About 20 years ago, the Tallahassee area was home to only a few manufacturers, said Nancy Stephens, executive director of the Tallahassee-based Manufacturers Association of Florida. “In the last five years, it has been growing. We’re now attracting manufacturers here,” she said. “You get synergies between manufacturers that require the same type of vendors. Once you get a core group here, you start to see a snowball effect.”
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The universities are good resources, producing numerous engineering graduates, and there are people here with advanced research skills suitable for research and development, Stephens said. Syn-Tech needs electrical engineers, software engineers and engineering technicians, he said, adding “we have had very good luck attracting (engineering technicians) locally.”
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Florida manufacturers employ more than 399,000 Floridians. The state Agency for Workforce Innovation reported that manufacturing employment was up to 394,700 in June 2005, a gain of 3,200 jobs over the previous year.