How a St. Louis-based hub aims to fill the manufacturing workforce gap
By Sara Samora, Manufacturing Dive. July 23rd, 2026
A Missouri-based organization that’s partially funded by Boeing is aiming to turn the region into a national manufacturing hub.
The Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center–St. Louis’ 52,000-square-foot facility is currently being built and is expected to open in the first quarter of 2027. However, the organization has worked with manufacturing companies, education systems and local intitutions since its conception in 2014, Tracy Henke, AMIC-STL’s deputy executive director and COO, said in an interview with Manufacturing Dive.
During 2014, Boeing, which has a weapons and fighter jet manufacturing campus in the St. Louis area, was considering shutting a production line for its F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers, Reuters reported. The aerospace company needed more U.S. and foreign orders for the two fighter jet models in order to receive funding from the Department of Defense.
Boeing avoided closing its production line, which would have resulted in “significant” unemployment for the region, Henke said.
The following year, the DOD and its Office of Economic Adjustment assisted the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership in establishing the St. Louis Regional Advanced Manufacturing Partnership. The intent was to assess the region’s resources and opportunities to build a flexible regional manufacturing economy.
RAMP later launched AMIC-STL in 2020, which received $5 million from Boeing in 2022 for its advanced manufacturing facility and workforce development programs in the region. About a month later, the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration awarded the region $25 million to cultivate St. Louis’ advanced manufacturing sector and developed AMIC’s facility.
The draw to manufacturing careers
AMIC is working to draw students in K-12 and parents to manufacturing careers. For example, the organization hosts an additive manufacturing competition Project MFG for students.
AMIC also works with the Boys & Girls Club and Missouri Works Initiative under their St. Louis Internship and the Skilled Trades Exploration programs, which enables students to participate in hands-on activities that exposes them to real manufacturing environments.
AMIC encourges parents to watch and learn what their kids experience through the program such as a real-world simulation.
“So it’s teaching not just the technical skills, but also the soft skills of communication, leadership, [and] collaboration,” Henke said. “So when parents and other teachers who may not be familiar with all of this, when they see that, it changes impressions.”
The U.K. model
AMIC’s facility is modeled after the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Sheffield, England, which Boeing co-founded with the University of Sheffield in 2001.
Dennis Muilenburg, former Boeing CEO and AMIC’s chairman, said the aerospace company’s Sheffield investment intended to “create a manufacturing ecosystem that could again invest in future technologies.”
The Sheffield site is a “proven advanced manufacturing model” in that AMIC will be similar to what Boeing has seen in the U.K., said Sanjam Khurana, vice president and CFO of the company’s Air Dominance division.
The site will have manufacturing space, labs, new equipment and collaborative areas.
“I think the biggest thing in Sheffield that works is connecting major manufacturers [and] research institutions,” said Khurana, who also serves on AMIC’s board. “All of that was what added value for Boeing as well. Boeing was one manufacturer, but the way Sheffield kind of worked across the region and across the U.K. helped Boeing as well continue that relationship.”
Shared technology across sectors
While Boeing has a hand in AMIC, the site is not only focused on aerospace manufacturing or the company, Henke said. The organization will also focus activities in agriculture technology and plant sciences, automotive, biomedical and life sciences, construction, energy, geospatial and locations sciences, and traporation and logistics.
“We are working for a talent pipeline, not just for today, but for 10 years from now, because we know that for every four manufacturing jobs right now, only one is coming in,” she said. “We have an aging manufacturing workforce as well, and we need to make certain that we are upskilling and making certain that we are helping create those new career pathways that exist with technology, and technology is changing so fast.”
During Muilenburg’s 35-year career at Boeing, he witnessed U.S. manufacturing challenges. With training across various industries, those same sectors share the same manufacturing technology such as artificial intelligence, and talent development. Being able to work across sectors is a “big unlock,” he said, because it leads to creating collaborations that could solve workforce gaps and build bridges.
“We’ve also found that in the past, researchers and technologists haven’t necessarily been integrated workforce developers,” Muilenburg said. “So we’re bringing together those that are developing the workforce, universities, the trade schools, the community colleges, as well as the researchers and scientists in advanced manufacturing, and bringing them together into one location and building a collaboration network that just doesn’t exist today.”
Henke stressed that technology such as automation, robotics, digitization doesn’t mean less workers, but rather different types of jobs. Especially as it evolves more often than it did in the past.
“That’s why we talk about the upskilling,” Henke said. “That’s why we talk about the awareness, education, and training on new technology. It’s why a facility like STL is so important to help train and help communicate industry needs to workforce and training partners and education partners, to make certain that individuals are ready for these high-tech, high-paying, long career opportunity jobs.”