On October 7, sign companies will have an excellent opportunity to potentially attract new and young talent to their businesses. Every year, on the International Sign Association’s (ISA) Sign Manufacturing Day, participating sign shops host open houses, facility tours, and hands-on demonstrations for students to show them the opportunities that exist in the sign business. The nearly decade-old annual event proves to be of immense value to businesses that take full advantage of it.

ISA recently hosted a webinar previewing Sign Manufacturing Day featuring two long-time participants in the event: Matt Baker, co-owner of Bakers’ Signs & Manufacturing, based in Conroe, Tex., and Bob Mattatall, Founder of Mattatall Signs, based in Dartmouth, N.S., Canada. Baker currently sits on ISA’s Board of Directors, while Mattatall is a past chair of the ISA Board and is the recipient of this year’s Kirk L. Brimley Distinguished Service Award, bestowed at last spring’s ISA Sign Expo. The webinar was moderated by ISA’s Kyle Craig.

Like the printing industry in general, the sign industry has been challenged with finding staff, especially production staff, and—also like the printing industry—this is not a new problem. “What we’ve constantly found is a dramatic void in finding qualified and trained applicants within our industry,” said Mattatall. “We’ve done everything from trying to do our own curriculums, to in-house training, to looking at high schools and community colleges, but really it was somewhat of an ad hoc issue.” So when ISA launched Sign Manufacturing Day in the early 2010s, he jumped at the chance to participate. “I saw the need to get people excited for what we do as an industry.” After the first year, Mattatall found that students who toured the facility were excited by what they saw. “The students came back to us and said, ‘I had no idea. I can do graphic design, I can do welding, I can do electrical, I can do plastics?’ And after talking to the teachers that came in, they were quite intrigued as well and saw the benefits for the students.”