In 1952, Bill Land did what most young people in Michigan did after high school graduation - he signed up to work in an automobile factory.

"When I came back from the Army, there wasn't any question what I was going to do," the 72-year-old Lansing resident said. "I never looked any place else."

Land worked his way up a hierarchy of positions with the Oldsmobile division of the General Motors Corp., starting as a mail boy and retiring as a senior designer in 1987.

The GM Lansing Car Assembly plant, a factory Land worked in a few times during his stint with the company, is expected to close May 6. Many of the workers will be transferred to other locations, including a new Delta Township plant scheduled to open next year, said GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter.

About 3,700 people will be impacted, 2,900 of which will be offered a job at the Delta plant.

Now the young people graduating from Lansing's high schools with GM in their blood, don't have the same opportunities as factory workers such as Land. They can no longer walk out of high school and into a GM plant down their street.

New technology has replaced some jobs, and there is more emphasis on education and a college degree because of advances in the auto industry.

"You better have background in graphics," Land said. "They're not going to take someone off the street and take the time to train them."

Where the auto industry is headed

During Land's tenure with GM, he witnessed the evolution and enhancement of the automobile industry and the jobs within.

Designers went from using 25-foot drafting boards to computer graphics in the 1970s, which proved to be a more efficient means of completing tasks, Land said.

Today, Land can't believe the factories are producing the same amount of work in half the time - and with fewer workers, he said.

"You can't believe the things these guys used to do with a block of wood, but there's no call for them now," Land said. "Everything is done by machines."

John Pearson, executive director of the Capital Choice Partnership, a division of Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the type of car assembly that is being done in Lansing is "advanced manufacturing."

"The manufacturing jobs of the future take a knowledge base that isn't necessarily there in people with just a high school degree," Pearson said. "People need to have skills, technical skills and knowledge of technology, to compete for these jobs."

Art Luna, president of the Union Auto Workers Local 602 in Lansing, said there are now some people with master's degrees building cars.

But he said there also is a stigma among recent graduates about entering the manufacturing field.

Luna has one son who is still figuring out what he wants to do, because he "didn't want to degrade himself by going into manufacturing."

Mechanical engineering senior Jon Denton said he always knew a college degree was necessary to pursue his dream of designing car components. Denton and his dad began building cars, including a 1929 model A Ford, when he was in high school.

"It's a bug you catch," he said. "The car culture has always been there in America."

Denton said he has had internships with older engineers without college degrees, but "that's not the case anymore."

"Young engineers now have to an engineering degree - that's the way to get their foot in door," he said.

Paving their paths

Susan Land, Bill Land's daughter, is an assistant principal at Eastern High School in Lansing. As the daughter and granddaughter of GM workers, she uses her unique perspective to urge students to get a college degree.

"The GM plants in town haven't been a real hotbed of employment for kids out of high school," Susan Land said. "It's really tough to get into GM because people are staying there longer."

GM spokeswoman Carpenter said the company hasn't been in a position to hire for quite a while, and it has become the nature of the industry for people to stick around.

Susan Land said the factories hire more educated employees they know can adapt to the changing workforce. She said even going to a trade school or getting an associate's degree is better than showing up with a high school diploma.

Land said he stressed post-high school education to all of his children.

"Back then you could get a job and work your way up to something better," Land said. "Because I didn't have a degree there was a limit to where I could go.

"If you have a degree you've got two legs up on everyone else."

Claire Cummings can be reached at cummin94@msu.edu.