Manufacturing employees in Potsdam, Victor win grand prizes in FuzeHub’s Millennials in Manufacturing Awards

ALBANY, N.Y. — Manufacturing employees from companies in Potsdam and Victor captured the $2,500 grand prizes in FuzeHub’s inaugural Millennials in Manufacturing Awards.

Dylan Broomfield, a design engineering manager at LC Drives in Potsdam, and Lauren Iuranich, an EMS quality engineer at REDCOM in Victor, won the grand prizes.

Manufacturing employees at firms in Binghamton, Ithaca, and Potsdam were among 10 winning $1,000 prizes, while employees at manufacturing companies in Syracuse and Yorkville were among 20 winning $500 prizes in the FuzeHub competition.

Millennials in Manufacturing Awards recognize young professionals who are “driving innovation and growth” for New York manufacturers, FuzeHub said in a news release.

FuzeHub announced the winners in advance of Friday’s National Manufacturing Day and will recognize them at the New York State Innovation Summit in Rochester this Monday and Tuesday.

“When reviewing the entries, we were excited to hear about so many young professionals who are helping manufacturers thrive in New York,” Elena Garuc, executive director of FuzeHub, said. “We created the Millennials in Manufacturing Awards to celebrate rising stars who are making an impact and expand statewide understanding of the career opportunities available in the manufacturing industry.”

Nationwide, about 75 million millennials work in the manufacturing industry. In New York, manufacturers employ nearly 112,000 people ages 19 to 24 alone, FuzeHub said, citing data from Cleveland, Ohio–based nonprofit Tooling U-SME, which focuses on workforce development.

FuzeHub also cited data from New York City–based Deloitte and the Washington, D.C. –based Manufacturing Institute that indicates a “significant need” for more skilled workers “as more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs are vacant today — and it’s estimated manufacturers will add 4.6 million manufacturing jobs over the next decade.”

As the statewide New York manufacturing extension partnership (MEP) center, FuzeHub said it has worked with many of the employers of this year’s winners as well as other small- and mid-sized manufacturers.

FuzeHub says it is an Albany–based nonprofit that works to connect New York’s small and mid-sized manufacturing companies to the “resources, programs and expertise they need for technology commercialization, innovation, and business growth.”

Additional winners

Besides LC Drives’ Broomfield and REDCOM’s Iuranich, millennial manufacturing employees from regional firms won smaller dollar amounts.

$1,000 prize

• Tyler Bershad, a chief product engineer at Potsdam Sensors in Potsdam
• Matthew Chun, a mechanical engineering lead with Zymtronix Catalytic Systems, Inc. in Ithaca
• Kenneth Skorenko, chief technology officer at ChromaNanoTech LLC in Binghamton

$500 prize

• John Vercillo, technical manufacturing lead at Density, Inc. in Syracuse
• Jack Mulvihill, assistant production manager at Hubbell Galvanizing and Fortress Fusion Coatings, Inc. in Yorkville in Oneida County

 Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com