Teach import substitution why reshoring belongs in the classroom.

John Saldanha's first lessons in supply chain did not come from a lecture hall. They came from ships. His father was a ship's captain, and John spent part of his childhood moving through the same global system he would later spend his career studying. He has Kodachrome memories of his first passage through the Panama Canal on his father's ship. He remembers cargo moving from port to port, country to country, climate to climate. And he remembers bananas.

Bananas are ordinary until you picture them in the wrong place. In Europe, in winter, they become a supply chain lesson. They have to be grown somewhere else, harvested at the right time, packed properly, shipped under the right conditions, cleared through ports, moved inland, distributed quickly, priced correctly, and sold before they spoil. Long before John had the vocabulary of supply chain management, he had seen the thing itself: the quiet, complicated journey behind even the most familiar product.

That is the right doorway into import substitution, because the subject is not really about a slogan. It is about tracing product journeys backward and asking where dependence is necessary, where it is accidental, and where domestic production could be rebuilt in a way that makes commercial sense.

What Is Import Substitution?

Import substitution means replacing selected imported goods with domestic production when the economics, capacity, quality, and timing make sense. The careful version of that definition matters because the lazy version is easy to dismiss. No serious person is arguing that America should make everything, shut itself off from trade, or treat every imported product as a failure. The real question is narrower and more useful: what are we already buying from abroad that American manufacturers could realistically make?

Once the question is asked that way, import substitution stops being a political talking point and becomes a supply chain discipline. Someone has to know who is buying the product, what problem it solves, what materials it requires, what process makes it, what certifications matter, whether a domestic manufacturer could make it today, whether one could make it with help, and what would have to be true for the buyer to switch.

Those questions belong in classrooms because they are exactly the questions the next generation of supply chain, business, engineering, policy, and economic development leaders will have to answer.

The Missing Middle In Reshoring

America has plenty of people who can talk about reshoring. It has fewer people trained to do the actual work between the speech and the purchase order. That middle space is where someone has to read the import signal, understand the product, find the domestic capability, speak with the manufacturer, speak with the buyer, identify the constraint, and decide whether the opportunity is real enough to pursue.

Dr. John Saldanha's work at West Virginia University helps explain why that middle matters. Dr. Saldanha, Sears Chair in Global Supply Chain Management and Director of the Wehrle Global Supply Chain Lab, teaches supply chain as an end-to-end discipline. Students need to understand sourcing, production, logistics, distribution, transportation, reverse logistics, analytics, finance, inventory, quality, project management, and technology because none of those pieces live in isolation once a real business is involved.

A sourcing decision affects inventory. Inventory affects cash. A supplier decision affects quality. Quality affects warranty risk. Transportation affects lead time. Lead time affects the customer. A weak supplier affects the whole company.

Import substitution cuts across all of it. A domestic supplier may exist, but the buyer may not know it. A manufacturer may have the equipment, but not the certification. A state may have the industrial base, but not the map. A student may want meaningful work, but no one has shown them that supply chain is where business, manufacturing, data, and national resilience meet.

Education can fill that gap, but only if the work is taught as something practical.

A Real Course, Not Just A Theory

The National Reshoring Center has turned that idea into an education model around applied reshoring and import substitution. The in-person course model is simple in concept but demanding in practice: give students a real industry problem, real import demand, real manufacturers, and a real implementation question, then ask them to build something useful from it.

The goal is not another student paper that disappears at the end of the semester. The goal is a proposal that could help a manufacturer, a state agency, a workforce partner, or an economic developer see an opportunity more clearly. Students have to work through trade and tariff data, supply chain structure, manufacturing capability, industrial policy, workforce constraints, and the practical question that eventually decides everything: what would have to happen next?

The course is built around a practical sequence. Students start with a real industry problem and work backward from imports to production. What is being bought overseas? Which HS codes describe the products? What inputs and processes matter? Which manufacturers in the state might have relevant capability? What would have to happen before a buyer could take a domestic supplier seriously?

That sounds simple until students begin the work. Broad language like reshoring, tariffs, and domestic manufacturing quickly becomes a search through product codes, imported components, supplier lists, state manufacturing capacity, lead times, cost, qualification, and implementation. The value of the course is that it makes students practice the middle work between a national idea and a real purchase order.

What Kelton Boblits Saw

Kelton Boblits, an MBA student at the University of Charleston, gives the student side of the story. Before the project, Kelton had never heard the term "import substitution." He had studied business management and political science, and he understood the broader policy debate around tariffs, domestic manufacturing, and bringing jobs back to the United States. What he did not yet have was a practical way to investigate whether a specific product could actually be made here.

The course gave him that process. One of the first things that surprised him was the Harmonized System. "I had never heard of an HS code before this project," Kelton said. The concept was simple enough at the surface, but finding the right codes took real digging. Once he had them, the work became much more concrete because he could connect specific imported products to specific West Virginia manufacturers.

