Jennifer Clark, associate professor at the School of Public Policy and director of the Center for Urban Innovation in the Ivan Allen College, Georgia Institute of Technology is member of the commission

Washington, D.C. -- A University of Virginia Miller Center commission, chaired by former Governors Haley Barbour and Evan Bayh, will hold a news conference Friday, June 13 at 9:30 am at the National Press Club to release a report offering innovative, non-partisan, actionable ideas on how to create middle-class manufacturing jobs.

The report is the first in a series that will focus on creating middle-class jobs. Separate commissions are examining job creation through entrepreneurship and infrastructure investment and will release reports later this year. The effort is part of the Milstein Symposium: Ideas for a New American Century, a Miller Center initiative that is bringing together policymakers, business and industry leaders, scholars, and journalists to define and advance ideas to help rebuild the American Dream.

The report will offer six ideas on how to accelerate the innovative capacity of American manufacturing’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Ideas include providing a more flexible education system, certification programs, and access to financing and technology.

Throughout U.S. history, manufacturing SMEs have been an engine of well-paying, middle-class jobs. Advanced technologies such as 3D printing, major shifts in global demand, and greater emphasis on customization are redefining manufacturing and creating significant growth potential for SMEs.

According to the 2010 Census, manufacturing SMEs employ 4.9-million workers. While overall manufacturing jobs dramatically declined from 1972 to 2010, the share of jobs provided by SMEs grew from 29 to 45 percent.  SMEs were one of the few sectors of the U.S. economy to thrive amid the Great Recession.

Besides Barbour and Bayh, other members of the commission include:

• Rebecca O. Bagley, president and chief executive officer, NorTech, a technology-based economic development organization focusing on Northeast Ohio
• Aaron Bagshaw, president, WH Bagshaw Co., the oldest pin manufacturer in the United States
• Matthew Burnett, founder, Maker’s Row, a company endeavoring to simplify the manufacturing process by connecting designers to domestic manufacturers
• W. Bernard Carlson, chair, U.Va. Department of Engineering and Society; professor of science, technology and history, and the commission’s lead scholar
• Jennifer Clark, associate professor at the School of Public Policy and director of the Center for Urban Innovation in the Ivan Allen College, Georgia Institute of Technology
• John Engler, president, Business Roundtable; former governor of Michigan
• James Fallows, national correspondent, The Atlantic
• James Manyika, director, McKinsey Global Institute; senior partner, McKinsey & Company
• Kate Sofis, executive director, SFMade, a non-profit corporation working to bolster San Francisco’s economic base through local manufacturing
• Howard Wial, director, Center for Urban Economic Development, University of Illinois, Chicago

The news conference will take place in the First Amendment Lounge at the National Press Club, located at 529 14th St., NW.

It will be live streamed at www.millercenter.org. Media watching the live stream can tweet questions to @Miller_Center or post them at facebook.com/millercenter.

The Milstein Symposium was created by the Miller Center and Howard P. Milstein, a businessman, entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist. Support for the program is provided through the Howard and Abby Milstein Foundation and Emigrant Bank.

More information is available at http://millercenter.org/conferences/2013/milstein.