Wil James
When news came down that Wil James had been named chairman of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce starting in January, it might have been reasonable to assume he would be working out of a car — good thing he’s president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK).
“This is a busy year, but I thought it would be a perfect time for us to kind of partner in more of the things that the chamber was doing and that we’re doing out here at Toyota,” said James. The Georgetown plant just started turning out a drastically redesigned Camry, the Toyota model that has held the crown of top-selling car in America for the last dozen years, and it is getting ready to add Lexus’s first production line in the United States and only its second outside Japan.
“I don’t accomplish everything by myself; it’s a team effort,” James said when asked how he planned to guide TMMK during one of its biggest years while also serving as board chair for the state’s predominant business association.
“We’ve got a pretty strong team that is focusing on what we need to do with the Toyota line. We’ve got a strong team that is working on preparation for the Lexus, and we’ve got some pretty good folks that have been involved with our connections in the Chamber over the years that are there to help me and support me,” said James, who has run TMMK since the summer of 2010.
Plus, it’s not like the Kentucky Chamber hasn’t worked with a busy executive before.
“They’ve got an amazing group of folks, when you look at [Kentucky Chamber President and CEO] Dave Adkisson and his team that are pretty well-versed on how to get an executive who has another business life to be able to contribute to the Chamber. They make it about as easy as it can possibly be, so I’m not too concerned with the level of work that we have to try to accomplish,” he said.
One of James’ main pushes will be for continuing the momentum of workforce development for advanced manufacturing across the state. James was a part of the Bluegrass Economic Advancement Movement championed by the mayors of Lexington and Louisville, Jim Gray and Greg Fischer, and is close to seeing Bluegrass Community and Technical College’s Bluegrass Advanced Manufacturing Center moved off Toyota property and into a newly funded permanent building in Georgetown.
“Everybody recognizes there’s a need,” for expanded workforce development, he said. “We are starting to fill some of those needs now through programs that are already in place.”
“We’ve shown enough success out of these programs that the state’s certainly on board to expand it,” he said.
While James feels confident that efforts like those undertaken by the Kentucky Chamber and other manufacturing groups have convinced decision makers that 21st-century manufacturing is a vital part of the economy, the sale still has to be made to the workforce itself.
“One of our biggest challenges is we’ve got to get back into the schools and expose the teachers, the students and the parents to what the new manufacturing world is about today,” he said. “It’s not the old, dirty, harsh work environment that maybe some of our parents or grandparents had to endure.”