That is the educational turn this subject creates. A student moves from a national debate to a product code, from a product code to a manufacturer, and from a manufacturer to a practical question: could this supply chain be built differently?

Kelton chose petroleum and natural gas. At first, the category seemed obvious. Either oil is extracted domestically or it is imported. But that framing did not lead anywhere useful. The better question was underneath the headline: what equipment is needed to drill, extract, move, control, and maintain production? That led him to steel pipe, valves, and machinery. The project stopped being about "oil and gas" in the abstract and became about the industrial supply chain underneath oil and gas.

That is exactly what import substitution education should teach.

The Wrong Search For A Home Run

Kelton's most useful mistake was looking for one West Virginia manufacturer that could do everything. He called it searching for a "home run," and it is easy to understand why a student would start there. A clean assignment seems to invite a clean answer: one product, one company, one match.

But West Virginia's manufacturing base does not usually work that way. The state has some large manufacturers, but much of its capacity sits inside small and medium-sized firms. At first, Kelton saw that as a limitation. Then he began to see the opportunity differently. The answer might not be one company making the whole product. It might be a network.

One manufacturer may make steel casing. Another may work with valves. Another may have machining capability. Another may support fabrication, maintenance, tooling, or related components. The reshoring opportunity may come from connecting several firms so they can support a larger supply chain together.

That insight matters far beyond one student project. America has spent too much time looking only for the giant plant. Giant plants matter, but they are not the whole manufacturing base. If import substitution is going to work, students have to learn how to see networks of capability, not just individual firms with perfect catalog matches.

Kelton learned that by doing the work.

Product Level Import Signals Are Teaching Tools

One reason import substitution can be taught differently now is that students can begin with evidence. They can look at product level import signals and see what American companies are buying from abroad. They can compare those signals against domestic manufacturers, regional industries, workforce strengths, and existing production assets. The work is still hard, but the starting point is better than it used to be.

That changes the assignment. A professor does not have to ask students to imagine reshoring in general. The class can begin with a real category and a real state. What does West Virginia import? Where does the state already have manufacturers? Which product categories appear close to existing capability? Which ones are too thin? Which ones deserve a phone call? Which ones would require tooling, talent, capital, or qualification? Which ones are worth presenting to public leaders?

The National Reshoring Center's broader education pillar is built around this kind of work: courses, microcredentials, applied research, manufacturer engagement, and state-level learning that can produce value beyond the classroom. Import substitution should not sit on the edge of a trade policy course as a historical footnote. It should be part of supply chain, operations, procurement, industrial strategy, workforce development, engineering management, and economic development.

Students should be able to touch it from several directions because that is how the real economy works.

The Factory Floor Has To Be Part Of The Course

The data can tell students where to look, but it cannot teach them everything they need to know. At some point, the work has to leave the screen and get close to the manufacturer. That is where students begin to understand the difference between a product listing and a production capability.

Any serious import substitution course has to get students near manufacturers, and not just for a photo opportunity. Students need enough exposure to understand what capability looks like before it gets flattened into a product description.

Manufacturer websites rarely tell the whole story. A company may list a few products and hide far more capability than it reveals. The important facts may be the machines, tolerances, materials, engineers, welders, quality systems, CAD skills, finishing lines, maintenance habits, purchasing relationships, or simply the owner's willingness to try something adjacent.

That is why the course cannot stop at data. Students need to learn how to ask manufacturers better questions: What do you make today? What processes do you control? What materials do you know? What equipment is underused? What adjacent products have customers asked about? What would make a new opportunity worth pursuing?

Dr. Saldanha gives us the academic frame. Kelton gives us the student proof. The factory floor gives students the reality check. A student who only sees data may assume the product code is the product, while a student who only sees the plant may miss the import demand sitting outside the door.

Teaching import substitution means putting those two views in the same mind.

What Students Should Produce

The output of an import substitution course should not be a generic research paper. It should be a working file that someone can act on.

Kelton understood this clearly. After the course, he sent his finished paper to local and regional economic development organizations because he did not want it to sit on a laptop. He wanted someone to know the opportunity existed. He also had a practical suggestion for improving the course: build in a distribution path so students know which economic development organizations, manufacturing groups, companies, and public partners should receive the work.

That change would make the course more useful to everyone. Students would have a real audience. Economic development groups would receive fresh research. Companies might see opportunities they had missed. Some student projects could become the first draft of real implementation work.

A strong student proposal should include the imported product category, the size of the demand, the relevant buyers, the current source countries, the product requirements, domestic manufacturers with possible capability, the gaps, the business case, and the next step. The next step may be a buyer-supplier introduction, a manufacturer interview, a tooling estimate, a workforce plan, a small production trial, a state incentive review, a financing conversation, or a decision that the product is not a fit.

That last outcome matters. Good education should teach students to say no when the facts do not support the opportunity. Not every import should be replaced. Not every local company can make the product. Not every reshoring idea survives contact with cost, quality, volume, qualification, or timing. That honesty makes the work stronger.

