NextFlex's Becky Lewis: Bridging the Manufacturing Skills Gap

Work Forces

Becky Lewis is Director of Education and Workforce Development at NextFlex, a manufacturing institute dedicated to innovation and workforce development in the flexible hybrid electronics sector. Becky shares her passion for creating pathways for untapped talent to access good-paying jobs and discusses the challenges and opportunities in addressing the skills gap in advanced manufacturing. The conversation delves into NextFlex's innovative learning programs, including the nationally scaled FlexFactor program for K-12 students and their initiatives to support incumbent worker training. Becky also highlights NextFlex's commitment to diversity and inclusion, with a special focus on expanding opportunities for women in STEM and manufacturing fields.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in.

Julian: Today we're joined by Becky Lewis. Becky is Director of Education and Workforce Development at NextFlex. NextFlex is a flexible hybrid electronic manufacturing institute that facilitates innovation, addresses the manufacturing workforce gap, and promotes sustainable manufacturing ecosystems. Becky leads NextFlex learning programs with a focus on inspiring and training an inclusive advanced manufacturing workforce. Becky is a seasoned leader with diverse experience in education, workforce development, and health equity. With decades of experience in grant writing, grant management, and budget oversight, she secured over $10 million in federal grants for institutes of higher education and takes a data-driven approach to measuring program outcomes and their impacts on diverse learner populations. Welcome to Workforces, Becky.

Becky Lewis: Thank you, I'm glad to be here.

Kaitlin: Thank you for joining us today, Becky. It's such a privilege to have the chance to connect with you. As we get started today, can you please tell us about your background and how you approach your work?

Becky: Of course. And it's so lovely to be on with you today as well. So I think one of the threads that's important in terms of my story is that I come from a family of folks that have always kind of given back. And I think some of that certainly comes from a certain level of privilege. So like everyone in my family is mostly doctors and healthcare professionals, social workers. And so I think there's definitely that thread of like, you know, whatever you're doing for a living should also be something that actually leaves the world and society, you know, a better place to some extent. And so I think I've always approached, you know, education and my work from that from that lens. I know, obviously, you read my bio, but part of where I started was really with community college and so teaching community college students for over 10 years. I really, really loved that work and I think that inspired me and gave me kind of a perspective and a platform upon which I've built my career. So I think the vision around that was really like how do we help equip people that might not otherwise have access to education, resources, social capital, to really have social and economic mobility and be able to live a quality, good life. Even though my background is really a lot of public health. And so with that lens, it's like, all right, well, we know that there's a really strong correlation between kind of the level of education that somebody has and actually their overall lifespan, their chronic disease rates, all of that. And so in my mind, there was always that idea of like, how can we ensure that people have as much education information, resources to support themselves and their families and not just survive, but thrive. So I think that's something that I've carried with me throughout my career and now really workforce development, I think it's gotten such a common…it’s become such a household name, particularly post-COVID with everything. But you know, I really think what's what's interesting about the work is that it's not just about getting people into jobs, right? Like it's really about giving folks the skills and knowledge and kind of ecosystem that allows them to be successful and thrive. And I think and also just, you know, have good physical health, have good mental health, I think particularly coming out of COVID those have been more like visible priorities, both from an employer standpoint and also from an employee standpoint, because you recognize that you can't actually do your job well unless you are well, you know, sound bodies, sound mind. So I think those are some things that are really important to me and that I'll continue to carry with me in the work with Nextflex.

Julian: Becky, what is NextFlex? Tell us about the goals of the organization and your work within it.

Becky: Yeah, absolutely. So you gave a little bit of an overview of NextFlex, but just to go into more depth. So NextFlex is one of the nine manufacturing innovation institutes that is funded by the Department of Defense to essentially reshore manufacturing capabilities within the United States. And one of our key tenants or kind of mission spaces is education and workforce development. And so that's where I fit in. We are nationally focused. As an institute, we have a specific technology focus. So for NextFlex, that is flexible hybrid electronics and hybrid electronics broadly. We're also kind of looking at adjacencies with the semiconductor field and advanced packaging. But our workforce mission really is to figure out how do we support the workforce that's needed to strengthen US manufacturing capabilities and particularly for the defense industrial base since the Department of Defense is our primary kind of customer and stakeholder. And one of the ways that we really try to think about doing that and also aligns with my personal passion space, you know, is by looking at kind of untapped, overlooked, underserved talent and how we can kind of create bridges and pathways and opportunities for folks to have access to some of these good paying jobs.

