by George Nelson via The Youngstown Business Journal

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Thursday, August 7, 2025

Lydia Noble, who is entering her fourth year Youngstown State University, is interning this summer at Jet Stream International in Niles.

She is now working on a project there to improve packaging efficiency. 

It’s the second internship for the Poland resident, who is studying industrial and systems engineering at YSU. 

Noble says she became interested in the field because it is very process oriented. She also learned that industrial engineers designed the waiting or queuing system at Walt Disney World. “When I realized that you could connect engineering to human processes, that’s when I became most interested in it,” she remarks. 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 139,300 job openings for engineers across 18 fields over the decade ending 2026. 

A couple factors are driving the demand for engineers, Li says. Among them is the rapid pace of new technology, especially in artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced manufacturing. Another is a U.S. infrastructure that already is beyond its design life cycle. 

“It is a multifaceted approach here,” Bharat Yelamanchi, a member of the industrial engineering faculty at YSU, says. 

He points to another factor driving demand for engineers: national efforts to reshore manufacturing. This can involve mechanical engineers for product designs and industrial and systems engineers to create production lines or increase their efficiency. 

“If Ultium Cells is looking for people, chemical engineering students are going to be in demand, industrial engineers are going to be in demand, electrical engineers are going to be in demand,” he says. 

Youngstown State graduated 107 students with engineering degrees during the 2024-2025 academic year, the university reports. That was down slightly from 115 the previous academic year and up from 91 in 2022-2023. 

Earning an engineering degree is “a great investment,” Li says. Engineering students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree start at close to six figures, he says. 

In addition to maintaining its accreditation through ABET, formerly known as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, the engineering school is continuously improving its curriculum to stay current with the latest developments, Yelamanchi says. 

“On top of that, we have active research collaborations going on with different institutes and different government agencies,” he continues. Those include an active project underway with the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining, which operates America Makes, the Youngstown-based center for additive manufacturing. 

Students are finding positions at companies such as Google, Apple and FirstEnergy, as well as at federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  “They are everywhere,” Li says.  

LOOKING FOR TALENT

Hynes Industries is “always looking for talent,” George Vujnovic, chief engineering and innovation officer, says.

The Youngstown-based provider of custom roll form and fabricated metal solutions in the last two years has grown its engineering department from about four to 20. 

“We’re really looking for people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty, people that want to make a difference,” Vujnovic says. “It’s not necessarily their skill set. We can teach the skills.”

Noble says she has been surprised by the “diversity of work” available to someone with an engineering degree. She credits her internships – her previous one was in controls engineering – with helping her see “all of the different things that other engineers do at the companies I’ve been at.” 

She hasn’t started her job search yet but both Jet Stream and the company she previously interned at have had “positive communications” with her about reapplying to work full time, she reports.

Pictured at top: Frank Li, professor and director of Rayen School of Engineering at Youngtown State University, and Bharat Yelamanchi, a member of the industrial engineering faculty at YSU.