On the heels of her first public speech in her new role as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Janet Yellen toured City Colleges of Chicago’s College to Careers Program in Advanced Manufacturing to learn how the workforce program successfully prepares Chicago residents for jobs in high-tech manufacturing. Through the College to Careers initiative launched by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chancellor Cheryl Hyman in December 2011, City Colleges has partnered with 150 industry-leading companies to revamp manufacturing and other occupational programs to ensure students receive relevant, hands-on training and access to living-wage jobs with opportunities for long-term career growth.

Chair Yellen joined Chancellor Hyman on a visit to the manufacturing lab at Daley College, one of the seven City Colleges, to see students in action designing parts using CAD programming, building parts on Haas machines, welding metals together at high heat and learning the basic building blocks of machining on manual machines.

An estimated 14,000 job openings in the manufacturing industry are expected to be available over the next decade in the Chicago region, a figure that may grow with the recent $70 million federal investment in a Chicago-based digital manufacturing institute aimed at developing new innovations, and City Colleges is working to ensure its students are prepared to seize the jobs of today and tomorrow.