After a Great Recession slowdown, manufacturing is recovering and becoming more active in the Central Valley.

And whether you’re a manufacturer that cans fruit or builds circuit boards, organizers of the 2017 Manufacturing Summit at the Fresno Convention Center figure they’ll be able to provide information that can help your business, whether it’s an introduction to new technology or tax information that can help your bottom line.

“We have keynote speakers, over 90 exhibitors from manufacturing, industry, education ad government” some of whom will put on 24 breakout sessions and workshops over the course of the day at the Fresno Convention Center, said Sam Geil, business development director for the San Joaquin Valley Manufacturing Alliance, which is hosting the April 20 conference.

Topics will include 3D printing, quality in manufacturing, robotics in the industry — which will include a demonstration of robotic equipment — and how manufacturers can protect themselves from lawsuits.

While most of the breakout sessions will last 45 minutes, one on programming logical controllers — software that controls a variety of machines that can include lathes, dies and milling equipment — will last most of the day.

“It’s really designed for the plant maintenance engineers that would use these machines,” Geil said.

There also will be two keynote speakers, John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil Co. and founder and CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy, who will speak in the morning.

The lunch speaker will be Katherine DeRosear, the “partnership architect” and former executive director of the Manufacturing Skills Institute (MSI), the workforce development affiliate of the nonprofit Virginia Manufacturers Association.

She also is vice president of Headed2 out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a cloud-based career planning and development online platform and the “architect” behind Dream It. Do It, a program in Virginia working to get young people interested in manufacturing careers.

About 200 students from Valley high schools and community colleges interested in pursuing manufacturing careers will attend the Fresno summit.

That’s a good thing because manufacturers in the Valley need a skilled workforce, and the summit is generating interest in careers that will help build up those numbers, said Chris Klein, sales manager for Sacramento-based Klein Educational Systems, which sells robotic devices to high schools, community colleges and universities that offer training to program and repair them.

“Basically what industry is telling us is they’re looking for anyone with basic knowledge of electrical, mechanical and fluid power,” he said.

He added that organizers of the summit are “doing anything and everything they can to develop that workforce that’s needed by the manufacturing industry.”

This marks the third year of the conference, originally called “The San Joaquin Valley Regional Industry Clusters Initiative,” and put on the first two years by the Fresno State Office of Community & Economic Development.

This year, the event is in the hands of the Manufacturing Alliance, a group comprised of more than 500 representatives from manufacturing and Valley industries, as well as educational and government agencies that formed early last year.

Geil noted that Fresno State still is involved in putting on the event.

“Our mission is to enhance and attract manufacturing to the San Joaquin Valley,” he said. “The concept has been evolving over the last few years, and it came to a crescendo last year after the second summit we held.”

Last year’s event drew about 500 people, and advance registration numbers already have exceeded that, with Geil saying that organizers expect to draw about 800 people this year.

Besides offering opportunities to get educated on manufacturing, he said the event also is an opportunity for manufacturers to meet face to face with vendors, suppliers and service business representatives they already know and to get acquainted with new ones.

How to attend
What: 2017 Manufacturing Summit
When: 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 20
Where: Fresno Convention Center
Admission: $60 for SJVMA members and partners, $100 non-members
Information: Go online to www.sjvma.org or call 278-0721