A strong workforce drives competitiveness, especially for manufacturing companies. Well-trained, creative engineers and scientists research, innovate, develop, and test new products and, ultimately, manufacture and sell them. How do companies recruit, train, and retain a workforce that will deliver the necessary competitive edge? To find out, we turned to two very different types of companies for insight.

Du-Co Ceramics is a small, privately-owned, domestic ceramic component manufacturer. Corning Incorporated is a large, multinational specialty glass manufacturer. While they do not compete in the product marketplace, they do compete in the talent marketplace. This interview-format article provides a basis to compare two approaches to building a workforce and a business.