From automotive parts to diesel engines to bicycles, Jackson County companies manufacture a variety of products.
There also are distribution centers that handle pet supplies and other general merchandise for national retailers.
Each year in October, local companies come together to help JCIDC celebrate MFG Day. Held on the first Friday in October with events continuing throughout the month and beyond, MFG Day — Manufacturing Day — is a national grassroots movement that demonstrates the reality and future of modern manufacturing careers. Thousands of companies and educational institutions nationwide are invited to open their doors to students, parents, educators and community leaders.
MFG Day is an initiative of the Manufacturing Institute, the workforce development and education affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers. The event empowers manufacturers to come together and address their collective challenges and build excitement about manufacturing careers to help their communities and future generations thrive.
Jackson County’s event Oct. 10 started at Cummins Seymour Engine Plant, where more than 100 students from Brownstown Central, Crothersville, Medora and Seymour high schools gathered for workshops in the morning.
During the welcome, Darren Kimmel, plant manager for the Seymour Engine Plant, thanked AISIN USA Mfg. Inc., Guardian Bikes and Pet Supplies Plus Distribution Center for joining Cummins in celebrating MFG Day and showing off manufacturing within Jackson County.
He introduced a special guest, Jenny Bush, president of Cummins Power Systems Business, to share a few words.
“Hopefully, you guys are going to get a view into the world today that you don’t see very often,” she told the students. “Today, I think you’ll see some pretty cool technology. You’ll maybe get some things that you’re familiar with, so anybody that’s into trucks or cars or anything automotive, you’ll maybe get to see some stuff that you understand but in a much bigger scale.”
The hope is for the students to begin thinking about their own careers, Bush said.
“I started my career on the floor at Cummins, and so as a result, you can grow through companies like ours in many different ways,” she said. “Manufacturing isn’t just being on the tools and on the floor.”
There also are positions in human resources, finance, materials, engineering and other spaces, Bush said.
“Where you can get involved, bring your ideas and actually bring those to things that go to market that we sell to our customers on a daily basis,” she said.
Bush said she was super excited to be with the students and encouraged them to ask questions so they could learn.
“Please be curious, please ask questions and please enjoy yourselves as much as possible,” Bush said.
Seymour Mayor Matt Nicholson echoed Bush’s comments about exploring the variety of careers in manufacturing, which makes up about a third of the jobs in Jackson County.
“It is a great opportunity to realize that it is not just being on the floor, not just turning wrenches,” he said. “There’s a chance to be in finance. There’s design work that goes on. There’s so much that goes into manufacturing. This is a great chance for you to get to experience all of it, to see the technology that is out there, which is absolutely fascinating.”
During the morning workshops, AISIN presented on budgeting, interview tips and resume practices and had Jackson County graduate Austin Frady talk about how he has worked his way up the ranks with the company.
Guardian Bikes and Cummins talked about career pathways and had Jackson County graduates Jamie Durham, James McNeely and Chad Gray speak on their journeys with their company.
Pet Supplies Plus focused on career development and had employee Derrick Broshears share his experience as a Jackson County graduate pursuing a career after high school and moving up the ladder at the distribution center.
In the afternoon, the students visited one of the four participating companies for lunch, a tour and activities.
The Robotics Education & Competition Foundation provides educators with competition, education and workforce readiness programs to increase student engagement in science, technology, engineering, math and computer science.
The organization offers Girl Powered Workshops to engage and inform young women about STEM and robotics opportunities available to them. Teachers, coaches, event partners and mentors are invited to host any time in October their own Girl Powered Workshop to honor International Day of the Girl.
A day before that annual observance, the second Jackson County Girl Powered Workshop was conducted Oct. 10 at Seymour Middle School.
Nearly 30 middle and high school girls from Jackson County attended the event. Seymour Middle School, Seymour High School, Trinity Lutheran High School, St. Ambrose Catholic School, Jackson County 4-H and Jackson County Homeschool were represented.
They were joined by eight female employees of AISIN USA Mfg. Inc., Valeo and Cummins Inc., who spoke about their various roles, from engineering to information technology, at their companies and helped the girls as they participated in a variety of activities.
In one room, they assembled pink Lego cars. In another room, they rotated between stations where they had a ramp speed race, built a tower with dry spaghetti noodles and marshmallows, built a bridge with toothpicks and rubber bands, participated in a Lego build challenge without instructions and did a speed build of a Lego skid steer.
The event was organized by Amy Jo Miller Kuzel and Jamie Baker, who are among the Seymour Community School Corp. robotics coaches.
“We are proud to be one of the hundreds of Girl Powered Workshops that take place around the world in the month of October coinciding with the United Nations’ International Day of the Girl on Oct. 11,” Baker said.
