By Gayle S. Putrich
STAFF REPORTER
Published: June 3, 2014 4:53 pm ET
Updated: June 3, 2014 5:00 pm ET
Image By: Wikipedia
Hillary Clinton, former U.S. secretary of state, toured Denver plastics company Intertech Plastics Inc. on June 2.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured a Denver plastics plant Monday to highlight workforce development programs, a focus of the Clinton Foundation.
While Clinton has not yet officially thrown her hat in the ring for the 2016 presidential race, the visit to custom injection molder Intertech Plastics Inc. looked a lot like a campaign stop and focused on a sure-fire hot topic in the coming election cycle: jobs for young people.
The visit was centered around helping “to get the word out that there are good jobs out there… careers in manufacturing that don’t require a four-year degree,” said Intertech spokesman Ryan Gensler
Intertech has a fledgling internship and apprentice program, he said, and Clinton quietly chatted with some of its participants, who started as apprentices while in high school and have since become full-time employees, on the factory floor, before heading into a boardroom for an in depth discussion with Intertech founder and CEO Noel Ginsburg on attracting young people in the United States to manufacturing.
Recruiting young people into skilled trades has become an across-the-board focus in the plastics industry in recent years, with plastics CEOs calling for new ways to bridge the industry’s generation gap and a growing number of partnerships between plastics processors and local trade schools and community colleges. | 
