Executives at Berkshire Industries recently advertised for an experienced operator of coordinate measuring machines, the computerized equipment used to exactly measure machined parts after fabrication.

Vice President Al Nickerson said the position was important to the machine shop and would pay well.

In response to the advertisement, the firm received applications from a former Yankee Candle Co. worker, a worker from a local steakhouse, and someone with food service industry experience.

"We got the butcher, the baker and the candle-stick maker, but no one we could hire," Nickerson said.

The region has been battered by news that historic names in manufacturing have closed their doors or cut back their operations. Danaher Tool, a factory making wrenches for about 100 years, closed last fall and moved the work down South.

Ludlow Manufacturing is winding down its textile-making operations, which gave the town of Ludlow its name and most of its jobs for decades.

But all the bad news hides a seemingly contradictory fact: some types of manufacturing in the Pioneer Valley are not only going strong, they are having trouble finding enough workers.

Machine tool shops, which make parts on contract to major aerospace, medical and defense companies, have been complaining for more than a year about labor shortages. In particular, they are having trouble finding workers trained to operate computer-controlled machines that turn out complex parts to extremely precise tolerances.

"Manufacturing out here in Western Massachusetts is not dying. It may be killed off, but it's not dying," said Larry Maier, president of Peerless Precision, a machine shop in Westfield.

"We will get killed off, not by competition, but by lack of labor and lack of state support," he said.

Maier and a group of machine tool shop owners are pressing the state to help the industry out with worker training. Several grant proposals have been made and an allocation in the pending economic stimulus bill would provide $150,000 for the Hampden County Regional Employment Board to begin a training program.

The machine shop owners have conducted internal studies showing just 22 area companies could hire 85 workers immediately if they could find qualified applicants. The machine shop owners' trade organization, the National Machine Tool Association, is struggling to make up ground since the training school it ran closed three years ago due to state budget cuts.

The group's new plan is to leave the running of schools to a network of area regional vocational high schools.

"We have a labor shortage that counters everything you read about layoffs," Maier said.

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as getting the machine shops to hire the workers let go from Danaher Tool, for example. Machine shop owners said privately that it's often difficult to get operators of less sophisticated tool machines to adapt to the highly computerized equipment on their shop floors.

Even those with exposure to computer-controlled equipment are not used to the complex three-dimensional parts required by aircraft engine manufacturers and medical device makers. In addition, the machine shops often run at full capacity and rush to complete orders for the contractors, requiring employees to work 10 to 20 hours of overtime on many weeks. The pay can sweeten that requirement, as trained workers can make $15 an hour, and more for overtime.

There are an estimated 300 to 350 machine tool shops in Western Massachusetts, employing 10,000 workers, according to Buck Upson, president of Pioneer Tool Supply Inc.

His firm sells supplies to machine shops, but also makes some parts as well. Upson has been involved in efforts to promote manufacturing as a career.

"We have to change some of the views of our young people in the seventh and eighth grade who are unaware of the economic opportunities," he said.

A grant application is pending to hire a marketing and education coordinator who could become more aggressive about promoting manufacturing.

Upson said he would like to see an interactive DVD to show how modern most machine shops have become, to stress the pay of such jobs and encourage students to consider it.

The machine shop owners believe that working through a network of area vocational high schools could help both the schools and their industry. The high schools could increase the number of students they train, and could begin to offer adult education at night, Upson said.

The machine shop group has historic ties to the Westfield Vocational High School machine shop program, one of very few in area high schools. The machine shop owners have contributed money towards the Westfield Vocational High School's purchase of new equipment in recent years.

However, the organization is also working with Dean Vocational in Holyoke and Chicopee Comprehensive High School. A new vocational high school in Springfield is on the drawing board, and it could include a machine tool program when built, officials said.

Westfield Vocational High School has seen rising interest from one group of students, instructors there said. Half of the students in one class there are of Ukrainian origin.

Some machine shop owners said they believe immigrant students have more appreciation for machining careers than their U.S.-born counterparts.

In addition to the students themselves, the machine tool owners said they struggle with guidance counselors and parents who can be resistant to the idea of children eschewing college to go directly to work in a shop.

Machine shop owners tell stories of students being advised not to enter manufacturing because it is a dying field.

"The guidance counselors and career specialists are not up to date," Upson said.

He and Maier preach a gospel that some parents will not want to hear.

"Half the kids in high school aren't college material," Upson said flatly.

Many students who are pressured to go to college by well-meaning teachers and parents end up dropping out, with only 30 percent of students in eighth-grade going on to complete a college degree, he said.

There are reasons for some wariness about the machine shop boom. Their business has tended to be cyclical, with booms followed by busts that end with the bankruptcy of many firms.

Such a cycle occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s, when a Cold War defense boom ended and dozens of machine shops went out of business. Maier said business cycles occur in all fields, and today's machine shops depend less on any one industry as clients.

There is support for the machine tool shops among legislators. Several attended a briefing by the machine tool association's Western Massachusetts branch last month in Southwick.

State Sen. Michael Knapik, R-Westfield, said the state's economic development efforts must recognize the importance that manufacturing can still have.

"It's not just about biotechnology, it's not just about emerging technologies. We have to focus on home-grown companies in Western Massachusetts," he told the machine tool meeting.

The high-end machine shops are not the only manufacturers struggling for employees.

Smith & Wesson Holding Corp., based in Springfield, has been hiring as demand for their handguns has grown in recent years. Company officials believe they could hire hundreds more workers as the company grows, but the average age of a worker there is over 50 today, and retirements are already a weekly occurrence.

The firm is having trouble hiring machinists to replace them, the company said.

At Springfield Technical Community College, a robotics program that trains students to work in advanced factories in the automotive, semiconductor and medical industries is struggling to attract and retain students.

"We cannot provide enough students for industry," said Doug M. Buckley, chairman of the electrical engineering technology department.

"It's not as attractive to students as it should be," Buckley said.

He said he believes regular news of layoffs at manufacturing companies has hurt his recruiting efforts.

"It's a public perception that's really killing us," he said.

The situation is so bad at some machine shops, they have had to turn away or subcontract work.

Nickerson, vice president of finance for Berkshire Industries Inc., said the larger shops have been trying to grow due to rising business from military and aerospace contractors. His company has gone from 125 workers two years ago to 165 today. It would hire more if it could, he said.

Local firms are stealing workers from one another in their desperation, he said.

One area where prospective employees lack is in math.

Math skills are a bigger and bigger part of the required background for workers in the new manufacturing. Some companies require an associate's degree in a technical field, and all would like applicants to be proficient in geometry and algebra, which are required to program the computer-controlled equipment.

"It's not your grandfather's machine shop any more," Nickerson said.

The capacity problem is growing throughout the metal machining industry, the local group said. Large contractors are depending more on machine shops to solve the problem, but the threat that looms is that work could be sent to eastern Europe or Asia.

"If we don't figure out how to deal with the work here, the work's going to go somewhere else," Nickerson said.

"Right now these companies come to Western Massachusetts. We've got to keep that."

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