Chatham Middle School Wins What’s So Cool About Manufacturing Viewers Choice Award

Figure 1North Albany Middle School wins the Outstanding Overall Video at CEG’s 2nd annual What’s So Cool About Manufacturing® Video Awards Show at Proctors on April 22, 2026.

A vastly expanded What’s So Cool About Manufacturing^® (WSCM) video competition awards ceremony returned to Proctors Wednesday, with twice as many participating middle schools and Chatham Middle School winning the Viewers Choice Award and North Albany Middle School winning the Outstanding Overall Video.

Nearly 100 Capital Region middle school students participated in the Center for Economic Growth’s second annual What’s So Cool About Manufacturing^® contest. The contest, through CEG’s WSCM Capital Region, NY chapter, tasks middle school teams with producing real-world, project-based videos that highlight “What’s So Cool About Manufacturing.”  In addition to the Viewers Choice Award selected through an online poll that attracted 66,000 votes for all schools, a bench of judges also selected award-winning videos in four other categories.

Watch the students’ videos here.

This year, 15 middle schools participated in the WSCM Capital Region, NY contest, compared to seven last year. The participating schools and the manufacturers with which they were partnered included:

In 2024, CEG launched WSCM Capital Region, NY to raise parents’ and students’ awareness about high-paying careers within the Capital Region’s manufacturing sector and to dispel misconceptions they may have about such work. For the contest, student teams are supplied with video production training and equipment – at no cost to schools. Each team is paired with a nearby manufacturer, which gives students a tour of its facility and makes employees available for interviews. With cool manufacturing footage filmed during these facility tours, the student teams edit their videos, which are posted online for the public voting campaign.

CDPHP provided Leadership-Level sponsorship, along with National Grid and NSH USA at the Champion Level for WSCM Capital Region, NY. Platinum sponsors included GE Vernova, and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Since CEG brought the WSCM contest to New York – the first outside Pennsylvania where the initiative began in Allentown in 2013 – it has spread to five other states.

”Video helps us capture those moments when the unexpected and cool collide, and that’s why What’s So Cool About Manufacturing is so powerful. It provides students’ perspectives on when they realize that manufacturing involves very cool technologies and processes, and it shows career opportunities that they never considered pursuing,” said Don Wiesenforth, the senior vice president and director of Manufacturing Solutions, the Capital Region Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) center.

“The What’s So Cool About Manufacturing program is a great way to connect students with real-world opportunities and show them how modern manufacturing uses advanced technology and innovation to create products that people use every day,” said Michael Scorza, the plant manager of Sonoco Industrial and Specialty Plastics in Chatham.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the project. The students were highly engaged and learned a great deal. I know I learned a lot as well. The value of this program is tremendous,” said Ed Finney, a teacher-coach from Maple Hill Jr. High School in Rensselaer.