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Posts Tagged ‘lexington’

Dear Manufacturers: Please Come Home!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

From a NY Times article by Stephanie Strom June 12:

“A few companies have taken some small steps to bring lost manufacturing jobs back to American soil, driven sometimes by declining labor costs in the United States, other times by dissatisfaction with the quality of goods made abroad.

“General Electric, for example, has created almost 800 jobs by building plants in Schenectady, N.Y., and Louisville, Ky., to make sophisticated batteries, some of which were previously made in China. NCR is making automated teller machines in Georgia that had also been made overseas. Last month, Starbucks announced it would build a factory in Augusta, Ga., that would employ 140 people and make the company’s Via instant coffee and the ingredients for its popular Frappuccino drinks. About half of Starbucks’s new employment overall will come in the United States, the rest internationally. …

“The effort is not all altruistic. Chinese labor has become more expensive, and Starbucks and other companies are looking at their supply chains more holistically. American Mug can deliver to Starbucks in four days, while Chinese suppliers may take three months.

“A Chinese supplier is also likely to require an order in the hundreds of thousands, increasing the risk that Starbucks will get stuck with inventory. And then there is the difference in shipping costs. ‘No doubt the cost of doing what we’re doing in East Liverpool [Ohio] at least in the initial stage will be more expensive for Starbucks, but the investment we’re making in this is about the conscience of our company and recognition that success has to be shared,’ [Starbucks CEO Howard] Schultz said.” Read more here.

We will probably never have the massive manufacturing we once had, but do send me what you hear about manufacturing picking up, even a little. For example, I recently heard about a new company in Massachusetts, 1366 Technologies, which makes silicon wafers for solar applications and has a manufacturing pilot going in Bedford. I mentioned this to a colleague who added that he knew of a new gin distillery in South Boston, which wasn’t really what I meant by manufacturing, but whatever floats your boat.

Photograph: http://www.1366tech.com/

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Free Man in Concord

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2012| 2 Comments »

When I first wrote about the Concord home of former slave Caesar Robbins, a group of concerned citizens had just raised enough money to save it from demolition and move it near the North Bridge (in the Minute Man National Historical Park). See that post here.

Quite a lot has happened since then, and it looks like the refurbished house should be open to the public soon, if not in time for Patriots Day 2012, celebrated today.

Concord was once a stop on the Underground Railway, so saving the first Concord home owned by a freed slave is in keeping with that history.

By the way, if you are my reader in Australia or South Korea, you may not know about Patriots Day, which is a big deal in most of New England. People here consider April 19, 1775, the start of the American Revolution, although there are other worthy claimants for that honor. Paul Revere and Samuel Prescott rode to warn colonists that the British were coming, and shots were fired in Concord and Lexington.

Nowadays the day is commemorated on the closest Monday. Schools and libraries close. The Boston Marathon is run. Parades and reenactments sprout all over the region. One of my colleagues gets up at crack of dawn to march between towns in costume, playing the fife. In spite of all the hoopla, there is something about it that touches people.

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