, our units partner with technical schools and programs of all kinds. We are also involved with World Skills, an international organization that engages youth and celebrates technical careers of all kinds through international competitions held every two years from Brazil to Dubai to Russia to China. Snap-on is collaborating with NC3, Morocco, and others to establish an industry-driven approach to technical education in the Middle-East. These are among the many examples of Snap-on engaging and elevating career and technical education around the globe.