Made in America is a book for everyone, not just business people or those looking to buy something Made in America. The author, Michael Shulman, takes the reader into each factory to dispel current myths about the decline of manufacturing in America. These factories - Red Wing Shoes, Airstream RVs, Trek Bicycles and the General Motors Flint pickup truck assembly plant - survived the Great Recession and are now thriving due to a focus on quality understood by every worker, every manager - and every customer. Traveling through the Rust Belt, from Minnesota to Ohio, the reader learns about how a bloody cow hide becomes the world's finest $400 work boot; meets one of the country's least known and most powerful female manufacturing bosses; walks through a factory operating on what its CEO calls "tribal knowledge" and a bicycle plant producing bike frames from carbon fiber strong enough to be used in airplane wings. This up front view of how things are Made in America is combined with anecdotal insights into the future of manufacturing from analysts at the Aspen Institute and the Boston Consulting Group. The bottom line: these factories, collectively employing more than five-thousand workers who begin life at these companies without any specialized skills, highlight what is happening in factories all across America.
About the Author: Michael Shulman has spent his entire career discovering and examining "what's new," and jumping in to participate . . . solar energy in 1977, personal computers in 1985, digital content in 1995, venture investing and an Internet start-up in 1999, financial advisory work since 2001. This focus on "the new" has brought him to the next "big thing" -- an American manufacturing resurgence based on a once-in-a-century revolution in the production and use of fossil fuels. Unlike other analysts, he believes in the importance of seeing things up close. The Little League team having the after-game snack at Starbucks, validating the company is more than a retailer of coffee. Driving past cornfields planted up to roadside and wind breaks being removed, a sign of the ethanol and export-to-China boom. Conversations with Roman hoteliers and restaurant owners about the severity of the European recession. A sign on the side of a road saying "Frack a well, bring a soldier home." Made in America mixes his analytical skills with up-front observations and is the first in a series of four books about the resurgence in manufacturing in the United States. FracklandUSA will explore the shale gas boom in the U.S.; Free at Last will examine the implications of American energy independence, something within a decade's reach; God Bless America, Again will build on the first three books and examine the manufacturing resurgence already underway. Mr. Shulman, a graduate of Georgetown University, is married to former ABC News correspondent Jackie Judd and is the father of twin sons.