Executives and engineers often get attention for a company's success or new technology. But it's the men and women on the production floor who actually make those ideas work.
Danny Mishek, president of VistaTek LLC, a White Bear Lake, Minn.-based injection molder, has written an ode to one of those workers who also represents many of the men and women who make up the bulk of the U.S. workforce.
Allen Axelson Jr. was a setup technician for VistaTek for 13 years who recently lost a battle with cancer.
"He is the epitome of what people don't see behind the scenes of manufacturing," Mishek writes in a perspective column. "He had a 40-minute commute down the St. Croix Valley. He would start early and would rarely have a morning commute in daylight. He would switch the lights on and start equipment every Monday morning. The only days he would miss were Mondays when the Minnesota Vikings played Sunday night."
Workers like Allen "have come right from high school, a small town or took a job out of logistics. It was close to home, they had an opening, or their parents worked there," Mishek writes. "They just started on the shift that had an opening and went to work."