For Students

The GCAMP 2026 Outstanding Manufacturing Student Awards celebrate more than technical skill—they recognize perseverance, leadership, and a deep commitment to building the future of manufacturing. 

This year’s program showcased an extraordinary group of students whose achievements demonstrate the strength and promise of our regional talent pipeline. From high school labs to college classrooms and real-world shop floors, each applicant represents the innovation, precision, and work ethic that define modern manufacturing.

Manufacturing is built on relationships. Leaders in industry focus on one thing above all else: your professional brand. But where do you start to build that?  How do you get your brand in front of people who make hiring decisions? The answer: LinkedIn. 

If you’re early in your career, LinkedIn can feel like a weird mix of job board, social media site and advertising space. That is ok! Now is the time to learn the basics, which can help you develop this tool into a real driver of change. You do not need to be an influencer, you just need to have a strategy!

GCAMP, the Greater Chicago Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, has been excited to read all of the news regarding the manufacturing industry in Illinois, and we are eager to share some of the highlights with you.

Manufacturing in Illinois is a ‘high-growth industry’ specifically in:[1]

For the second year in a row, GCAMP hosted summer manufacturing tours for young people in the Chicagoland area. Our 60+ tour participants included students, parents, teachers, and counselors, 

Hampshire High School teacher, Jonathan Weger, knew the right steps to take to make a huge impact with his students this year – give students knowledge, combine it with hands-on experiences, apply it to real-world scenarios, and watch the learning grow. 

GCAMP was thrilled to offer a grant to our friends from High School District 214, the Wildstang Robotics Program.  The Wildstang Robotics Program is made of up two FRC (First Robotics Competition) teams: Team 111 Wildstang and Team 112 Plus One.  Comprising these teams for the 2022-2023 school year were 72 high-school students dedicated to bringing STEM to life. 

GCAMP is a proud 2023 sponsor of various community programs, including several robotics teams.  One of those teams is composed of five middle- school students: the self-dubbed Team Marshmallow Menagerie.

Here at GCAMP, we're constantly promoting the value of internships and apprenticeships as mutually beneficial endeavors. It's easy to understand why they work, but it never gets old hearing real-world success stories about how this arrangement can have a profound effect on the next generation of manufacturers. This month we're pleased to spotlight Quinn Robinson's story.