My first job was with Kimberly-Clark Corporation. You probably don’t know the name of the company, but you do know the name of the products: Kleenex, Huggies, Depends, Kotex. Some of the greatest brands in consumer products history originated from a small manufacturing company that began 140 years ago. I worked for the company for 18 years before being fired when the manufacturing plant in Utah was moved to Mexico. The plant stands empty today.

The plant closing in Draper could be seen as a modern folk tale. Jobs are being out outsourced to Mexico and high-wage manufacturing jobs are being lost to American citizens. Kimberly-Clark in this scenario would be the evil corporation seeking higher and higher profits at the expense of the welfare of their fellow citizens.

The folk-tale fails when you review the facts. The wages being paid for the jobs sent to Mexico were the lowest possible in Utah. The jobs were highly repetitive and many workers had carpal tunnel disease if they worked in the plant too long. The quality of the products was much less than the quality of the products that were being received from Mexico. Many would say that it wouldn’t matter what the quality was, that what was most important was the jobs. You may change your mind about that if you knew the products were medical parts and the quality problem was specs of dust on the product. Does that change your mind? Would you want clean, non-contaminated medical parts being used on you or your loved ones?

Many jobs are being lost in Manufacturing, 23% since 2006. Conversely, the average hourly wage has increased 13% since that time. Like the Draper manufacturing plant, the jobs that are being lost since 2006 are lower wage jobs, increasing the average hourly wage of the jobs that remain.

Kimberly-Clark corporation is not just a villain in the story but also a hero. They continue to build manufacturing plants with high quality, high wage, clean, and highly skilled jobs.

Employees who earn “new millennial” manufacturing jobs have one thing in common. They have an ability for life long learning. The skill for life-long learning I am referring to it is a mental flexibility that allows a person to continue to switch to new tasks and machines. I am not sure a love of life-long learning can be taught, but I would hope that great teachers can demonstrate a love of learning that will inspire students to seek knowledge throughout their lives.

I know that since the plant closed, I have had to embrace the ethos of life-long learning. I have had four times more careers in the last 10 years of my life than in the previous 20 years. I know where I learned that skill and it was from my first and last teachers… my parents.

Jeanne Whitmore is the founder and CEO of American Fork charter school Aristotle Academy and an education columnist for the American Fork Citizen. You can learn more about Aristotle Academy at aristotleacademyk8.org or on Facebook.