(Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP) U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan responds to a question posed during Monday's manufacturing roundtable hosted by Cirtronics Corporation of Milford.

MILFORD – Several businessmen and women representing various facets of American industry sat down Monday morning with U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, and spent close to an hour tossing around their respective ideas on how best to build upon the progress that industry has made in its ongoing efforts to return manufacturing jobs to America from China and several smaller nations.

The in-person only roundtable was hosted by Cirtronics, a contract manufacturer off of Route 13 in Milford that produces complex products used in robotics, military, security and medical technology applications.

Cirtronics president and CEO Dave Patterson, CFO George Mandragouras and career development manager Jessica Kinsey represented the host firm.

“As most of us in New Hampshire know, we are in stiff competition with China,” Hassan said at the outset of Monday’s discussion.

“We need to take steps … the first step is to make sure we invest in American manufacturing right here at home. Not only is that really important to outcompeting China, but it’s also really important just for our own self-reliance and creating good jobs,” she added.

Hassan noted that Cirtronics, along with Jaffrey-based MilliporeSigma, which was also represented Monday, are “the type of businesses that represents our future as a country, as an economy.

“It’s very important to support companies like these because of the work we do,” she added, referring to Cirtronics and the large manufacturer MilliporeSigma, a major, global employer based in Jaffrey that, according to David Nichols, the firm’s U.S. corporate affairs executive has grown in recent years to the point that it now has some 200 job openings.

“I think where we see the supply chain challenges – we’re a big global company, we have stuff that comes in and out of New Hampshire from all over the world,” Nichols told the roundtable group.

Patterson, the Cirtronics executive, agreed that taking on, and getting ahead of, China “is a really smart move.

“There are two parts to that, which is the risk of us being so dependent on any country for our own safety, and our own wherewithal to exist is certainly a very critical issue,” Patterson told the group.

Panelist Zenagui Brahim, president of the New Hampshire Manufcturing Extension Partnership (NHMEP), said that one of the top challenges U.S. manufacturers face in their common goal to “outcompete” China, as Hassan put it, is illustrated in the numbers that Brahim brought to the roundtable.

According to a NHMEP survey, Brahim said, 82% of manufacturers surveyed said that “supply chain issues” – delayed shipments, goods stacked on shipping docks waiting to be delivered – are their number one concern.

Those concerns deepen considerably among smaller manufacturers, Brahim said, noting that some 90% of the firms that NHMEP represents have fewer than 100 employees.

“The impact is going right down the supply chain,” he said. “These smaller manufacturing companies don’t know what to do.”

Brahim told Hassan and his fellow executives that NHMEP has responded to the trend by putting together a plan the partnership calls “manufacturing resiliance,” the framework of which focuses on three main issues: Workforce, technology and supply chain.

Each of the panelists expressed optimism, that the federal government “is starting to pay attention” to manufacturers’ plight, as panelist Graham “Gray” Chynoweth put it.

Chynoweth, the CEO and director of Minim, the Manchester-based firm that specializes in AI-driven Wi-Fi and internet security products, said the recent attention Congress has given the troubling trend faced by U.S. manufacturers is encouraging.

“We have an industrial policy that no longer works for American workers, and no longer works for American businesses,” Chynoweth said. “All these companies are working like the dickens to keep up … we’re pleased to see the (governmental) policies starting to change. Many elements of this bill will help us compete,” he added, referring to legislation Hassan and some of her fellow senators are formulating.

Titled The United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), an initial version of the legislation passed the Senate last June. The more comprehensive package, which was the topic of Monday’s discussion, is in the works, and includes a provision, which Hassan is pushing, that would provide loans and grants to American companies that produce critical goods.

A similar version of the legislation just recently passed the U.S. House, Hassan said Monday.

The highlights of the legislation currently pending include:

• Investing more than $40 billion in grants and loans to manufacturing companies and related entities to help support domestic production of goods that are critical to our national security and economy

• Create an office at the Commerce Department focused on supply chains to help disburse these grants and loans

• Create a national strategy for supply chains, and in general prepare the U.S. to better handle future supply chain disruptions.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.