Hero Unnoticed: Harry Moser, Reshoring Initiative founder
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 12:15PM If Main Street wants good news, look to a hero who’s gone largely unnoticed.
Harry Moser founded the Reshoring Initiative to encourage and assist manufacturers to return to the U.S. [Photo from Reshoring Initiative website]Harry Moser founded the Reshoring Initiative in 2010 with laudable goals. The RI website described the organization’s mission “to help U.S. manufacturers recognize that they would be more profitable using more local sourcing and production, which will [result] in more U.S. jobs and a stronger economy.”
Shoppers have become all too familiar with labels on clothing, appliances and other items noting the country of origin as somewhere other than the U.S. One thing most Americans agree on is the need for the U.S. to return to a standard of actually making things. That standard was a definite factor in US exceptionalism.
Moser’s bio describes his support for US manufacturing as a product of his upbringing. Moser’s father worked for the iconic Singer Sewing Machine factory in New Jersey.
Those machines were sturdy workhorses. I remember my mother sewing my clothes on her Singer—it could be run on electricity or foot power. I have that machine in my kitchen—it still works just as well as the day she brought it home.
The RI website said:
“The Reshoring Initiative takes direct action by helping U.S. manufacturers realize that local production and sourcing often reduce their total cost of ownership of purchased parts and tooling. The Initiative also trains suppliers to demonstrate to these manufacturers the economic advantages of local sourcing. Through reshoring, manufacturing in the United States is starting to gain momentum.”
Newsmax ran a feature about reshoring or repatriation efforts in the November, 2011 issue.
You’d think a US president would be eager to embrace initiatives like Moser’s. Not so.
Newsmax said the administration of President Barack Obama “has greeted…onshoring efforts with a collective shrug of indifference.
Moser told Newsmax:
“It’s been a challenge getting [Obama] to embrace this…All his chips are on exporting.”
Should a Republican win the White House in 2012, Moser should find a more positive response.
(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Dec. 1, 2011)