Manufacturing Talks

Send us Fan Mail For Episode 78, we're joined by Adam Beckerman and Simeon Wallace at Aprio, a CPA-led Advisory Firm with over 700 clients in their Manufacturing and Distribution Practice. Their quarterly "Manufacturing and Distribution Insights" report is a great look into the state of business for American industry. Simeon is Chief Investment Officer and leader of Aprio’s Wealth M...

Send us Fan Mail Mark Stemmy joins us for our Episode 77 to talk about all things cycling. He's the founder of Optimized Cycling Solutions (https://optimizedcycling.com/), "a bicycle studio focused on bespoke products and services, offering custom frames and complete bikes, built in the U.S.A. and Italy." Plus he's spent decades in the business, and he talks about that history...

Send us Fan Mail Manufacturers uniquely rely on affordable, reliable energy for their business models. Unfortunately, legislators in Michigan's House of Representatives just last week passed a bill that will make our electricity a lot more expensive and a lot less reliable. Here are the basics:  Even before last week's bill, Michigan was already on a path to big problems, with plans to s...

Send us Fan Mail I can't believe I got to Episode 75 before doing anything on bicycles! But we went big - Tony Karklins, CEO of Time Bicycles and Cardinal Cycling Group, joined us for a great discussion of my favorite sport! Tony digs into: - His own background and how he got to be where he is - including owning his own bike shop as a teenager! - Why pretty much all bike making went to Asia b...

Send us Fan Mail I learned about the Great Lakes Boat Building School while on a sailing adventure with the Boy Scouts several years ago, when we spent the night docked in Hessel, just a few miles away from Cedarville, where the school is located. For Episode 74, we have Nikki Storey, the school's president, here to tell us all about the history of the GLBBS, what ultra-cool programs they hav...

Send us Fan Mail Finally! The end of our broadcasting day came at Huntington Place in Detroit on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, where we did all-day interviews at the Motion + Power Technology Expo put on by the American Gear Manufacturers Association. We finished strong! Forest City Gear's Kika Young, CEO, and Jared Lyford, Director of Operations, joined us to talk about their gearmaking shop in Ro...

Send us Fan Mail Matt Croson, President of the AGMA, joins us once again for our Episode 65, recorded live from the floor of the Expo at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit! Matt kicked off a whole day of livestreamed interviews, telling us what the show is all about and what the AGMA does for its membership. Plus there's a little talk about heavy metal music! Tune in and check out the whole...

Send us Fan Mail Lori Brown and Cindy Hall join us for our Episode 66, recorded live from the floor of the Motion + Power Technology Expo at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit! Lori and Cindy tell us all about their company, Clifford-Jacobs Forging in Champaign, Illinois. We put them in as our first company interview because forging is the earliest step in gearmaking that was represented at the...

Send us Fan Mail Nicole Wolter, CEO of HM Manufacturing (who does LOTS of other stuff too!), joins us for our Episode 67, recorded live from the floor of the Motion + Power Technology Expo at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit. Nicole tells us all about her family-owned machine shop that makes gears and more. Plus she tells us all the fabulous work she does to support manufacturing in her commun...

Send us Fan Mail Joe Goral keeps our big day of livestreaming moving, joining us for our Episode 68, recorded live from the floor of the Motion + Power Technology Expo at Huntington Place in downtown Detroit. Joe shares the ins and outs of his company, Bourn & Koch, a machine tool outfit. They make parts for a bunch of machines made by companies that are now out of business, having bought the...

Send us Fan Mail Our big day at the American Gear Manufacturers Association's Motion + Power Technology Expo was rolling right along as we progressed through the afternoon! Beau Hallavant sat down with us for Episode 69 and told us all about his company, WD Bearing Group. Now, you may think ball bearings are an industry that's pretty locked down and disruption-proof, but think again. By...

Send us Fan Mail Ruthie Johnston from Croix Gear & Machining in Hudson, Wisconsin, kept our afternoon of livestreaming from the American Gear Manufacturers Association's Motion + Power Technology Expo at Huntington Place in Detroit moving right along! She joined us for our Episode 70, and told us how she quite unexpectedly took the CEO role at her company when her husband passed away unex...

