"We are not producing enough engineers, machinists, technicians [and] welders who can help build [the infrastructure] we need," Meyerson said in a Washington Post podcast interview. "We have long ignored the industrial base. It is fragmented and it is unreliable."
Meyerson said the United States needs to expand its technical work base and bring women and minorities into it in significant numbers while also encouraging young people not to all go to college but to go straight into the industrial work force and find their opportunities there.
"We don't have a diverse enough work force in aerospace [who are] learning machining, welding and assembly," he said.
The hypersonics industrial base was also in need of strengthening, Meyerson added.