There aren’t many people who know more about advanced manufacturing in Ontario than Jayson Myers.

Tune in this week for a new Making it in Ontario milestone: our first repeat guest. This episode features Jayson Myers, the CEO of Next Generation Manufacturing (NGen), Canada’s advanced manufacturing supercluster. An (award-winning) economist, Jay was once named the most accurate forecaster in Canada. He credits this to his ability to bring together data and the perspectives of manufacturing leaders to accurately frame the state of the sector and its potential trajectories.

Building these data-driven narratives is something that Jay and Brendan have in common. Throughout the episode, we find out that they have a few more things in common. These include playing lacrosse in their younger days and a connection to the Longwood Rd. S. facility in Hamilton where NGen’s offices are located. This address, now the home of the McMaster Innovation Park, was Brendan’s entree to manufacturing in the late 1990s, when he spent time working in the paint shop of what was then the Canadian Appliance Manufacturing Company (CAMCO). It turns out that Jay’s father worked for CAMCO’s predecessor, Fergus-based agricultural implement and appliance manufacturer Beatty Brothers Limited. (Does your top-loading washing machine have an agitator? You can thank Beatty Brothers for this made-in-Ontario innovation.)

Throughout the episode, the conversation focuses on the evolution of manufacturing in Ontario and Canada, the value propositions of small manufacturers, the incredibly diverse assets that make Ontario’s advanced manufacturing ecosystem unique (did you know that the GTA is only one of two major metropolitan areas in North America with full-scale vehicle and aircraft manufacturing? And the only one with vehicle, aircraft, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Who knew?), and NGen’s impact on manufacturing competitiveness. Listen to the end to hear Brendan put Jay on the spot when he asks him to pick his favourite NGen project yet.

Wait, there’s more. We had so much to talk about that we had to split the podcast into two episodes. Join us in the upcoming weeks to hear what Jay and Brendan have to say about the state of manufacturing productivity in Canada, the subject of a joint NGen-Trillium Network report that will be published in the very near future.

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