Functionally Speaking: A Bright Future for Surface Finishing is in Our Hands

Earlier this year I wrote the article “Fabrication to Finishing to Assembly: A Stronger Voice by Aligning Affiliated Industries.” 

Dan ZinmanThat piece was about the metals ecosystem—fabricators, finishers, assemblers—and the strength that comes from lining up together. This one is about a different kind of voice: how our industry talks about itself.

Ask anyone in automotive, airlines, aerospace, defense, space, or medical devices where they would be without chemical surface treatment. The answer: out of luck. That’s the polite version, since I couldn’t print the F-word everyone is thinking.

Surface finishing makes the part look right, resist corrosion, and take the wear in all kinds of environments. It’s not a nice-to-have. Think about that the next time you’re driving a car, flying in a plane, talking to someone with an artificial limb, or wondering what is keeping a satellite working in space.

Why are Regulators Aggressive Towards Finishers?

If the work we provide is that essential, why do the public, regulators, and localities so often take an aggressive stance against the shops that do it? Why the hearings, the “not in my backyard,” the assumption that finishing is a problem to be contained rather than a capability manufacturing cannot fly without?

Maybe it’s because we keep inviting them into the wrong room.

Think about the finest steak restaurant. Guests don’t have the appetite for the slaughterhouse or what goes on in the kitchen. It’s all about the dining room—the plate that arrives, that well-prepared, juicy steak.

To many people, surface finishing is the slaughterhouse and the kitchen. Tanks. Chemistry. Airborne exposure. Wastewater. That is the story they already think they know. They never see the satellite, the airframe, the implant. They see the tank. Then they vote, write the rule, and tell their kids to look for work somewhere else. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. How many times have you heard, even in the shop, “who wants to be a plater?”

There’s a story, probably embellished and maybe made up, that got me thinking about how we should be talking. During the early 1960s, as part of the space race, President Kennedy visited a NASA center and introduced himself to a janitor sweeping the floor. When Kennedy asked what he did at NASA, the janitor didn’t say he cleaned the building. He said he was helping put a man on the moon.

Why a car lasts, why a plane flies, why a satellite stays on station, why a device can go in a body. That’s our story. But telling it through public relations, marketing, and recruiting the next generation was never anyone’s main assignment.

I got a chance to try that thinking. On the way to SUR/FIN, a TSA agent asked what I was going to Chicago for. I said a trade show for surface finishing. When he asked what that was, I didn’t mention chemicals or plating. I said it was the work that helps keep aircraft doing what they are supposed to do. Much to my surprise, he started talking about how a wing flexes in flight. He got it.

It happened again in my driveway on a Saturday. A maintenance guy from one of our plating-shop customers was looking for some weekend work, and believe me, I had projects for him. My neighbor—young, family, homebrews his beer, used to jump out of planes before the kids—works for a large company that builds satellites. He saw the shop name on the guy’s shirt, came over, and said, “Hey, your company does some of our plating.” They talked for a while. He wasn’t thinking about the tanks and the processes. He saw the parts that keep a satellite on station.

What’s Missing in All of This?

A lot of good work is already happening. Suppliers are doing their part with alternative chemistries. Platers are doing their part by installing air-handling and water-treatment systems in their facilities. Associations, nationally and locally, are doing their part through advocacy, government relations, technical education, and funding sound science. The primes are doing their part by approving those alternative chemistries so shops can run them. Back to the restaurant: the kitchen is getting cleaner, safer, and easier to defend. That’s real progress. But it isn’t what’s missing.

What’s missing is something we never really had to focus on in the past: promoting and marketing surface finishing itself, and the value it delivers. You know, the dining room.

Why a car lasts, why a plane flies, why a satellite stays on station, why a device can go in a body. That’s our story. But telling it through public relations, marketing, and recruiting the next generation was never anyone’s main assignment.

The next generation—students and people early on in their careers—need to hear something else: this is a good gig, with real careers at every level

The industry around us has changed and is still changing. Surface finishing is contracting, as are other trades. Perception is part of it. So is reality: the cost of staying in compliance and the cost of doing business keep climbing. In the past, the work found you. Even today, many finishers have a website and maybe a LinkedIn or Instagram page, but they are operating without a sales force. When our associations rally members, it’s usually to fight a new regulation or a city council deciding whether to regulate us or eliminate us. We are always playing defense. It’s time to go on offense, positively.

