A delegation from Central Mississippi spent the week of September 21 in Germany studying how the country trains its manufacturing workforce. They came home with something more useful than ideas: direct relationships with four German companies building or expanding in the CMPDD District.
Organized through the Transatlantic Business & Investment Council, the group included CMPDD Workforce Director Robin Parker, Michael Curran of CMPDD, Joey Deason of the Madison County Economic Development Authority, Garrett Wright of Rankin First, and partners from Hinds Community College and AccelerateMS. Over five days in Berlin, Hanover and Thuringia, they met company leaders, toured training centers and factory floors, and watched apprentices present their work.
Four companies with a stake here
- Continental Tire, whose $1.4 billion truck tire plant in Clinton turns ten this year, hosted the group at its Hanover headquarters with its HR and vocational training teams.
- Siemens Energy, expanding in Rankin County, opened its Berlin apprentice center, where a first-year apprentice presented and defended a real engineering solution.
- ABB showed how its Berlin training center also serves a consortium of smaller manufacturers that couldn’t afford their own.
- Griesson de Beukelaer, which bought DeBeukelaer Corporation in Gluckstadt in July and is planning a $70 million plant in Madison, hosted a tour of its bakery in Kahla.
The dual training model
Every visit came back to Germany’s dual system. Companies hire apprentices as employees and pay for their training, following a national curriculum and exams. Programs last about three years, roughly one-third classroom and two-thirds hands-on, with a midpoint exam where the apprentice solves a real company problem and defends it to a panel. At Continental, 77 percent of trainees stay on with the company.
The takeaway wasn’t that Mississippi is missing pieces. We already have the employers, community college programs, CTE pathways, registered apprenticeships and credentials. What Germany has built is a culture that connects them, and several companies said they’ve learned some of their practices from their own U.S. plants, including Continental in Clinton.
These four employers will be hiring in Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties for years to come. They want technical skills in automation and industrial maintenance, plus the habits of showing up, following the plan and continuing to learn. South Central Mississippi Works’ 47 Career Coaches, serving 49 high schools, are already using what the delegation brought back to point students toward those jobs.
This story first appeared in the October 2026 issue of Central Update, CMPDD’s quarterly newsletter. Find this issue and past editions on our Publications page.