She said RECF and VEX Robotics are working to redefine the face of STEM and make robotics reflective of the diverse world we live in and the one we want to leave behind.
“Girl Powered Workshops are meant to … connect young women with mentors, highlight examples of how women are changing the world, provide tools for success and offer an environment where all students’ confidence and abilities can grow,” Baker said.
Big thanks to Walmart Supercenter in Seymour for awarding JCIDC a $1,000 grant to be used for supplies for this workshop.
Since opening in 1976, Cummins Seymour Engine Plant is where some of the company’s most powerful engines in the world have been produced.
Dean Gough, executive director of product and strategic marketing for the Americas region at Cummins Power Generation, said this location is more than just a plant.
It’s an engine plant that represents innovation. It’s a symbol of Cummins’ commitment to engineering excellence, sustainability and community impact.
Those elements are part of Cummins Power Generation’s launch of its latest product: A 17-liter engine platform generator set that produces up to 1 megawatt of power.
The S17 expands on the success of the acclaimed Centum Series generator sets, which were developed to produce a large power output within a compact footprint to meet the growing demands of power in urban environments where compact design and high performance are critical, according to a news release from Cummins.
The generator set is assembled at Cummins’ Fridley, Minnesota, facility, and the engine is made at the Seymour Engine Plant, so the S17 is an American-made product.
“It’s one more piece that we can add when we’re delivering peace of mind alongside all of the innovation that we have here,” Gough said during an event Sept. 18 at the Seymour Engine Plant.
The S17 has gone through more than 25,000 hours of testing and validation and is engineered to support a wide range of critical market segments, such as commercial properties, water and wastewater treatment plants and industrial, health care, government and data storage facilities.
“In many of these industries, space is a premium, so the S17, the compact design delivers more power, less space without compromise in performance,” said Gough, program owner of the S17 generator set.
“It’s unique, it’s powerful and it’s market leading,” he said. “And most important, it’s solving real customer problems, from reducing the total cost of ownership, lowering product costs and that complete custom ownership piece.”
Also speaking during the event were two technical leaders who played a pivotal role in bringing the S17 to life.
Emily Scheuerell leads the Cummins Power Generation Segment Engineering organization, and Ray Shute is director and Next Generation architect lead for Cummins Power Systems industrial markets.
Scheuerell said the Power Generation product line includes generator sets, automatic transfer switches, systems and switchgear, remote monitoring and new power technologies, like the newly launched battery energy storage system.
The S17 is now part of the company’s future of innovation, which is about solving the challenges customers face, Scheuerell said.
“As Cummins can promise with our brand, it always delivers the reliability, the affordability and sustainability that our customers need to get the job done,” she said.
Shute was the overall chief engineer for S17 engine product development, and he shared some of the work that the development team was able to deliver for customers and the industry.
“At the start of the project, we partnered the engine and genset development teams together to ensure we understood full use case and full needs of the end customer in the full total product, not just engine or alternator or gen set level,” he said.
“By doing that, we were able to really translate those critical customer needs to what the engine then needed to deliver to be able to enable them,” he said. “Things like dependability, low total cost of ownership, the small package size and weight, that’s the translation in what resulted in the product that you see today.”
The Engine Business team, corporate research and technology organization, Components Business and Holset turbocharger organization were among those involved in the project.
“Power without durability, dependability isn’t very valuable,” Shute said. “Dependability, durability, reliability, those are Cummins’ key initial commitments always whenever we endeavor for any product for our customer, and the same is true here. Because we developed a complete power system, we have extensive customer relationships and are looking forward to additional customer relationships that enable us to really understand how the product start to finish is utilized in the field over its decades of expected service life.”
Also during the event, the first customer of the S17, Gaylor Electric, was recognized. The Indianapolis-based company purchased three units for Nashville Youth Campus for Empowerment in Tennessee.
That project is focused on restorative justice, holistic care and community support for youth in Nashville.
“Thanks to Gaylor Electric for their business, and of course, for choosing Cummins,” Gough said. “We like it. It’s innovation, which is powering purpose.”
After the presentation, attendees had an opportunity to see the S17 up close and talk to subject matter experts. That was followed by lunch and tours of the Seymour Engine Plant.
For more on the S17, visit cummins.com/news/releases/2025/06/25/cummins-redefines-power-density-announcement-groundbreaking-17-liter.
Founded in 1919, Cummins is headquartered in Columbus and operates in 190 countries and territories around the globe with nearly 70,000 employees.
The Pet Supplies Plus distribution center in Seymour celebrated 10 wonderful years of serving our local pet community with a special outdoor event Sept. 12 at Canine Crossroads Dog Park.
