Dr. Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States, and U.S. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su Visit ARM Institute’s Mill 19 Facility to Discuss Manufacturing Workforce Initiatives

November 8, 2023 – Today the ARM Institute welcomed Dr. Jill Biden, First Lady of the United States, and U.S. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su to our Mill 19 facility in Pittsburgh, PA, which we share with Carnegie Mellon University. The visit centered on Pittsburgh’s Workforce Hub designation by the White House. Pittsburgh is one of five national Workforce Hubs where President Biden’s Investing in America agenda—including the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act—are catalyzing private and public investments and creating good-paying jobs.

The Pittsburgh Workforce Hub is being led by Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey’s office. Through the Pittsburgh Workforce Hub, the ARM Institute is working with ARM Member New Century Careers on an initiative that will provide new, rapid, short-term, employer-driven training to help dislocated workers re-enter the workforce in good quality, high-demand manufacturing jobs using robotics. The ARM Institute will also leverage a new grant from the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology Program to expose more school-age children in the Pittsburgh region to manufacturing careers, by funding local nonprofit STEM Coding Lab to deliver robotics education to Pittsburgh-area Title I schools and expanding Manufacturing Day programs into rural areas.

Today’s event builds off of the First Lady’s prior visit to Pittsburgh this past July with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su at which Lisa Masciantonio represented the ARM Institute’s work.

Ira Moskowitz (ARM Institute CEO), Lisa Masciantonio (ARM Institute Chief Workforce Officer), Melissa Dunlap (ARM Institute Education & Workforce Development Program Manager), Chris Adams (ARM Institute Senior Programs Manager), and Bill Miller (ARM Institute Principal Engineer) represented the ARM Institute at today’s event. Robotics demos from our Robotics Manufacturing Hub and other ARM Institute projects were also on display.

Read the White House fact sheet here. 

You can watch the First Lady’s full remarks here. 

The ARM Institute’s Mill 19 facility is shared by ARM Member Carnegie Mellon University’s Manufacturing Futures Institute and regional Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Catalyst Connection. ARM Member the University of Pittsburgh is also building a BioForge Manufacturing Center on the Mill 19 site in partnership with ElevateBio. Mill 19 is located in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood on a stretch of land called Hazelwood Green. This 178 acre site is a hotbed for manufacturing innovation, enabling collaboration between the diverse partners on the site. Mill 19 also houses the ARM Institute’s Robotics Manufacturing Hub.

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ABOUT THE ARM INSTITUTE 

The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense under Agreement Number W911NF-17-3-0004 and is part of the Manufacturing USA® network. The ARM Institute leverages a unique, robust, and diverse ecosystem of nearly 400 consortium members and partners across industry, academia, and government to make robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence more accessible to U.S. manufacturers large and small, train and empower the manufacturing workforce, strengthen our economy and global competitiveness, and elevate national security and resilience.  Based in Pittsburgh, PA since 2017, with a satellite office in St. Petersburg, FL, the ARM Institute is leading the way to a future where people & robots work together to respond to our nation’s greatest challenges and to produce the world’s most desired products. For more information, visit www.arminstitute.org and follow the ARM Institute on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).