About Leo Reddy
A career public servant and public policy strategist, Mr. Reddy has helped build a variety of institutions (highlighted below) designed to enhance U.S. national interests in both domestic and foreign affairs. Since 2006, he has served as Chairman, past CEO, President and Founder of the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council (MSSC). An industry-led, non-partisan 501(c)(3) non-profit, MSSC is the nation’s leading training and certification organization focused on the core technical competencies needed by the nation’s front-line production and material handling workers. Mr. Reddy has held this position since 2005.
Under his leadership, MSSC developed four nationally portable certifications and related training programs: The Certified Production Technician (CPT), Certified Logistics Associate (CLA), Certified Forklift Technician (CLT) Certified Forklift Technician (CFT), and Certified Technician in Supply Chain Automation (CTSCA). In addition, the U.S. Department of Labor has endorsed a MSSC CPT-based 730-hour High school Quality Pre-apprenticeship and a MSSC CPT-based 3000-hour Registered Apprenticeship.
The nation’s gold standard for quality in its field, MSSC is the only national industry certification body accredited by the International Accreditation Service (IAS) under ISO quality standard 17024 (Personnel Certification) and endorsed by the National Association of Manufacturers for both manufacturing and logistics, MSSC meets all the criteria in the April 2021 “Quality Assurance Guidelines for National Industry Certification Bodies,” published by the Coalition for Career Development Center, and in the June 2018 “Quality Assurance for Industry Certifications and Apprenticeships,” published by the National Network Business and Industry Association and supported by the Business Roundtable.
Mr. Reddy supported Amatrol, the nation’s leading manufacturer of industrial technician training equipment, in building two highly innovative, hands-on training and assessment devices, called “Skill Boss,” for both the CPT and CTSCA programs. In 2019, he led a Select Committee of 23 nationally prominent subject matter experts to add nine, newly emerging, “Industry 4.0 Technologies” to the MSSC national standards for CPT: AI, 5G, 3D, Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), Autonomous Robots, Data Analytics, Advanced Materials, Augmented Reality, and Nanomanufacturing. Mr. Reddy authored two textbooks on logistics for the CLA and CLT training programs, with the fourth “Industry 4.0” editions of each published in June 2022.
Now an American institution, MSSC delivers its training and certification services through a steadily growing network of some 3644 MSSC-trained instructors and 2119 MSSC-authorized assessment centers, most at community colleges and high schools, and 72 technical representatives in all 50 states. To date, the MSSC has delivered some 236,000 credentials to over 130,000 individuals. To serve the economic development community in making plant location decisions in the U.S., the MSSC has developed an “Index” mapping the highest concentrations of MSSC Certificants in communities nationwide.
The Manufacturing Leadership Council nominated Mr. Reddy for its prestigious “Lifetime Achievement Award,” which was conveyed at a Summit and Awards Gala in Huntington Beach CA on June 14, 2017. At the invitation of Industry Week, Mr. Reddy wrote a “National Thought Leader” article, entitled “Education 4.0,” for its Manufacturing Day issue in September 2017. Industry Week published an article by Mr. Reddy in May 2020, entitled, “‘Made in America’ Needs an Industry 4.0 Skills Update.” Modern Materials Handlingmagazine has published several articles by Mr. Reddy on logistics workforce training.
In January 2023, Mr. Reddy submitted suggested improvements to the White House Subcommittee on Advanced Manufacturing on its new landmark “National Strategy for Advanced Manufacturing,” that highlighted MSSC. In expressing appreciation for these suggestions, the Co-chair of the Subcommittee commented that Mr. Reddy “remains a legend in our manufacturing community.”
In 2015 Mr. Reddy co-authored with the Society of Manufacturing Engineers a report, “Transforming Career Counseling,” which led to the formation of the Coalition for Career Development (CCD), a broad-based, industry- and gubernatorial-led national movement whose goal is to make career readiness for all students the first priority of American education, facilitated by Personalized Career and Academic Plans and a new cadre of certified School Career Development Advisors.
The substantive foundation of CCD is a white paper, “Career Readiness for All,” that Mr. Reddy authored and was reviewed at two CCD-hosted Summits on Career Development in Washington DC in 2018 and 2019, and publicly released at a press event at the Capitol Visitors Center on April 3, 2019, with the Chairs of the House Budget and Workforce & Education Committees.
