This year is an exciting one for the A3 – Association for Advancing Automation! Not only will this be the first year that #Automate becomes an annual event, but 2024 also marks 50 years since the association was founded. This week, TECH B2B Marketing’s Amanda Del Buono was joined by A3’s Vice President of Marketing Deb Kling, Director of Marketing Clarissa Schwendeman, and Media Production Manager Jana Martin to discuss the association’s milestone anniversary and its future, along with some of the latest technological developments and growth drivers in the #automation space. They also discussed the growing role of women in automation and tech.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:00:06] Hello and welcome back to Manufacturing Matters. I’m Amanda Del Buono, assistant account executive here at Tech B2B Marketing. And today I’m really excited to be joined by Deb Kling, president of marketing at A3, the Association for Advancing Automation; Clarissa Schwendeman, director of marketing at A3; and Jana Martin, media production manager at A3. Thank you ladies for being here today. It’s really a pleasure to have you.

Deb Kling: [00:00:38]  [00:00:38]Thanks for having us.

Clarissa Schwendeman: [00:00:39] Thanks, Amanda.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:00:40] I just  want to start out today. We have a lot to talk about with everything going on with A3 and  just want to get an idea. Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences? We met at the Business Forum’s Empowering Women event during Business Forum, and I kind of want to get an idea from you ladies, what brought you into the automation industry? What sparked your interest and how did you end up where you’re at now?

Clarissa Schwendeman: [00:01:08] Yeah, so I started my career in advertising for a big player in the automotive industry, and I realized I had a passion for marketing as well as all of the expansive technologies used in automotive production. So I went back to school for my MBA to learn a little bit more. I specialized in marketing and global supply chain management, applied for a position at A3, and here I am almost five years later.

Deb Kling: [00:01:38] So I’ll jump in. I started my career as an electromechanical application engineer, and I instantly realized that this career in automation was going to allow me to see just about how anything and everything in the world was made. Thrilled to uncover the behind the scenes and just get to see so many different manufacturers. As far as women’s representation, it started with me as very small representation in college, about 10% to 15%, and that carried through as I started out my career into industry. Now, that being said, it’s improved over the years. I would say I believe the STEM programs in the colleges are ranging at about 35%, and I believe that is also carried over to the industry. So it’s definitely improving.

Jana Martin: [00:02:31] And then I’ll go last. I’m the newest here to the industry. I’m so glad to be here. It’s such a powerful and impactful industry. Everyone I meet and talk to just seem so excited about working in it. I have a long background in video production and social media management, so it’s really fun to bring those skills to the incredible concepts and all of the different videos and content we get to work on at the A3 marketing team, whether it’s promoting events or courses and trainings and our certification programs and our standards and all the things we get to do in Mexico and around the world. So I was inspired to first get into this career when I heard Jeff speak and talk about A3 and talk about Automate, and I really had not been in that world before. And I see automation as the future. I see how much it helps me in my own work and obviously how much all of our members are helping their customers. So, yeah, really excited to be a part of this world.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:03:48] Very cool. Well, thank you for giving us a little bit of your background. I think Deb got to the heart of my next question. We see women have have lagged behind in this industry, and I’ve always looked at it as a unique challenge because these are really lucrative, family-sustaining jobs, right? They’re a career path that you could really go down as a female, and you could support your children and all of those things. And I’m curious, how do you think we can better convey that to women and encourage them to consider these positions? And have you seen any particularly interesting efforts for this?

Clarissa Schwendeman: [00:04:37] Yeah, Amanda, that’s a great point about jobs and automation being family sustaining. Automation is an industry that is going to only continue to grow for the foreseeable future. I mean, as long as customers want their products to be better and get them faster, automation will be there. So speaking specifically for A3, we’re hosting more events and networking opportunities to highlight and connect women in automation. So last month, as you mentioned, at our A3 Business Forum, we hosted our first Empower Hour for women in automation, which received very positive feedback. And coming up in May at the Automate Show in Chicago, we’re hosting an empowerment forum, which we’ve themed Women Leading Change, and we’ll have a power panel of female executives in automation companies just ready to discuss how they got to the level they’re at, their experiences, and their advice on how to continue breaking those barriers and being confident as a current minority in the industry.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:05:38] That’s amazing.

Deb Kling: [00:05:39] And we really feel like bringing them all together in a group is just one way to continue to build that momentum of women in our industry, sharing the wealth to other women and really getting people more involved. And I know Clarissa already did mention the breakfast that we’re having, sponsored by United Robotics Group and Teledyne, just want to give them a quick shout-out. But we have three women on a panel where we’ll be discussing all the challenges and giving some women some key takeaways that they might be able to take to their job going back. And just to mention quickly, we have Adi Leviatan from 3M. We have Rashmi Misra from Microsoft and Marina Bill from ABB. And again, we’ll talk about the challenges and how we can break some of those barriers moving forward.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:06:34] That sounds like it’s going to be an awesome panel discussion.

