WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 17, 2017)—Joe Kaeser, president and CEO of Siemens AG, bolstered Siemens’ commitment to strengthening American manufacturing during a meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump, according to a statement from the company.
Kaeser joined Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several global CEOs for a discussion about workforce development. An apprentice from Siemens’ Charlotte Energy Hub accompanied Kaeser for the meeting, highlighting Siemens’ efforts to demonstrate and utilize the apprenticeship model in the U.S., the company said.
Additionally, Kaeser announced a commitment to nearly double Siemens’ industry-leading apprenticeship program, hire and train hundreds more veterans per year, and provide an additional $2 billion in in-kind grants of its Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software for academic and institutional use.
Kaeser emphasized Siemens’ commitment to the U.S. market, highlighting the company’s recent announcement of an expansion of Siemens’ Walpole, Massachusetts, manufacturing and research-and-development facility. Siemens anticipates the $300 million investment may ultimately create as many as 700 permanent new jobs through 2026.
“A highly-skilled manufacturing workforce is critical to Siemens in the United States, where we’ve been active for over 160 years. The U.S. is now our largest market—we’ve invested about $35 billion here in the past 15 years,” said Kaeser. “I appreciated the opportunity to discuss with President Trump how industry, academia and government can work together to help empower workers with the skills needed for success in today’s advanced manufacturing environment and prepare them well for next generation manufacturing.”