How Jared Lyford of Forest City Gears walks the walk and talks the talk when it comes to workforce development

When you talk with Jared Lyford, director of operations at Forest City Gear and the newly appointed president of the Rock River Valley Tooling & Machining Association (RRVTMA), it becomes clear very quickly: workforce development isn’t a program for him. It’s a calling—and one shaped by lived experience. The phrase that encapsulates his philosophy is one he heard as a teenager in an apprenticeship program at Forest City Gear himself: Walk with purpose. It was not a slogan; it was an ethos—instilled by a mentor who believed that the way you move through a building says something about the way you move through life. As the saying goes: How you do anything is how you do everything. Lyford recalls, “He said, it doesn't matter if you’re going from point A to point B, or you’re going from your workstation to lunch, or you’re leaving at the end of the day—always walk with purpose. Have your head up, walk forward, act like you have intention. If you act like you have intention, you’re going to feel like you have intention and you’re going to be recognized like you have intention.” More than 25 years later, that mindset still guides him—from the shop floor to the boardroom.