But Darden's Davis, discouraged by what he describes as "the mad flight" of large, publicly held companies to jettison production assets in their attempts to boost their quarterly financials, believes more than GDP growth and operating strategies will determine U.S. manufacturing's future.

"This focus on quarterly profits among the large, publicly held companies is deathly. If there is any hope on the horizon for this country it is in the privately held, medium-size companies," he says. "I see them with a willingness to take greater risks in investments that benefit the competitiveness of the company and don't just make the ROI look better in the short run. I see them with a better balance of outsourcing.