In an undistinguished building next to the railroad tracks, Bill Wessing explains how he keeps his 14-person manufacturing business running even as many of the city's larger companies are laying off workers. "All week, I work on getting work for the next week.... I've had some short weeks but I always manage to get enough work to keep them busy," Mr. Wessing says, adding that business is doing OK but is "nothing to brag about." Wessing Industries recently secured a contract with Red Arrow Wind Energy Inc., to fabricate bases and columns for about 100 wind turbines. The work won't start until the first quarter of 2010 at the earliest, but Wessing says he'll make do until then. "I don't intend to lay anyone off. I'll find work, I usually do," Wessing says. Sheboygan, Wis., an Empyting Nest community in Patchwork Nation, is a great place to retire, with its beach along Lake Michigan, the nationally known John Michael Kohler Arts Center, and a major championship golf course at Whistling Straits. Like other Empyting Nest locales, its economy has a larger-than-average share of manufacturing employment, accounting for nearly 40 percent of jobs before the downturn. That hasn't made living here easy as companies cut back. ''With every drop in percentage of manufacturing, there's a change and there's some pain," said Michael Leibham, who was born and raised in Sheboygan and works at Voyageur Financial Group. "We have started shifting to more of a hospitality and a tourism community, leveraging our lake front and our golf courses, and some of the other resources that our county has.... We're never going to lose our manufacturing base totally, but we're going to have more of a balance." Loss of manufacturing jobs Many things that contribute to the quality of life here – and make it a good place to retire – are linked to the manufacturing base. The city prides itself on locally owned companies that for years provided employment and benefits, and also gave back to the community. Even the golfing here is linked to manufacturing: Herb Kohler, the president of Kohler Co., which manufactures plumbing fixtures, is an avid golfer and financed some of the nearby golf resorts. Kohler and Bemis Manufacturing Co., two of the county's largest employers, have made drastic cuts. And because Wisconsin lacks tax incentives to lure or keep businesses in the state, Shebogyan has seen some other employers leave town. Thomas Industries, a sheet metal fabrication company, announced earlier this year that it would consolidate all its operations in Louisiana, taking nearly 360 jobs with it. Other companies are being bought by international firms, leaving some concerned that those firms won't help out the community as much as employers that raise families here have. Businesses also face recruiting challenges, said Michael Klein, vice president of human resources at Bemis. "Our workforce is aging,'' he says. ''A lot of the people that have worked at Bemis for 40 years, they had kids, and their kids have decided not to stay in Sheboygan. They went to school in Madison and they have moved on somewhere else. There's a little bit of a talent-gap concern from a manufacturer's standpoint." Adapting to survive But not all the manufacturing news is bad news. A few miles out of the city at the Sheboygan County Airport, a company called Morgan Aircraft plans to begin designing a new airplane. This could mean another 2,000 jobs for the area's workers. "Once it is up and running to full production, which will probably be about five to six years from now, [it] will employ a number of engineers. And recognizing that, the UW-Sheboygan has worked to put in an engineering program as part of their curriculum," says Dee Olsen, executive director of the Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce. "I think that speaks to a community that is intuitive to what changes need to be made, and to start addressing those changes as quick as we possibly can."