After nearly a quarter-century of steady and dramatic decline, some pundits and economic experts seem just about ready to give up on the nation’s manufacturing industry.

To those who would consider doing that, U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-12th District, has a message: Not so fast.

“It’s way too early to write the obituary for manufacturing in America,” Holt said Tuesday afternoon, shortly after the launch of a two-week tour of New Jersey manufacturing sites. “We need manufacturing here. We have manufacturing here now, but we can have a lot more.”

Since 1979, the U.S. manufacturing sector has shrunk from 20 million jobs to fewer than 12 million jobs; the recession sparked late in 2008 helped create about a quarter of that reduction. However, American manufacturers added more than 150,000 jobs last year, and manufacturing has now seen 21 consecutive months of growth, Holt noted.

Holt’s tour will culminate in a forum focusing on identifying new ideas and policies that can build on that modest growth and support the creation of even more new manufacturing jobs; the event, expected to involve a host of local business leaders and educators, including Rutgers University School of Engineering Dean Tom Farris, is slated to be conducted next week on Rutgers’ Busch Campus in Piscataway.

“Largely, I’m listening,” Holt said when asked what he expected to learn from his stops on the tour. “I want to (learn) from their successes.”

The first stop offered a good example: MICRO Stamping Corporation in the Somerset section of Franklin Township started out making components of vacuum machines decades ago, but today it has clients in industries ranging from medical to electronics to automotive and even aerospace.

“The two companies I visited today, I guess you could say what sets them apart is their investment in research and development,” Holt explained. “(MICRO) has kept up with modern technology — today they even ... manufacture pieces of (medical) implants.”

The concept is right up the alley of a legislator who also happens to be a five-time winner on “Jeopardy” and an internationally renowned research physicist who once worked as the assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Holt, 62, lives in Hopewell and once also worked as an arms control expert for the U.S. State Department.

“My background as a scientist, and someone who has been around and become familiar with technology, probably helps,” he admitted. “I think the way it helps me most is that I try to collect evidence and make (policy) decisions based on evidence — rather than starting with an ideological answer and never collecting the evidence.”

Holt’s district includes parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth and Somerset counties.