ASHWAUBENON — October is manufacturing month, and Wisconsin's largest manufacturing expo was held on Wednesday to recognize and celebrate manufacturers.
Resch Expo was filled with robots, food products and even a virtual welding booth as a part of the 2022 Manufacturing First Expo and Conference.
Logan Dehn, a student at Appleton East High School, was one of more than 300 high schoolers at the expo. High schoolers were invited to do hands-on projects and learn about the ins and outs of manufacturing.
"We're building a little flashlight," Dehn said. "I think it's supposed to be a keychain that can act as a flashlight when the button is pressed."
Dehn said getting to attend the event was a "good opportunity" to get "exposure to a lot of different careers."
More than 1000 people came out to the expo to view and interact with the 200 booths and manufacturers.
One of the manufacturers in attendance was Doig Corporations. Doig Corporations has been working on robots for over 25 years, designing them with the goal to help workers.
"It's helping with the labor issue," Eric Kraus, Doig Corporations Director of Automation, said. "It's taking an application where a person is doing nothing more than pushing buttons... loading buttons into a machine, and then putting it into a robot, and then we have that worker go do more meaningful tasks."
Ann Franz, Executive Director of the NEW Manufacturing Alliance, said Doig Corporation is just one of the expo booths paving the future for businesses and consumers.
She also said she's grateful to be able to put on an event like the expo, so it can bring awareness to the importance of manufacturing.
"Manufacturing is so important to our state because 23% of all the jobs in Northeast Wisconsin are manufacturing...almost one out of four people," Franz said. "Plus, it's such a huge economic driver for our region."
She added that the expo can inspire the next generation of manufacturers, too.
"Last night, we had a big awards dinner recognizing schools and manufacturers that are working together. With that event, we raised money for college scholarships," Franz said. "We've given over $400,000 in college scholarships."
There were also speakers at the event and a keynote presentation about cybersecurity.
