A funny thing happened on the way to the collapse of America’s manufacturing sector: it actually didn’t.

While innumerable headlines of the past three to four decades have chronicled the decline of U.S. manufacturing, the coverage has almost entirely overlooked a resurgence that’s well underway. Much of the industrial sector is thriving, brimming with innovation, offering high- quality jobs with good pay and benefits, and producing strong financial returns. In fact, the returns boasted by some of the companies at the heart of the most dynamic part of the manufacturing sector, which we call the Titanium Economy, have exceeded those of vaunted Silicon Valley tech stars.

The Titanium Economy is composed of a robust collection of firms you’ve probably never heard of, innovating in ways you’ve likely not read about, making groundbreaking products critical to trends as leading-edge as e-commerce, electric vehicles, and autonomous driving. What all of these companies have in common is a relentless drive for innovation and a zeal to embrace and deploy new technology that rivals the appetites of the Apples and Googles of the world. Some are phoenixes that have risen from the ashes of the old industrial model, having adopted leading-edge technology, while others have been steadily achieving stellar growth for decades. Why haven’t they received more coverage? It’s because most people, even in investing circles, simply don’t know about them.

YOU DON’T APPRECIATE WHAT YOU CANNOT SEE
Titanium Economy companies aren’t business-to-consumer brands that take out Super Bowl ads, nor do many of them make products that consumers can purchase.

The products they do make, however, enable the creation of products and services that are critical to our daily lives, as well as to finding solutions to the many pressing problems we are facing, from battling climate change, to creating a more sustainable and reliable food system, to restoring and upgrading infrastructure. Their CEOs aren’t often featured on CNBC or the front page of the Wall Street Journal, but they’re an incredibly driven bunch who have helmed their companies across decades of consistent innovations and profits. And while these companies aren’t unicorns, planning headline- grabbing IPOs or hoping for multibillion- dollar valuations, they are as crucial to the current U.S. economy—and we would argue even more so to our collective future—as revered tech darlings.

For one quick example, consider Qorvo, a little-known company located not far from Disney World in Florida. Qorvo manufactures a critical part for mobile phones and is the only facility in the world making it at scale. Without that part, you wouldn’t be able to talk and text at the same time. Few people outside of the mobile phone manufacturing industry appreciate what Qorvo does, but if that factory stopped production for some reason, many billions of dollars would go along with it.

There’s also Graco, Inc., based in Minneapolis. Graco creates and manufactures proprietary “flow control” technology that puts everything from peanut butter into the jars we see on the grocery store, inks into the pens we write with every day, and ensures the right amount of medicine goes into each gel cap of the over-the-counter medicine we purchase.

Wherever we go, and whatever we do, an invisible network of Titanium Economy companies is always at work, supporting our lives in vital but often imperceptible ways. But that invisibility means the brilliance and importance of their contributions have gone mostly unsung.

Throughout the manufacturing industry, companies of all sizes are driving groundbreaking innovations to make our lives easier, more efficient—or both—every second of the day. They also kept production lines humming during the recent historic COVID-related labor disruptions, bringing prosperity to their employees and the communities they live in, and delivering healthy returns for their shareholders and investors. They have withstood recessions and remained robust franchises, all without any of the fanfare afforded to their tech counterparts. What’s more, geopolitical changes, COVID-19, and technologies like advanced computing algorithms, artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation are set to disrupt virtually every corner of industry, accelerating innovation. Yet an overall lack of appreciation of the resilience, strength, and future potential of the Titanium Economy threatens to hold back its growth.

The Titanium Economy could be the secret weapon of American industrial revival—key to ensuring the country’s economic vitality as the Fourth Industrial Revolution progresses and as the United States faces steep competition from global rivals. The next few years will be critical, as the future growth of the Titanium Economy sector in the United States is far from assured. Investors, policy makers, and the public at large have a role to play in helping the sector realize its potential.

At a time when investors and the media are obsessed with all things digital, we believe that manufacturing will be a significant engine of growth in the twenty-first century. The digital revolution by no means displaced manufacturing. Making things, it turns out, is still a key building block for wealth creation and social improvements.