Rockford economy; getting back on track

"2012 finished up higher in shipments than 2011," said Rockford Linear Actuation president and CEO Bob Trojan.  "So to that, that's good news."

Trojan says last years business was good, so good that his company had no layoffs and most workers put in overtime.

"Because we ship all over the United States, we have customers that are in various industries and we were seeing growth pretty much across the board," said Trojan.

To keep product going out the door Trojan says it's critical to adapt and respond to the needs of changing world market.

As long as you can provide quality products, at a faster delivery than your competition, and at good price, you're going to do okay," said Trojan.

The Milken Institute put out its annual 'Best Performing Cities' list, and Rockford ranked high.  Of the 200 big cities listed, Rockford rose from 177 to 115.

The jump is being credited to Rockford's successful manufacturing companies, an encouraging sign for local leaders.

"It's still our strongest employment base for primary jobs, and it's a great payer of jobs as well," said Rockford Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Einar Forsman.

With more of the industry moving back to the United State's, the conditions are near perfect for Rockford to capitalize.

"Because of the high quality we have, the lower cost we have now without having to do shipping and tariff, so all that's added to our local economy," said Forsman.

But the growing gap of workers that can't operate the new machines needs to be addressed before Rockford companies can continue the trend for decades to come.

"We know there's jobs to fill, we know there's a gap there that we've got people looking for work but don't have the skills to do them, we've got to fill up that gap," said Forsman.

Rockford does have a high percentage of manufacturing jobs, more than 20-percent of workers here do some type of manufacturing.