Jana Martin: [00:06:38] And I’ll just add one thing here too. I think a great way to be inspired to work in this industry and join this industry is just to see other women doing incredible things in this industry, and I just love that you don’t even have to look further than the A3 board and committees. We have so many incredible women. Already mentioned Rashmi Misra. She’s at Microsoft, but she’s also on our board, and she is so passionate about this work. She’s been innovating and creating patent-worthy work in AI since the ’90s. What a better example and person to look up to as a young woman. And then as well, Christelle Keefer, just to shout out another one of our member companies and female leaders, board members, committee members. She is doing incredible work bringing education and industry together. And we did a fun interview about that at the Business Forum. So, yeah, I’m just really excited to be able to highlight and share all of these incredible stories and hope that encourages more women to join.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:07:52] Awesome. Well, kind in line with that too, it was interesting, because I was invited to the Empower Hour. It kind of sparked this kind of discussion to have the podcast, and we were talking about who could be on it. And it was really interesting to see how many women are in higher-level positions in the A3 association, especially when you consider those metrics that Deb put out earlier. There’s only about 30% of women moving into this industry. But there’s potentially more than 30% representation of women in A3. Kind of curious what that means to you to be a part of an organization that is advancing women like that and just how that’s impacted you.

Jana Martin: [00:08:43] Yeah, I mean, I can speak to this especially being newer to the team and coming to a team with so many strong female leaders was just really encouraging right off the bat, and we are so proud of all of our team members and especially all the ladies. Dana Whalls, she is on our leadership team as well as, of course, our dear Deb, vice president of marketing. Clarissa, director of marketing, also in leadership. Amy Zmikly, director of membership. Julia Stevenson was just promoted to senior membership sales manager. We also just had Michelle Kann, who is our director of events, join the team. Very excited to have her. Mandy Pawczuk was promoted to senior event manager. Jackie Rose was recently also promoted to senior marketing communications manager, and then Carol Franklin, she leads our robotics standards development team, which is incredible. International team. And of course, Carrie Warolin, she leads our web team and all the incredible work that goes on there, and then Sharon Adams, she was the second employee. So this is not just something that’s a new trend, but it’s something that’s clearly been a priority here at the association since day one. So yeah, we’re really proud of our team.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:10:15] That’s really, really cool, especially to hear that the second employee was a woman. So I just want to see too, at the Business Forum you had the Empower Hour, at Automate we’re going to have these great speakers. What’s inspired these women in automation events to start popping up at A3 get-togethers?

Deb Kling: [00:10:39] Sure. I could take that one. I’ve been in this industry my whole career, and I definitely just assumed when I first started out in the industry that this was just going to be it. I was going to be one of a few, and I just was going to have to deal with it. But as more women, as we started talking, we really felt the energy from collaborating with other females in our industry. And I’m new to the A3 organization, but we came on board and we’ve been asked to really do some of this and build this community of women in engineering — excuse me, women in our industry. And so we held the happy hour. Amanda, we received so much feedback, whether it was verbally, through our survey, or over email. So there is no question that this was wanted and we want to do more of it. So we’ll just continue to grow this. We’d also like to expand it a little bit into our DEI efforts and build a committee that could help us really decide what should be next in those types of activities. So a lot more to come.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:11:51] That’s amazing. It’s always great to see leading by example. DEI is definitely growing within organizations. And to have an association like you all spearheading that is a really great example for all your member companies.

Jana Martin: [00:12:09] Thank you.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:12:10] So this year is the 50th anniversary for the Association for Advancing Automation, which is very exciting. And this is the first year of Automate being an annual event. And it seems like there’s just so much going on. What’s on the horizon for A3? Where do you all see the organization going in the next 50 years? Ten years?

Deb Kling: [00:12:37] Yes. We have a lot of things going on and a lot of new. We are doubling teams. We’re growing. By having an annual Automate, it’s allowed us to really expand our team. We just received our first grant this year, which we’re extremely proud of. And this focuses on the U.S. businesses expanding exports and creating jobs in both Mexico and India. And you’ll see a lot more on that front coming forward. Also, we’ve truly expanded our whole education committee/objectives. We’ve hired Ritch Ramey, who’s the director of education in our organization. And he really is expanding our outreach into our industry to really help build the workforce development and really also help K through 12 get excited about automation. So there’s a lot of initiatives going on there. We’re hosting our first Educator Day at Automate. We held a luncheon last year. We’re just expanding that. And now we have an entire day for educators to really connect with industry and make sure they could help bring back to their curriculums things that are important for a lot of these young students to come into our industry. So basically, so much on grant and education.

