I worked as an Engineer for a German company for 40 years.  I works in the US, but had the opportunity to work in England, Germany and China and I had the opportunity to see how other countries handled high tech processes.

The manufacturing operation was closed down in my town and I was only 5 years from retirement.  I was offered a position in Chicago, but I opted to stay in my home town and take my chances by going back to college to learn new skills (CNC programming, SolidWorks, Welding, PLCs, Hydraulics, Mill and Lathe work, MasterCAM, Business, AutoCAD, and what ever I could get.  I picked up a part time job using SolidWorks to develop and design hardware.  From there I moved into using MasterCAM to program parts for an Atrump Centroid Lathe and later we purchased a HAAS CNC Lathe and from there I programmed beautiful door knobs and rosettes for high end homes, hundreds an this is something I never thought I would do because I never had the chance to learn these hands-on-skills.