History

The Northumberland Manufacturers’ Association (NMA) was established in 2004 when a group of local manufacturers - including Cameco, Coveright, ESCO, GE Advanced Materials, Horizon Plastics, UniTrak, Weetabix, and Zircatec - decided to collaborate on education and skills training, share best practices, and promote high performance manufacturing within Northumberland County.

In 2005, the NMA incorporated and with the financial and logistical support of the Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation (NCFDC) and the Northumberland County Economic Development incorporated was able to hire a full-time Executive Director (ED). The ED worked in partnership with the newly formed Board to develop a business plan, implement a communications and marketing strategy, and recruit new members to the Association.

Since 2005, the NMA, led by the Board of Directors, has been actively representing manufacturers in Northumberland County. The purpose of the NMA is to promote continuous improvement, innovation, and high performance and productivity enhancements through collaboration, education and advocacy.

The NMA works to achieve its goals through strategic partnerships with industry associations, government, and other community stakeholders such as the Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation and regional economic development offices, universities, colleges and training centers.

The NMA takes a lead role to source local programs and initiatives to assist our members such as Skills and Jobs initiatives. The NMA had a lead role in delivering the 2010-11 Tri-Association Manufacturers’ Initiative (TMI). The TMI, was supported with $1,550,000 in Federal Community Adjustment Funding that was successfully leveraged regionally by manufacturing investments totally over $3 million dollars. TMI exceeded anticipated results by assisting 111 regional Manufacturing SME’s and creating 377 youth intern/displaced worker positions within the Tri-Association area (Northumberland, Quinte and Kawartha).

In 2016 the NMA launched the Continuous Improvement Leadership Training in partnership with Fleming College and in 2017 launched a new Twenty20| pilot program for Eastern Ontario providing funding to manufacturers to support job creation for STEM and technical skilled trades graduates. Twenty20 pilot is delivered by the NMA in partnership with the QMA and KMA is supported in part with funding through the Collaborative Economic Development Projects (CEDP) delivered by the Northumberland CFDC and supported by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.

To learn more about this and other programs click here.

In 2018 we launched our speaker series allowing members to hear from experts in their industries. We revamped our monthly communication piece – NMA ShopTalk e-Newsletter and launched our members online job board to meet the needs of employee recruitment. And we started a focus group for young professionals to learn and share together in a social atmosphere.



In 2019, we will celebrate 15yrs of collaboration, education and building high performance manufacturing in Northumberland. Won’t you join us?