Clarissa Schwendeman: [00:14:04] Yeah, for sure. And then in addition to what Deb mentioned on the focus of helping educators get what they need to teach students about automation for Educator Day and the education initiatives, our A3 Next Gen Committee is really honing in on how we can continue to introduce students to the industry, earlier the better. Give them examples and just opportunities to really see what a career could look like. So we’re hosting our second A3 Next Gen Student Tour Day at Automate this year and just really showing them, like, you don’t need necessarily a four-year degree to get a good, fulfilling, good-paying job with benefits.

Jana Martin: [00:14:46] Yeah. And then I’ll just add we have so many offerings, of course, too for automation professionals. The International Robot Safety Conference, one of our longest-running, if not the longest-running event. Of course, we’ll be happy to host again this fall. The Autonomous Mobile Robots and Logistics Conference is coming this October as well. And then, of course, the AI and Smart Automation Conference will be back again, very excited this year, in November. We also have an industrial AI course. You may have already taken it if you were at the AI and Smart Automation Conference last year or if you were online this week. Earlier this week we held it online. But if you missed both of those, not to worry, we will be hosting this course again at Automate. And if you want to find the details, we’ll be adding more and more as we get closer to these events. You can just go to automate.org to check out the fall events and of course automateshow.com to check out everything related to Automate.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:15:58] I think you’ve perfectly led into my last question here, which is: What should we all be excited for for Automate? What are you all looking forward to this year in Chicago in May?

Jana Martin: [00:16:12] Well, I’ll just jump in right off the bat here and say, I’m so excited for Automate Live. I know I’m biased because that is the part of Automate that I get to deal with most closely. But I do think it is such an incredible opportunity if you’re there, and even if you can’t make it to Chicago this May, you can watch the interviews while you’re there in person. You can watch them online later, so make sure to check out all of the incredible thought leaders from our member companies, our exhibiting companies, our sponsor companies. We always have an incredible lineup, and we’ll be streaming, of course, on LinkedIn and YouTube. So very excited about that this year.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:16:57] Jana, is Automate Rewind still available? If people wanted to look and see what we had last year?

Jana Martin: [00:17:04] Absolutely. Yeah. You can go to automateshow.com/rewind and you can check out last year’s content, just to get a taste and get yourself excited for what’s coming up this year.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:17:18] Awesome. Yeah, I’m going to have to check some of those out.

Deb Kling: [00:17:22] That is great. And it’s another thing that just continues to grow within Automate. It’s been very exciting to see how many companies are thrilled to get their thought leadership out to the world. I’m most excited about the Empowerment Forum. There are so many things going on at Automate, but for me, this one will be extra special. First year we’re doing it, and we have such an outstanding panel of female professionals and really thrilled to be able to share that with other females in our industry. And anyone who would like to join us for breakfast, more information on that is also at automateshow.com.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:18:03] Nice.

Clarissa Schwendeman: [00:18:05] Yeah. So in addition to the Empowerment Forum being new, we have also created a spotlight to highlight innovation in automation at the Automate Show. We have our new Automate innovation competition, where exhibiting companies can nominate their innovative solutions in the categories of hardware, software, and systems. And we’ve got an incredible panel of judges lined up to determine the most innovative solution in each of those categories. And we’ll be hosting the award ceremony live on the Automate Show floor. And we have created a second stage on the Automate Show floor. So more free content to everyone who’s coming to the show. We’ve got the Automate Innovation Stage, where attendees can engage with the visionaries, the industry pioneers, and startups in the industry to get inspired, make connections, and just discover new solutions for their business.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:19:01] So not only are we getting Automate again this year, but we’re getting even more than we got last year.

Deb Kling: [00:19:07] Even more. Yeah.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:19:10] So cool. I’m so excited to have everyone in Chicago. I’ll be happy to be only driving 40 minutes into McCormick Place, but I can’t wait to see you all there. Is there anything else that we haven’t covered or that you guys wanted to mention while we’re here?

Deb Kling: [00:19:30] Go ahead, Clarissa.

Clarissa Schwendeman: [00:19:33] Okay, sure. Amanda, as you can see, based on what we’ve already discussed, there are huge things coming in automation, and A3 is the place to be to get the best of the best. And so even those who are not yet in industry and are interested in automation should definitely come to the Automate Show in Chicago, May 6 through 9. It’s free, so why not?

Deb Kling: [00:19:58] Exactly what I was going to say.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:20:01] Awesome. Well, thank you again, ladies. I really, really, really appreciate you being here and taking the time. I know you’re really busy, especially getting ready for Automate, all that stuff. I’m sure it takes a lot of time to get planned out.

Jana Martin: [00:20:16] Thank you so much for having us, Amanda.

Amanda Del Buono: [00:20:20] Absolutely. More than happy. Please, as always, to our viewers, please be sure to like and subscribe. Leave a comment if there’s anyone who is interested in joining us on Manufacturing Matters, please feel free to reach out at manufacturing-matters.com. And until next time, we’ll see you soon.