Kaitlin: Great. So building on that, Becky, can you tell us a little bit about the learning portfolio that you offer that reaches K-12 students and adults as well?

Becky: One of the things that I think is interesting is like if you look at kind of the numbers in the United States, so we know that we are still, you know, the labor market, according to the Department of Commerce, still has not returned to pre-pandemic employment levels. Interestingly, you know, women actually are right around pre pandemic employment levels. And part of that is because of the increase of hybrid work. And so because of that, it's allowed women to be in the workplace and work from home and have that flexibility. However, childcare is still a tremendous barrier to accessing work for, you know, many, many populations, you know, including women. And we also know that, nNot only is there a current shortage in terms of not having enough people to fill the jobs that we have posted now, but we're also making billions of dollars of investment with semiconductors, with the Chips and Science Act, with the Biden incentive funding, and building these, you know, fabs all over the country. And we don't have people to fill those jobs either. So we're going to have to figure this out and really from NextFlex's standpoint, and I think many of us in the workforce development space, the solution to that is really, how can we again build those bridges and look into increasing access to populations that have not traditionally had access to some of these jobs? And what are we missing, right? So I think a lot of the things that we've always done for workforce, like we really have to kind of reevaluate and pivot and think more creatively about that, because the world of work has changed, I think, since COVID and people want different things. People don't want to be working 70 hour weeks. They want more flexibility. They want to be able to prioritize their family and mental health. And all of those things are essential. And for better or worse, people are able to be a little more selective about the kind of work they choose. And so how do we create opportunities that align with those priorities? So I just wanted to like provide that landscape first because I think it's relevant to kind of some of the problems that we're trying to solve. NextFlex has really a kind of K to gray talent pipeline approach. So we have started with our K to 12 program which is FlexFactor that was originally created in 2016 I believe and kind of piloted in the Bay Area with you know kind of urban and really diverse high schools in that area and then really expanded. So now FlexFactor is actually, has been scaled nationally. It's all over the country. We have over 20,000 students. I think we hit 21,000 this, in the last few weeks. So that's a lot of students. You know, it's a really impressive program. And I think what we've found is that people that adopt it and implement it, you know, really have like a brand recognition, you know, and they really like it and get excited about it. And there's some really good kind of outcomes in terms of including, you know, diverse students and also military connected youth among others. So it's been a really positive component of the work that we've done. We also do have, we've done a couple local programs in the Bay Area, one with a community college where we built a technician training program and that was kind of an earn and learn model. So I'm sure you know, like the earn and learn model, they have really high retention rates and completion rates. So we've done that. We also are working on building out some options for incumbent worker training now, and also working at mapping kind of some of the specific competencies that are needed. So if you're an incumbent worker and you're employed at like a production facility, what kinds of skills do you need, like, because you might not even know, in order to move into kind of hyper electronics, advanced manufacturing or other areas. And a lot of what we're hearing from at least that, you know, what I understand from workforce priorities under CHIPS is it's not like we want to train a whole bunch of people to make like one widget, right? And like, we want to be able to give people the multidisciplinary skillset and ability to really adapt and evolve and keep pivoting as the technology keeps adjusting. So, you know, it's an opportunity and a challenge. I think it in some ways makes it harder because it's like you can't have a one program that's going to solve everything. But at the same time, how do you kind of take these competencies or skills and then overlay them within existing training programs to help meet that need?

Julian: Becky, can you tell us a little bit more about how FlexFactor works and some of the very specific sort of outcomes. I mean, it's impressive that you've already served over 20,000 or 21,000 students interested to, I'm sure our audience would like to hear a little bit more about the actual program itself.

