President Obama hosted a group of manufacturing representatives at the White House, yesterday, including the American Foundry Society’s Tom Prucha, vice president of technical services. (Thanks Katie Matticks, AFS technical and information services coordinator, for the headline!)

The event detailed new steps to advance manufacturing in the U.S., strengthen defense and create jobs. Four Manufacturing Innovation Institutes connecting business with research universities facilitate those efforts, and more of the sites are coming.

“We know these manufacturing hubs have the potential to fundamentally change the way we build things here in America,” said President Obama.

AFS plays a significant role in many of the technologies he discussed, including research and development in metals and the products those alloys are used to manufacture. The American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute, Canton, Mich., is focused on the application of innovative lightweight metal production and component manufacturing technologies. "The AFS will champion the role of the metalcasting industry as a key metals manufacturing sector in this effort," said Prucha. AFS also will participate in other hubs of the national manufacturing innovation network.

View President Obama's speech at: www.whitehouse.gov/video

And here are some details you probably already know that pertain to the secret project he mentioned about three minutes in: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZJPYo-YUkA