Send us Fan Mail John Perrotti is CEO of Gleason Corporation in Rochester, New York. He sat down to chat with us for Episode 71, in the middle of the afternoon during our full day of livestreaming from the American Gear Manufacturers Association's Motion + Power Technology Expo at Huntington Place in Detroit. John's company makes machines like grinders and cutters. They make tools for th...

Send us Fan Mail We were getting close to the end of our livestreaming day at the MPT Expo in Detroit when Michael Cinquemani joined us for our Episode 72. Michael brings us full circle on what's represented at this show put on by the American Gear Manufacturers Association. We started with forging and heard from machine makers, toolmakers, and the people who make both gears and bearings. Mic...

Send us Fan Mail In case you missed it when it was actually live... For our second-ever live broadcast, Eric joined us once again to talk about the hot manufacturing topics of today. Tune in and hear him discuss the UAW strike and the missteps of automakers like GM and Ford. (CEO pay and recalls, anyone?) He covers some of the positives and negatives of Stellantis too. He also gives us some lowdow...

Send us Fan Mail Jason Hayes from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy joined us for Episode 63 to talk about how so much of what we hear about the environment and energy just ain’t so, and how the false narratives are driving some really bad decisions, especially for manufacturers. He’s an outdoorsman and a former backcountry ranger and forester. He has multiple degrees in environmental science...

Send us Fan Mail Mark Mills joins us again, this time for what was our first livestream episode! Maybe you missed the live show, but here it is in all its glory. He's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a physicist with a background in mining and manufacturing. Last time he told exactly why there won't be near enough minerals for the "energy transition." Now he's h...

Send us Fan Mail Bob Worsley doesn't let the grass grow under his feet! First he founded Skymall and sold it to Rupert Murdoch. Then he ran successfully for an Arizona state Senate seat. And now he's tackling the housing crisis. His new company Zennihome, is using robotic automation to make small housing units, built on the dimensions of shipping containers, "live larger" by ma...

Send us Fan Mail Meredith Angwin, author and speaker, joins us for Episode 60 to tell us why she thinks our fragile electric grids are soon going to be failing us. Since she predicted the failure of the Texas grid during the winter storm a couple years ago, you probably ought to be listening to her. Plus she actually wrote the book on the subject: Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Ele...

Send us Fan Mail Your host Jim Vinoski is flying solo again on this one, talking about why the claims that renewables and power storage saved the day in Texas this summer are complete hogwash. This one's critical. Because what's playing out in Texas is soon going to be playing out everywhere: more and more unreliable power generation, less and less reliable generation, and lots of people...

Send us Fan Mail Terry Iverson joins us for Episode 58. He was the third generation leader at his family's machine tool business, Iverson & Company, for most of his career. Then he took a challenge to connect with young people and help sell manufacturing as a great career path, and he was off to the races! He founded CHAMPION Now, an advocacy to reach out to America's youth. Its focu...

Send us Fan Mail Jason Haines is owner and consultant out at Industrial Solutions Arizona, braving the brutal Phoenix heat after growing up in southeastern Ohio, helping manufacturers improve what they do! He joined us to talk all about it in our Episode 57. Jason learned the only way you really can: by working for 20 years himself right out on the factory floor! He talks about why Lean efforts fa...

Send us Fan Mail Author of the recent book, *The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World,* (https://www.amazon.com/Next-American-Economy-Markets-Uncertain/dp/164177276X) and Distinguished Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, Samuel Gregg joins us for Episode 56 to talk about the wisest public policies for manufacturing. He tells us why tariffs and...

Send us Fan Mail Sure, he appears regularly on Neil Cavuto's and Maria Bartiromo's shows, but now he's hit the big time: Manufacturing Talks! Investment strategist and small-government true believer Luke Lloyds joins us for Episode 55 to talk about why so much is going wrong with our economy, what we need to do to fix it, and what manufacturers in particular ought to know! Plus we t...

Send us Fan Mail Allan Evans is co-founder of a company called BarrelRM. They've been working for years on a way to bypass the need for years of aging in brown spirits, and he joins us for our Episode 54 to tell all about it. And you can try his stuff for yourself! The company now has a whiskey specifically formulated for cocktails called W.K. Reed. You can pick some up at the link: https://g...