Becky: FlexFactor is really ideally situated within middle school or early high school, although it's been adapted for as low as fourth graders all the way up through seniors in high school. It essentially is a project-based learning model where students kind of get exposed to the concept and the technology of flexible hybrid electronics. It can be situated within any discipline. So if a student's in an environmental science class, if they're in a healthcare class that concept of the technology can be integrated. And so they can kind of develop a project that's aligned with their areas of interest, which I'm sure as you know, too, from a best practices standpoint, kind of contextualized learning is always the most impactful. And so that was part of the design of the program. It also really mostly lands within a community college system. We have some programs that are adopted by like museums or nonprofits and they run the program, but for the most part are the folks that have adopted the program are community colleges. And the way that it works is that they essentially have a license from NextFlex. They hire a program manager. The program manager delivers the curriculum in the K-12 system, but they then have a direct path to the community college. So they do tours there. They learn about their programs as a next step. So it really kind of provides this opportunity not only for exposure to the technology, but also like, okay, and then what? Like, so I'm gonna do this project, I'm gonna participate in this judged experience and with industry and have fun. And then, I'm gonna look at, okay, these are the opportunities that I could pursue should I choose to go on in this area.

Kaitlin: It's really interesting to hear you talk about how you're bridging these experiences, bridging the gaps between experiences really to make those connections for learners and perhaps encourage them to think, like, okay, here's what I'm learning now, but here's where I could be going with this knowledge. It's really interesting to hear how you're doing that through that program.

Becky: I think that is the program's strength because I think, at least when I was teaching at the community college you have one conversation with a student, like that is not sufficient to help move the needle on anything, right? So it's like multiple repeated exposures, multiple conversations, and then showing people like the pathway. And that's really how, cause if you can't, if you don't have anyone in your family that's pursued a career in this area, you can't imagine what that could look like. And so I think this model really allows them to see that. I think we certainly can do even more, we always can, but I think that's part of the strength of the model.

Kaitlin: Building off of that and maybe taking the conversation in a slightly different direction, we understand that NextFlex is also building out a fundraising initiative focused on expanding opportunities for women and other untapped talent in STEM and other manufacturing fields. Can you tell us a little bit about that effort as well?

Becky: Absolutely. And this is, again, a passion project of mine. Particularly, I have three daughters, and so thinking about kind of their path through the educational system and then into employment and what that will look like and knowing that some of the barriers, you know, that they'll come up again. So part of the vision of this is that NextFlex will have a perpetual fundraising effort focused on untapped talent. And in year one, we're focusing on women. Part of the rationale for that is when we like, I'm an academic, right? So I kind of a nerd, I did a literature review and we did a bunch of interviews. What we found is that there's a ton of programming, and obviously not enough still, but there's a ton of programming happening at the K to 12 level. So Intel has a program like Million Girls Moonshot. There's a lot of stuff happening there. As you kind of inch further up into college and then even early career, there's Million Women Mentors. There are programs, but there's not enough. And what we see with the data, is that many women who even if you start off like in a bachelor's degree in engineering, even if you complete that bachelor's, their first jobs aren't always in engineering. Often they end up not even being retained within the workforce upon completion of their degree program. Or someone might complete the degree, go into the workplace, and then decide to have a child or take some time off or the workplace culture isn't a good fit and then they don't come back. So NextFlex's kind of sweet spot of focus for this effort is really looking at how can we help ensure that women are retained. So if someone's already in an engineering program, already in a computer science program, we know they're excited, they have the skills, they have the passion, how do we keep them and how do we help and what can we put in place to do that? So is it mentoring programs? Is it leadership opportunities, professional development? Is it, you know, working with industry to think about addressing some of the cultural needs, you know, and policies that are specific to women in the workplace. So all of those things are relevant and that specific kind of demographic is who we were looking to target for this. And in talking to, we did interviews with probably like 20 different women to tea that, you know, across all different stages of industry. And I think the thing that really struck me was, so we're in 2024, like I would think there are certain things that problems we would have solved in terms of workplace culture and other things. And we really haven't. We have so much work to do. And that was sobering for me and kind of, you know, because it's like, wow, we have a lot of work to do. And of course, Nextlex can't do this alone. Like this is, you know, requires all of us at all different levels and industry and academia and nonprofits and, you know, media and everybody addressing it. But I think it made me feel like, oh, if we can even just do a piece to help move the needle and even start some of the conversations that probably need to be had, that's a good start.