The park, which opened 10 years ago in the southeast corner of the intersection of East Fourth Street and Burkart Boulevard, was lively with dog lovers and their four-legged companions enjoying the sunshine and festivities. A dedicated team of friendly staff hosted a cheerful booth, generously handing out complimentary gifts for dogs and sharing smiles with every visitor.
It was a fantastic way to honor a decade of commitment to pet wellness and community connection. It was a simple but meaningful way to celebrate a decade of service and a reminder of how local businesses can make a lasting impact.
Congratulations to Pet Supplies Plus on 10 years of dedication to pets and their people!
Seymour High School’s 400-plus members of the Class of 2026 participated in Senior Seminars again this year.
On Sept. 10 and 11, staff members with Ivy Tech Community College in Columbus led sessions on interview prep, professionalism and communication and more.
After completing the seminars, the seniors will be ready to create their résumé that they will submit for when they participate in the annual senior mock interviews the week of Oct. 27 to 31.
JCIDC partners with SHS for the senior mock interviews, helping pair each student with an interviewer who works in the field in which they are interested.
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun visited Seymour on Sept. 9.
The Jackson County Chamber recently reached out to the governor’s office to coordinate an appearance by the state’s highest-ranking official. The result was Lunch with the Governor at The Copper Top in downtown Seymour.
Following a brief introduction, Braun sat down with chamber Director Dan Robison for a question-and-answer session that covered a variety of topics related to economic development and commerce in Jackson County and the state.
Those included attracting businesses and investment, supporting small businesses and fostering a more vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, establishing tax policies and spending to best position the state for long-term economic growth, budgeting for programs that affect education outcomes and workforce training, supporting infrastructure projects to benefit business and commerce and collaborating with schools and employers to develop a pipeline of the current and future workforce.
“We reorganized state government to be responsive, entrepreneurial, and as it relates to you as constituents, communities, local governments, school districts, I want to hear what isn’t working so that we can do it better,” said Braun, who ran his own business for 37 years.
Robison first asked Braun about his America First economic agenda for the state and how that translates into policies and initiatives aimed at attracting business and investment.
“We are the No. 1 manufacturing state per capita in the country,” Braun said. “We’re the ‘Crossroads of America.’ We reach more commerce in two days of ground transportation than any other place in the country, so we’ve got some inherent advantages.”
As for addressing labor shortages and attracting new, diverse industries, Braun said, “We need to make sure we get proper guidance, we listen to existing businesses for what those high-demand, high-wage jobs are and make sure for the 50% that currently are getting misguided that they at least look at better options that would be workforce.”
One way the state is supporting small businesses and fostering a more vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem is the creation of the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
While Indiana is considered one of the best states to start a business, Braun said it’s among the states with the fewest businesses being started, so it’s important to flip that around.
Braun encourages businesses to collaborate with local schools, universities and employers to develop talent pipelines for staffing needs.
“For any of you businesses, get involved with your school districts, and don’t take it for granted that they are going to give you what you need,” he said. “Especially the very smallest schools are already ahead of the curve. They never got out of all of the workforce in their schools to begin with. The ones that did better bring it back in or you’re going to again not be helping what you need to do for your own businesses that want to grow, keep your kids employed so they stay there and don’t move away.”
Jackson County experienced significant funding shifts to programs like On My Way Pre-K and Jobs for America’s Graduates, which affected education outcomes and valuable workforce training.
Braun said budget cuts at the state level impacted that, and the budget forecast came out a week before officials wrapped up the budget discussion. That was based on the national issue of tariffs, which he doesn’t know how that’s going to work out long term.
He said all state agencies were asked to look for 5% savings, and he expects a new forecast in December.
“On the (programs) that make sense, they’ll be enabled if they make sense to do so,” Braun said. “We’re going through a healthy kind of resize in government to make sure what are the best programs that are going to get the attention and the resources. … The forecast is going, I think, to be much better in December that shows that our state was healthier than what the forecast indicated in the first place.”
In terms of positioning the state for long-term economic growth and prosperity, Braun said the government should always be the most powerful at the local level.
“We’ve got to be careful,” he said. “I want to make sure we have the right environment, but you’ve got to run your governments like a business No. 1. Don’t try to grow them faster than the economy. Otherwise, you’re growing it at the expense of the real economy.”
With Seymour being the “Crossroads of Southern Indiana,” Robison asked about the importance of infrastructure projects boosting business and commerce.
Braun said he co-authored the last road funding bill in 2017, and local communities have benefited from the Community Crossings Matching Grant program.
That money, however, only goes so far, so he welcomes creative ideas and public-private partnerships to help pay for roads and bridges.
“Let’s do it together,” Braun said. “I welcome your input. Buckle up. Let’s have some fun.”
