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Obama to Launch Manufacturing Innovation Hub During Visit to Knoxville, Tenn.

The hub will involve a private-sector partnership that will attract more good-paying, middle-class jobs in high-tech manufacturing to the state, according to the White House website.

(TNS) — President Barack Obama will use his trip to the Knoxville area on Friday to propose more ways to help young Americans go to college and to launch a manufacturing innovation hub, the White House said Wednesday.

The innovation hub will involve a private-sector partnership that will attract more good-paying, middle-class jobs in high-tech manufacturing to Tennessee, according to a blog post on the White House website.

No other details were made available. But similar manufacturing hubs were launched last year in Chicago, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C.

In those cases, the White House said the hubs would bridge the gap between applied research and product development by bringing together companies, universities and other academic and training institutions and federal agencies to invest in technology areas that encourage investment and production.

Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Biden’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden, will travel to Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, where Obama will discuss new initiatives he will propose to help Americans go to college.

Afterward, all three will head to Clinton where they will visit Techmer PM, a manufacturer that makes additives and colors for plastics, to highlight the administration’s efforts to create new, good-paying manufacturing jobs.

The presidential visit, Obama’s first to the Knoxville area since he took office six years ago, is part of a three-day trek he is making to cities across the country to lay out specific policy proposals that will be included in his State of the Union address on Jan. 20.

Obama will travel today to Detroit, where he will highlight workers in the automotive and manufacturing industries. On Thursday, he will go to Phoenix to spotlight the recovering housing sector and announce new steps to help more Americans achieve their dream of owning a home.

©2015 the Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, Tenn.)