Learning From Other Industries

If we look at other industries facing some of these same challenges, we can learn from them. Trucking still fights hours-of-service rules and the public’s view of diesel and wrecks. They also sold the dining room: if you bought it, a truck brought it—and later, Nothing Without Trucking. Beef still has packing plants. They didn’t advertise the kill floor. They advertised dinner. Mining’s association says Minerals Make Life. Paper and packaging went with How Life Unfolds. None of them stopped advocating or doing the science. They just stopped letting the plant be the only story.

We can fill the gap the same way I did with the TSA agent, and the way my neighbor did in my driveway: start with the finished product. With officials, that means jobs, tax base, defense readiness, and supply chain. The next generation—students and people early on in their careers—need to hear something else: this is a good gig, with real careers at every level. You can come in from high school, a trade program, or a four-year degree. You can stay on the line, move into quality or EHS, run a process, run a plant, or own one. Attracting them takes more than promoting the industry to the public. It means showing up at high schools, trade schools, and community colleges (counselors, CTE teachers, chem labs) with a career ladder in hand and a plant tour on the calendar.

Here’s what that ladder can look like. And that’s only the plant floor. A finishing plant also hires in sales, estimating, customer service, shipping, HR, finance, and IT. It’s a company, not a tank room.

Career Ladder: Same Plant, Many Paths

Whatever Someone’s Background, There’s a Path

That’s the school packet: one table, one tour, and one sentence like the one that worked on the TSA agent. Whatever someone’s background, there’s a path. Some will be drawn to the lab, some to running the process, some to estimating, and some to keeping a satellite contractor’s parts in spec.

I wish I could snap my fingers and everyone would say this is a great industry to be in. That is not how it works. If we mean Made in the USA—and staying in the USA—local and national associations have to add promotion and the next generation to the mission. I’m not saying instead of advocacy, government relations, and the science. I’m saying in addition to.

The good news is we don’t have to invent the whole toolbox. The AESF Foundation, NASF’s education arm, already trains and certifies—CEF, CAF, MSF—and runs scholarships for students in chemistry and materials. Chapters add their own awards. Shops can pay for the course and put a bonus on passing, which some already do. Manufacturing Day is on the calendar every October: open the door, walk a class through, talk about the part that goes on the plane.

Keep the suppliers on chemistry. Keep the platers on air and water treatment. Keep the associations on advocacy, government relations, and the science. Keep the primes on approvals. Then market the value. 

Other associations already invest in schools. SME’s education foundation runs PRIME—manufacturing labs, curriculum, and teacher training inside high schools, free to the school. FMA’s foundation, SparkForce, funds summer camps and scholarships that include trade school and community college, not only the four-year. AWS SENSE is the welding curriculum high schools and tech colleges use, including to line up Perkins dollars. Those programs are running now. We don’t need a new organization. We need to copy the on-ramp.

Public money is available if someone will fill out the paperwork. In California, the Employment Training Panel reimburses manufacturers for training people already on the clock and people just hired. Workforce boards under WIOA can fund on-the-job training. Perkins dollars sit in the high-school CTE and community-college system, waiting for an employer to help design the class. Registered apprenticeships exist; manufacturing is a priority sector. None of that money shows up on its own. It shows up when a shop or an association asks for it.

Promotion and Workforce Should Be in the Written Mission

So the snap-your-fingers list is actually short and doable. Put promotion and workforce in the written mission. Build a one-page school packet and a speaker list. Host a Manufacturing Day tour. Get two shops onto an ETP or WIOA contract this year. Fund a scholarship that includes trade school, not just the college junior year. Lead with the finished product, the way I did with the TSA agent, at every hearing, every counselor visit, and every plant tour. That’s not pie in the sky. That’s work.

Keep the suppliers on chemistry. Keep the platers on air and water treatment. Keep the associations on advocacy, government relations, and the science. Keep the primes on approvals. Then market the value. Cars that last. Planes that fly. Satellites that stay on station. Devices that can be implanted. If we want a future that looks like that, we have to stop leading with the kitchen.

It’s time to go on offense. Who’s in?

Dan Zinman is the Chief Commercial Officer for Miles Chemical in Arleta, California. He has been active in industry trade groups for decades, and currently sits on the board of the Metal Finishing Association of Southern California.