Julian: Yeah, that's great. It's definitely important leadership for the field. Becky, before I ask you a question about lessons learned, it occurred to me that I want to ask you a question, which is, what are flexible hybrid electronics manufacturing jobs? So if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you that as a standalone.

Becky: The interesting thing about flexible hybrid electronics is that it is a technology that is used. So any of like the smartwatches that you wear or even things in cell phones, like those devices contain flexible hybrid electronic components. However, it's not widely adopted and scaled yet. So there are places where it's used, actually health care is another space where it's often implemented. And essentially it involves printing electronic components on like in a 3D additive way on a substrate. So and the substrate is flexible so that essentially it can be small, it can be flexible, and it can have lots of different applications. The challenge with this from like a workforce standpoint is that there aren't job descriptions out there today, for the most part, that have these descriptions in them. So what we're, and it really is interdisciplinary, like additive manufacturing, electronics, some robotics in places, like lots of different things that are needed. So part of the challenge and opportunity is to think about like, how do you kind of position a workforce that is equipped to continuously evolve, adapt skills, problem solve, think critically, and have enough savvy to be able to implement and pivot to incorporating this technology once it's kind of at scale, because we're not there yet. So a lot of positions, we're working on writing a proposal right now with some partners and one of the jobs we're looking at is a mechatronics technician. So that's a position that has really diverse skill set, fixing machines, and that could be like really well poised to then implement either semiconductor technology or other adjacent technologies. So that's a good example. But there are probably like five or six, at least if not more, technician level roles where the skills align and are comparable. But you're not going to necessarily see a job description that says, we want someone that understands flexible hybrid electronics.

Kaitlin: That's super helpful, though. Thank you for that. Because like you said, it's evolving. It's new. the connection across these different skill areas. It's exciting to learn about, but it sounds like it's still pretty new.

Julian: And with AI, you know, permeates jobs in the workforce. I mean, I think what you're describing and doing that sort of both anticipatory and helping people with their careers today is just gonna be the way of work. Becky, what are practical steps our audience can take to become forces in extending workforce development initiatives to the K-12 learners and incumbent workers, NextFlexers?

Becky: I do think the manufacturing innovation institutes are not a known entity. I think the folks that work with us know who we are and wanna speak for everyone, but generally like us. I think we are a member-based kind of ecosystem. So we have members, we have industry, academia, nonprofits, like economic development. So we work with everyone. And I think that the partnerships that we create are really important because it helps really kind of de-risk some of the partnerships where in some situations, like certain partners would be reticent to work together because of how complicated and emerging some of the stuff that we're doing is. I think community colleges, in my opinion, and this is 100% biased because I taught in one for a long time. I do think they are the linchpin and the fabric and the bones of this country's workforce systems. I think they are still largely under-invested in and to some extent underutilized. I know they more than any other kind of higher ed institution lost enrollment during the pandemic for a wide variety of reasons. I'm not up to date enough to know if that enrollment has fully returned or not. But I think figuring out ways to partner with community colleges and leverage their existing programming, like one of the things that I think is tricky is you're seeing, at least or I'm hearing a lot of now because industry understandably to some extent is frustrated with not having the workers. And so they're building these own internal training facilities or programs. And I totally respect that and understand the need for that. And I'm like, but man, you have a community college right here that's been doing this and that has, from a pedagogy standpoint and a student success standpoint, like has, really knows how to do this really, really well. And so I still think there's things that we could think about differently in terms of resources and where we're investing resources to get the workforce that we need. I know NextFlex, and this precedes my time, but has really worked consistently with community colleges. And I think that's part of also the rationale for why they were leveraged for the FlexFactor program. I'm sure you both know this, but it's super important for individuals that are from a certain community, particularly if they don't have someone in their college and their family that went to college, or they don't have that even vision for themselves. To be able to go to school within the community with people who look like them, with a familiar kind of sense of connection and community is really, really important. And that's been tested time and time again. And I think that's something that in this country we still struggle with a little bit. I think it's shifting, but I think that idea of like, oh, everyone should go get a four-year degree and that's the thing to do. And certainly that's what I did. And I had a great experience, but I also had no idea that you could go to a two-year school, get a degree, and actually get a job you know, quicker. And I don't think I mean, I think liberal arts education is incredibly important. I'm profoundly grateful for mine. But I also think just, you know, some of these ways that we pass individuals. And I think everyone's talking about this, this is not unique. But we really need to try to figure out like, what is the best for that individual? And then how do we kind of help them get there? And that we don't know, like, like, if I have grown up in a community where, you know, I don't have like, parents with professional connections, that social capital is tremendous in terms of how much you can get a job in x industry or get an internship or anything else. So I think all of those kinds of things and that's one of the reasons, especially for the Women in Sem Initiative, we're really thinking about how can we build mentor programs for women because that's been shown that women in those programs are two times more likely to actually stay in their degree and then persist if they have that relationship.

