Host Matt Horine discusses the “Battery Belt,” where eight states from Michigan to Georgia have attracted over $250B in announced EV and battery investments, and argues the key constraint isn’t permitting or supply chains but experienced people—engineers, operations leaders, and technical executives—to run new greenfield facilities. Guest Michael Chambers of the Chambers Group explains his APEX recruiting process using scientific job profiling and psychometric matching, including benchmarking hiring managers, candidate videos, a 99% one-year retention rate (96% to two years), and a two-year replacement guarantee. They describe intense regional competition for scarce roles (high-voltage, calibration, controls/automation, battery cell engineers, and greenfield plant managers), relocation resistance, and the need for internal academies and partnerships with community colleges. Chambers details how stale salary bands and delayed market data cause missed hires and plant-launch delays, urging early pipeline building and creative offers via clear career pathways and upskilling. Timestamps00:00 Podcast Welcome 00:44 Battery Belt Boom 01:36 Meet Michael Chambers 03:47 APEX Hiring Process 05:55 What Is Battery Belt 08:10 Why It Matters 09:17 Talent Market Reality 12:12 Hardest Roles To Fill 15:08 Stale Salary Bands 19:33 Greenfield Leadership Gap 23:12 Hiring Timeline Playbook 26:13 Next 18 Months Signals 28:37 How To Connect 30:10 Wrap Up And Subscribe Links Michael on LinkedIn Chambers Group ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Navigating Trump 2.0 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Revitalizing US Manufacturing⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign Up on the Veryable Platform ⁠

The Battery Belt Talent Crunch: Recruiting Leaders to Launch America’s EV Gigafactories

U.S. Manufacturing Today

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** U.S. Manufacturing Today

## Transcript

Welcome to the U.S. Manufacturing Today podcast, your hub of information about the U.S. manufacturing and distribution industry. Brought to you by Variable, the on-demand labor solution revitalizing and optimizing your operation, enabling just-in-time response to demand, more efficient production, and lower cost per unit. And now your host and head of re-industrialization at Variable, Matt Harine.

Welcome to U.S. Manufacturing Today, the podcast powered by Variable, where we talk with the leaders, innovators, and changemakers shaping the future of American industry, along with providing regular updates on the state of manufacturing, the changing policy landscape, and more. Over the last four years, eight states stretching from Michigan through Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and into Georgia have absorbed more than $250 billion in announced EV and battery manufacturing investment.

It's often referred to as the battery belt. Gigafactories the size of 13 football fields, communities that watched manufacturing leave for 20 years, are now watching it come back. A real concrete attempt to rebuild the American industrial base in a sector that China currently controls from raw materials all the way through finished battery cells. That is a capital story. And the capital story is real, but there is a constraint underneath that almost no one is talking about publicly. And it is the thing that will actually determine which of these projects delivers and which ones slip through the cracks.

It's not permitting. It's not supply chain. It isn't people, specifically the engineers, operations leaders, and technical executives who have the experience to run these facilities. And right now there are not enough of them. My guest today, Michael Chambers has built his entire firm around solving this problem. The Chambers group does one thing, executive search and engineering recruitment, exclusively for battery belt advanced manufacturers in the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee. EB and battery technology, silicon carbide, semiconductors, aerospace and defense and industrial automation.

Michael recently wrote about why stale 2024 salary bans are actively delaying 2027 plant launch windows. And that's a conversation we're going to bring up today on U.S. Manufacturing Today. Michael, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here. We're very excited to have you. And I'll have to admit, I don't know if I had heard the phrase battery belt, which you caught my attention through having that in your headline and we'll give credit where it's due. That's the first place I heard it from. So as far as it's concerned here, that one's all yours.

But what led you to launch the Chambers group and develop this process specifically focused on the sector? I was born in Georgia, kind of grew up in North Carolina. Before I moved back here, I was out in Seattle doing recruitment for AI engine...

The Battery Belt Talent Crunch: Recruiting Leaders to Launch America’s EV Gigafactories

Transcript

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The Battery Belt Talent Crunch: Recruiting Leaders to Launch America’s EV Gigafactories

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.