Why States Need This

States need this educational capacity because most economic development systems are not built to answer the import substitution question. They are built to recruit companies, support existing employers, and respond to visible projects. That work matters, but import substitution asks something different: what are we already buying from elsewhere that our own manufacturers could make?

That question requires a different operating muscle. A state has to understand its imports, its manufacturers, and the people who can convene buyers, suppliers, educators, lenders, workforce agencies, technical experts, and public officials around a specific opportunity.

Universities can help build that muscle. So can community colleges, technical schools, workforce boards, manufacturing extension programs, trade associations, and high school career pathways.

The National Reshoring Center's statewide online model points in that direction. One course can run across participating colleges and universities, with student teams developing proposals and presenting the strongest ideas in a statewide cycle. Over time, that turns education into a recurring engine. Each year, students learn the method, new product categories are studied, manufacturers are interviewed, and states receive new intelligence. Some ideas will die quickly. A few will move forward. Either result is useful because the state gets smarter through repetition.

Why Students Need This

Kelton came out of the course with two things he did not have before. The first was a hard skill: better research. He had to dig, compare, verify, and piece together information that did not fit neatly at first. The second was systems thinking, which may be even more valuable. He kept running into the same reality: no single manufacturer could make everything his project required, but a network of manufacturers might be able to.

That is exactly the kind of thinking students need. They need to understand tariffs, trade, domestic industry, and global supply chains well enough to make serious business and policy recommendations. They also need to understand that manufacturing careers are not stuck in the past. Kelton noted that many people still picture old-style assembly lines, when modern manufacturing is increasingly shaped by robotics, automation, data, and stronger safety standards.

That matters for the workforce conversation. If students think manufacturing is only repetitive, dirty, dangerous work, they will not see themselves in it. If they understand it as technology, systems, production, quality, logistics, and opportunity, the picture changes.

Supply chain gives students a front-row seat to how the economy works. A student who understands sourcing and production can walk into a company and see where risk lives, where money is trapped, where a supplier is weak, where a process is slow, where a product could be redesigned, where a domestic producer might help, and where a technology tool would be useful instead of distracting.

It is also a good fit for young people who want to stay in places like West Virginia without shrinking their ambitions. Students can study global systems while working with regional companies. They can learn about ports and plants, software and sourcing, inventory, national security and local manufacturing. That combination is powerful because it connects a student's career to the future of the place they call home.

The Course America Needs

An import substitution course should be practical from the first week. Show students the import ledger and let them see the demand that already exists. Teach product classification, landed cost, tariffs, transportation, and risk. Study an industry deeply enough to understand what the product does and what materials and processes matter.

Then make the work real. Map domestic capability. Interview manufacturers. Ask what they make, what they could make, what equipment they have, what stops them from growing, and what buyers misunderstand. Build the business case by comparing cost, lead time, inventory, reliability, qualification, and working capital. Design the bridge from research to a real conversation.

By the end, students should present something clear enough that a manufacturer, economic developer, or public official can decide what to do next.

Kelton said that if someone gave him a new imported product tomorrow, he would know how to begin investigating whether it could be made here. That is the whole point of the course. It gave him a process.

Teach It Before The Crisis

America usually learns supply chain lessons late. We wait until the port is backed up, the factory is idle, the hospital is short, the defense part is unavailable, or the foreign supplier becomes politically complicated. Then we scramble.

Teaching import substitution is a way to stop scrambling. It trains students, companies, and states to look ahead. It helps people ask where supply is fragile before the break. It helps manufacturers explain capability before the emergency. It helps buyers find options before they are desperate. It helps policymakers support practical work instead of writing slogans after the damage is done.

John's childhood story gives us the opening image: a boy watching bananas travel through the world. Dr. Saldanha's work at WVU gives us the academic frame: supply chain management as an end-to-end discipline. Kelton Boblits's student experience gives us the proof that an MBA student can learn the method, apply it to a real industry, identify gaps, see networks of manufacturers, and leave with a repeatable way to investigate future products.

The course itself gives us the working example: take a real sector, use real data, engage real manufacturers, and produce proposals that can move beyond the classroom. That is how import substitution becomes more than an argument. It becomes a skill, a method, and part of how a state learns to see itself.

Bring Manufacturing Home Means Teach It Home

A country cannot rebuild what it no longer knows how to understand.

If we want more American manufacturing, we need more than factories. We need people who can connect demand to production. We need students who can read trade signals and then walk a plant floor without getting lost. We need buyers who can measure value beyond the cheapest unit price. We need economic developers who understand existing manufacturers, not just ribbon cuttings.

And we need universities willing to step into the work.

Import substitution should be taught because it is where so many important questions meet: what do we buy from the world, what can we make here, what should we make here, who already has the capability, what does the next generation need to learn, and what would make the opportunity real?

Those questions belong in the classroom. They also belong in the plant, the boardroom, the statehouse, and the shop.

✱ Bring Manufacturing Home.