Shortly after NAFTA was launched, North American manufacturing rose to represent 36% of global marketing output. But after a series of unprecedented challenges including two recessions, the 9/11 attacks and the Mexican Drug Wars, that number is down to 26%.

With rising costs of manufacturing in China, is it time for NAFTA to take off again?

Join MITA on September 9th as we explore 20 years of NAFTA, including the challenges and tremendous opportunities that lie ahead.

Doug Biggs, Vice President Sales and Marketing at Gilman Precision and Jeffery Clark, President/CEO Waukesha Metal Products will share their companies’ experiences in creating successful North American strategies. Louisa Elder, Manager of Global Trade Compliance & Trade Agreements at AbbVie, will provide tips on dealing with the paper and documentation that proves that your products qualify for North American preferential duty rates. Mark Rhoda-Reis, Market Development Director for the Americas and Europe at the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, will be on hand to provide the historical framework of NAFTA and some of the changes to international trade that were ushered in by the agreement but which we may take for granted today.

The session will be moderated by Roxanne Baumann, Director for Global Engagement at Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

Early bird registration applies until August 31. Learn more and register.

Roll up your sleeves and join us for the first LOCAL FOOD BUYERS EXCHANGE, an event focused on building the local food market in the upper Midwest – one that’s viable, sustainable and profitable.

Come together in Chicago for a new kind of regional business meeting, an intimate and interactive gathering of local food buyers and sellers. Here are the details:

The LOCAL FOOD BUYERS EXCHANGE is a day-long conference focused exclusively on the development and implementation of local food business solutions, and will include interactive education, roundtable discussions and networking opportunities for local food buyers and sellers.

• Access cutting-edge information from the local food landscape
• Learn best practices to help your business thrive
• Join a growing network of other local food professionals
• Participate in discussions about how public policy can support local food business
• Enhance your professional credibility and effectiveness

Who should attend?

• Institutional food service managers and decision makers
• Restaurant owners and managers
• Hotel food and beverage managers
• Food distribution managers and decision makers
• Grocery store purchasing managers
• Local food growers and sellers

Registration coming soon. Learn more.

The Strategic Sourcing Forum will focus squarely on the challenges facing SME importers from China. As we enter a new era where double-digit price reductions stemming from labor arbitrage are harder to find, SME’s must now aim at becoming more effective and efficient at managing Chinese suppliers if they are to avoid margin compression. The Strategic Sourcing Forum will bring together business leaders, academics, and policy makers to discuss and better understand how to approach and answer the question, “How can I become more profitable in China?”

To frame this question, attendees will engage in a range of presentations, including an economic overview of China’s economy and what it means to US businesses, a procedural examination of how to best manage Chinese suppliers, and relevant case studies from key businesses in the region. It is our hope that attendees will gain valuable insight into the tools and processes needed to effectively manage Chinese suppliers and actionable knowledge to guide their future strategic planning.

Who Should Attend?

• Presidents, VPs and business owners
• General Managers and sales leadership
• Trade association leadership
• State and Federal policy makers
• Academics
• Legal professionals focused on international trade

Why Attend?

Join senior business professionals to discuss the challenges facing SME’s looking to export to China and how to overcome those obstacles.

Participate in genuine debate, based on actionable knowledge, to help guide your decision making process. There will be interactive panel discussions, presentations and case-studies that draw on the views of peers,  and board leaders.

Gain insight from the only event that is not afraid to offer a broad perspective while covering pertinent issues facing exporters to China.

Meet other forward looking business, political, and academic minds who are on top of their respective industries.

Learn more and register by 8/31 for the early registration fee.

A total of $8 million in grant funds is available to support innovative and collaborative employer-led training solutions to benefit skilled and semi-skilled job seekers and incumbent workers through Round 3 of Governor Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Fast Forward (WFF) program.

WFF is administered by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s Office of Skills Development (OSD), which is seeking Wisconsin Fast Forward grant applications in the third round of grant opportunities. Grant applicants can be a single business, a consortium of businesses, or employers in partnership with local workforce and/or economic development organizations. Grant deadlines and funding ranges by industry sectors and occupational areas follow:

• September 23: Manufacturing Occupations; $5,000 to $400,000
• September 30: Construction Trades and Related Occupations & Transportation, Logistics, and Distribution Occupations; $5,000 to $400,000
• October 7: Financial Services Occupations & Information Technology Occupations; $5,000 to $400,000
• October 14: Customer Service Occupations; $5,000 to $400,000
• October 21: Agriculture and Related Occupations & Health Care and Related Occupations; $5,000 to $400,000 & Small Businesses with 50 or fewer full-time employees; $5,000 to $50,000

Round 3 grant applications will be available on September 2. For grant program information, visit WisconsinFastForward.com. For additional third round details, visit: http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/wff/announcements.htm or email WisconsinFastForward@dwd.wisconsin.gov.

Join the Dane County Business Council for a summer luncheon that will feature a panel presentation on the Baraboo Success Story showcasing how their schools, municipal government, and local companies partnered to benefit high schools grads with great jobs and address a labor shortage facing area companies. You will learn about:

• Fast Forward grants for companies
• Key factors in forming partnerships between schools, industry and municipal leadership
• Successful methods used to form partnerships
• Understanding each other’s world to benefit the vision of economic development
• How to jump start the process for building bridges
• Challenges you will encounter and what to do

The panel presentation includes:

• Dr. Crystal Ritzenthaler, District Administrator, Baraboo Schools
• Lori Mueller, Director of Curriculum & Instruction
• Kim Meyer, Director of HR,Teel Plastics, Inc
• Todd Spencer, CAO, Flambeau, Inc.
• Landis Brozak,CEO, Synergy Metalworks, LLC
• Mike Palm, Mayor of Baraboo
• Scott Jansen, Wisconsin Dept of Workplace Development
• Gene Dalhoff, Madison Region Economic Partnership (MadREP)

Learn more and register by 8/23.