In September 2020, Mr. Reddy spearheaded the transition of CCD into an industry-led 501(c)(3) think tank in Alexandria VA called the Coalition for Career Development Center (CCDC), of which he is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus—which nominated him as “Founder of the CCD Movement” in December 2020. Under his direction, the CCDC has hosted several annual Summits in Washington DC with senior officials from the Administration, industry, state government and education and conducts multiple research projects funded by a wide variety of foundations and philanthropies.
The vision of the CCD Center is to make career readiness for all students the first priority of American education. Its goal is to ensure that all students secure productive employment in their chosen career pathway as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. The CCD Center presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Mr. Reddy in February 2024 in Scottsdale AZ. In Mr. Reddy’s honor, the CCD Center has also created an annual “Reddy Career Readiness Fellowship Award” program to recognize state governments and individual schools that have developed exemplary programs in career readiness that can serve as national models.
Prior to becoming MSSC Chair and CEO, Mr. Reddy was the Founder and CEO of the industry-led, non-profit National Council for Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM) in 1990. During his 16-year tenure, NACFAM led the development of various national public-private partnership programs to enhance U.S. industrial innovation and competitiveness, including the federal Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), which now has offices in all 50 states, the Next Generation Manufacturing Technology Initiative, Cooperative Research and Development Agreements between Federal Labs and leading corporations, and Advanced Manufacturing programs at the Pentagon. “Advanced Manufacturing” is now a term widely adopted by the federal government to define manufacturing today. Wikipedia cites NACFAM as providing the initial description of Advanced Manufacturing processes.
He also was deeply involved in federal workforce development programs. NACFAM received its first grant in this field in 1990 from the U.S. Department of Education to develop skill standards for work in computer-aided drafting and design, secured a second DoEd grant in 1992 for advanced manufacturing skills, and won a national competition in 1997 under the federal National Skill Standards Act to develop MSSC as the industry-wide national standards and certification body for front-line work in advanced manufacturing. MSSC received a U.S. Department of Labor grant in 2007 to develop skill standards, training and certification for front-line material handling and distribution work in supply chain logistics.
Mr. Reddy entered the private sector after a highly successful, 28-year Foreign Service career with the U.S. Department of State. A specialist in NATO and arms control affairs, he served on the NATO Desk in the State Department. He also served in a policy leadership and senior negotiator role on U.S. Delegations to NATO, the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), the Mutual & Balanced Force Reductions negotiations, forerunner to the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987. He headed the State Department’s successful INF Treaty Ratification Task Force in 1988.
In October 1988, President Reagan personally conferred the “Meritorious Service Award” on Mr. Reddy for “sustained superior accomplishment in U.S. foreign policy.” In December that year, Secretary of State George Shultz gave Mr. Reddy the “Presidential Award” for “outstanding service.”
Following the ratification of the INF Treaty, the State Department detailed Mr. Reddy to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC under the Diplomat-in-Residence program. At CSIS he led and published studies on “NATO Burden Sharing,” which documented the inadequacy of funding from other Allies to support NATO, and on “Defense Reductions and Economic Adjustment.” The latter involved intensive work with leading defense contractors and automation companies to develop a national post-Cold War strategy for building a flexible, "dual use" industrial base able to provide for both defense production and global competitiveness needs. This work led to an invitation from industry to resign from federal service and lead NACFAM, located in the headquarters of the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington DC.
Mr. Reddy has maintained several of his connections with the foreign affairs community as an active member of the INF Treaty Alumni, the Diplomatic and Consular Officers Retired, and American Foreign Service Association. In 2024, he published with Ambassador James Goodby at Stanford’s Hoover Institution an historical narrative, entitled Helsinki Process: Historic American Achievement in “Relentless Diplomacy,” now available on Amazon Books Online. In the winter of 2022, he co-led an advisory group to the State Department on the Ukraine crisis before the Russian invasion.
Before entering the Foreign Service in 1962 he attended the Newton MA public schools, graduated from Georgetown University (BA and MA), served as an ASW and Gunnery Officer on destroyers in the Sixth and Seventh Fleets, and as an analyst in the Soviet Affairs Office of the Central Intelligence Agency. His father was the President of the New England Confectionary Co (NECCO).
Leo Reddy
First Chairman, President and Co-Founder
Manufacturing Skill Standards Council (MSSC)
Founder and Chairman Emeritus
Coalition for Career Development Center (CCDC)
Contact : Leo.reddy@msscusa.org | 703-739-9000