Julian: We're big believers in the community college system. And I mean, as I've been saying for years, they're the nation's training infrastructure. That's the big infrastructure we're all invested in and I think aren't leveraging enough. And especially in some of these emergent industries where there's sort of this default to like, oh yes, that's for people with lots of degrees.

Becky: Totally, yeah. And I think even though we have done so much work in so many ways, you know, to change that culture, I still think that's a heavy, you know, a heavy cultural norm that still persists.

Kaitlin: Well, and as you raised earlier, too, I think, you know, one thing that's very interesting to me about your learning portfolio are the multiple touch points available for learners are along the way. And I feel like that does allow for some of that. Like you're saying, building of social capital, building of an understanding, especially as an industry is evolving and how the skills a learner is developing fit within that industry over time. I think it sounds like it's interesting to just hear, think about like a learner's trajectory and as it aligns with your portfolio and how you try to reach people where they are.

Becky: And I appreciate that. I mean, of course, I think we can always do better. We can, you know, I mean, and that's part of what we wanted to do with this focus on kind of untapped talent is really like, how do we call out specific groups and then identify best practices or solutions to helping ensure there's a path? Because there's really different strategies that are needed for different populations. And that's the piece that I don't think that we've separated out as much as I would like us to.

Kaitlin: Yeah, that's a challenging area. Yeah. As we wind down our conversation today, Becky, how can our listeners learn more about your work and continue to follow what it is you're doing?

Becky: We are, again, a member-based organization. So we always welcome new members to join. On the workforce side, we also do have members that, we consider members that are workforce partners because we know that not everyone can afford membership. We have a website, NextFlex, and then we do have a couple, you know, we do have a couple of pages. We're actually revising our website now so it'll look even better in a few months, but really building out kind of like for different initiatives that we have, how people can get involved. So I'm trying to have like a specific call to action for each thing that we're doing. So if you want to help us shape strategy, if you want to be an industry partner, if you want to work on this with us, if you want to be a STEM ambassador for the Women in STEM Initiative, so that we have really kind of specific calls to action. So that's something that we're working on building out as part of the new website. And then the other piece I think is that there really is this whole network of institutes that are funded to do this work. So they're all over the country. NextFlex is based in California, but we have presence everywhere, including Massachusetts, where actually I live, New York, Missouri. And so I think like, if there's, you know, depending on where you are, if you haven't thought about like, or known about the presence of an institute, even just looking up and seeing what they're doing, because I think it is a resource to within the community that can, you know, that can help.

Julian: Well, thank you so much, Becky, for taking the time today. We really appreciate it. Becky: It was my pleasure. Thank you both so much. And it's been great having this conversation. Thank you for the opportunity.

Kaitlin: Thank you for joining us. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to Workforces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We're also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at Workforces.info or on Apple, Amazon, and Spotify. Please subscribe, like, and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.