You've heard it before -- manufacturing is dead. But local industries are hiring; they just can't find enough qualified workers. Thursday, they held the Lehigh Valley Manufacturing Summit at Cedar Crest College to brainstorm how to change that.

Lily and Grace Collins are only seven and nine years old, but they're learning how industry works.

"Yeah I'm having a lot of fun," said Lily.

Their grandparents brought them to "How People Make Things" at Allentown's DaVinci Science Center, where kids see how their rubber, plastics, crayons, and more get made.

Down the street at Cedar Crest College, a room full of grown-ups was building plans to convince kids to pursue careers in manufacturing.

"Manufacturing is hardly dead," said Bill Hindle, president and CEO of Hindle Power in Easton.

Hindle's company produces battery chargers for the utility industry. The company has more than doubled in size since 2000. He's looking for more employees.

"We need skilled employees," he said.

But Hindle and other industrial CEOs said they can't find enough qualified workers in our area.

"They tell us, if they could hire 10, 20 machinists right now -- skilled machinists -- that they would, but they can't find them," said DaVinci Science Center CEO Troy A. Thrash.

So business leaders are meeting with school superintendents and others at the summit, figuring out ways to teach kids the skills they need for the new generation of manufacturing jobs.

"It looks a lot different than it did 50 years ago," said Eugene Ervin, chair of Lehigh Valley Workforce Investment Board.. "There's a lot more brains and a lot less braun."

Hindle added: "We need people who do processes, can run computers, assemble product, test it electronically, understand how to assemble print and circuit boards, wiring and what have you."

That's got Grace Collins thinking.

"I would like to make clothes, because I really like fashion and that sort of stuff."

If you need more incentive, the average manufacturing wage in the Lehigh Valley is 58 thousand dollars a year. That's 25 percent more than the region's average. Also, industrial employers added a thousand new jobs in the last year.