Thanks to retirements, blue-collar fields such as manufacturing and construction will have the largest number of expected job openings in the next seven years, outpacing other fields such science, technology and even health care, according to a recent Georgetown University study.

But there’s growing concern that many of those openings could go unfilled due to years of persistent misunderstandings about the role of manufacturing in the U.S. economy. A local committee of manufacturing leaders will soon try to address the problem through marketing and other measures.

Nationwide, there will be a total of 6.7 million openings in blue-collar occupations by 2018 due to the retirement of older workers, according to the 2010 study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

That number exceeds projected openings in the fields of food and personal services, managerial and professional office work, education, health care and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, the study said.

To fill those openings, manufacturing employers say they need to find and encourage young people to come into the field.

Bill Lukens, chairman of Stillwater Technologies, a machine shop in Troy, has agreed to lead a Dayton Region Manufacturing Association committee to begin to explore possible solutions. The committee may have its first meeting in December, said Angelia Erbaugh, executive director of the organization that recently was known as the Dayton Tooling and Manufacturing Association.

Lukens — who has served on Workforce Act Investment boards on both the county and state levels — said he has reached out to the staff of Gov. John Kasich and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, as well as the National Association of Manufacturers, for ideas on bringing companies together for what he and others hope could be a national marketing campaign.

Lukens said manufacturers need something similar to a “Got Milk?” campaign, which was spearheaded by dairy producers.

A campaign is expensive, but it’s doable, Lukens said. He said similar attention has been given to worker shortages in health care and even truck driving.

Dave Lord, a pre-engineering instructor at Kettering Fairmont High School, said he is not surprised by the Georgetown study’s findings.

“I get people from Sinclair (Community College) ... asking me to try to direct students to (Sinclair’s) Step II program because they can’t fill all the jobs that people are calling them up every day for,” Lord said.

Sinclair’s Step II program trains students for entry-level and more advanced tool and die work.

Even though parents may want to steer children away from what Lord called “career tech” education, he said his program is designed to point students toward further training and education. His graduates have gone on to Sinclair, Purdue University, the University of Dayton and Ohio State University, among other schools.

“Parents want their students to stay on the academic side,” Lord said. But they also want students to be employable once they graduate.

“You’re always seeing the numbers of four-year college graduates who can’t get jobs in the field they graduated in,” he said.

“It’s a shame,” he added. “I mean, kids are going to go out there and racking up huge debt sand have no usable skills when they’re done.”

Anthony Carnevale, the Georgetown center’s director, said while metal bending and metal-cutting jobs may be declining, “advanced manufacturing” involving clean laboratories, microbiology and medical devices is growing.

“It’s not dead,” Carnevale said. “Manufacturing in some ways is (an) industry that really is too big to fail.”

He believes the field will soon grow by about one million workers to 12 million U.S. employees.

Dave Jones, a machine shop and welding instructor at Stebbins High School, said his classes are full.

“Students here kind of get the message that’s it a good thing to do,” Jones said. “It’s (about) how seriously they take it.”

He estimated that about half of his students are serious about manufacturing or welding as possible careers.

Some are simply curious about the skills required to make and modify things.

In Jones’ view, much depends on helping parents and grandparents understand that manufacturing needs workers, and that with the right training, the field offers good careers.

Lukens cites National Association of Manufacturers data that says there are 600,000 open manufacturing jobs right now. Some of those openings seek engineers and scientists, but many are blue-collar positions: machinists, assemblers and the like.

“Manufacturing creates wealth,” Lukens said. “It’s one of the few things that does. And I don’t think a lot of people understand that.”