Vice President Biden to visit Iowa

DES MOINES - Vice President Joe Biden will visit Iowa this week.

Biden will be at Iowa State University in Ames on Thursday to discuss the Obama administration's proposals to reward businesses that bring manufacturing jobs back to America and the importance of skilled workers, scientists and engineers to America's economic leadership.

Biden has just completed a five-state, three-day Community College to Career bus tour during which he argued that America's skilled workforce is one of our greatest economic assets. Now that many American manufacturers and other businesses are growing again, he said, too many are having trouble finding workers with the exact skills they need.

Biden's visit follows President Barack Obama's appearance in Cedar Rapids on Jan. 24, a day after he delivered his annual State of the Union address. At Conveyor Engineering & Manufacturing, he emphasized his call for made-in-America manufacturing and American energy. They are key components of his blueprint for an “economy built to last,” Obama said.

The president has been emphasizing the need for a skilled workforce to aid the country's economic recovery.

In remarks Monday to governors, Obama said that “particularly in times of economic challenge - times like today - the American economy needs a workforce that is skilled, adaptable, creative and equipped for success in the global marketplace.”

At ISU on Thursday, Biden will speak at 11:30 a.m. at Howe Hall, which houses the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, the Virtual Reality Applications Center, CIRAS and Engineering Distance Education. It also has environmental and aerodynamic wind tunnels with new research capabilities and an experimental underwater acoustics facility, the first of its kind in Iowa.