Three years ago, an Evansville Business feature highlighted the need for workforce development and technology adoption to support Southwestern Indiana’s manufacturing sector. Now, an organization dedicated to advancing the state’s manufacturing and logistics industries is expanding its programming into Southern Indiana.
Established in 2007 as an initiative of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, Conexus Indiana helps companies focus on those topics through its Advanced Industries Council and offers regional quarterly meetings for its 130-plus council members.
The June 3 session at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana in Princeton explored workforce development issues, while the Aug. 20 meeting at Jasper Engines & Transmissions tackled technology adoption, specifically artificial intelligence. Companies attending the Jasper meeting included Anchor Industries from Evansville, MasterBrand Cabinets from Ferdinand, and Grain Processing Corporation from Washington.
“We have everybody from small family businesses to Eli Lilly and everything in between,” says Conexus President and CEO Jay Wirts. “You don’t have to be a manufacturing and logistics company, but if you are, you’re going to get more benefit out of it.”
The range of companies seeks to foster collaborative peer learning, not only across industries but between small and medium-sized enterprises and large corporations. “If you’re a bigger company, you hear the smaller companies talk that probably represent your suppliers,” Wirts says. “If you’re a smaller company, and you hear the bigger company talk, they’re probably representative of your customer.”
CIAIC also includes colleges and government agencies, such as Ivy Tech Community College, Purdue University, the Indiana Department of Transportation, and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. “We do that intentionally because [the academic institutions] learn from what the companies are saying so they can be a little more industry-led, and the companies get exposure to the academic institutions,” Wirts says.
At the Jasper session, Wirts noted how engagement increases the value of the CIAIC experience; he credited member input in prompting the nonprofit to venture south of Indianapolis. “If most of our meetings and events are in Central Indiana, it’s a long drive, and not everyone can get to all the meetings. We want to make it easier on them by coming to them.”
The number of Northern Indiana council members at the Jasper gathering surprised Mike Wagner, President and CEO of furniture manufacturer Jasper Group. Wagner, a Conexus board member, touted the statewide network effect. Lindsey Nix, Director of Talent, Development, & Community Impact at Nix Industries in Poseyville and a guest at the Jasper session, observed the opportunity for local connections. “We have a strong manufacturing presence in Southwest Indiana, but we can get siloed,” she says.
Through discussions on building solid foundations for AI use and targeting technology purchases with a strong return on investment, Jasper session members shared best practices on timely AML issues. Similar to the Toyota gathering, attendees also toured the host facility, a practice wholeheartedly promoted by Scott Hoffman, Director of Gas Engine Manufacturing at Jasper Engines & Transmissions. “We embrace the idea of bringing as many people in as we can to see our process and talk about those processes so we can organically get better with other people’s viewpoints,” he says.
For Wagner, both Southern Indiana meetings enabled him to connect the dots between where Jasper Group is now and where the company needs to be regarding workforce development and technology adoption. “Everybody’s on a continuous improvement journey,” he says. “Why do we all have to fail? Somebody can fail once, tell everyone else, and continue to progress as a group. That’s what it’s about.”
In 2027, CIAIC will host two meetings in Northern Indiana, along with four quarterly sessions in Central Indiana. Conexus also hosts free Industry Exchange Workshops that are open to any small and medium-sized enterprise. Workshops earlier this year in Jeffersonville, Fort Wayne, and Evansville offered practical strategies and structured approaches to technology adoption and workforce development projects.
