Manufacturing Tours

Manufacturing Month, a nation-wide celebration held in October of each year, is time for one of our highest in-demand career fields to really shine! 

Over 715 sixth and seventh graders from Celina, Coldwater, Fort Recovery, Marion Local, Parkway, St. Henry and Versailles participated in the 2026 event, each visiting three sites and bringing 18 buses to 10 companies over two days. This year’s tours had the largest numbers of students and companies participating since the tours began being coordinated by the ESC in 2021.

Many companies started with a brief presentation about their history and products or services, then rotated the students through tours and hands-on activities.

In a post-tour survey, completed by 490 students, comments were overwhelmingly positive, including statements like:

• “Our region has many amazing places that ship everywhere and supply lots of companies.”

• “Today's tours changed my view about careers in our area because I learned that our little area provides a lot of products all around the U.S.”

• “The tours changed my view of what my future career may look like because I have now realized that there are a ton of local businesses that I could potentially work at. They also made me more interested in working there someday since I found these places very interesting.”

• “They changed my view about careers in our area by showing us that there [is] a lot more things to do in manufacturing besides welding and engineering.”

Thank you to AMS Seat Structures, CELINA Enterprises (Celina Tent, Inc.), Crown Equipment (New Bremen and Celina), Fort Recovery Industries Inc., Lincoln Electric Automation, Nidec Minster Corporation, Pax Machine Works, Inc., The Reynolds & Reynolds Company, Totally Promotional and VTF Excavation, LLC for opening their doors to our students. Jared Ebbing, Mercer County Community and Economic Development Director, assisted with the coordination of the 2-day event, and Mercer County Commissioner Brian Miller joined this year’s tours.

Local News Coverage: 

• WCSM (11/2/2026)

• Daily Standard (10/31/2026) 

If you are interested in participating in October 2027, email Sandi Holdheide and let us know you'd like to host!