Manufacturing Talks

Send us Fan Mail Jake heads up one of the business units for The Manthei Group, which is one of the most inspiring family business stories I've ever come across. Five generations ago, a couple of German immigrants came over, settled in what's now a popular resort area in northern Lower Michigan, and began farming. After many fits and starts, and lots of amazing business decisions, their...

Send us Fan Mail Mark O'Brien and I have known each other for a few years, and I've always admired his writing. But when I read his piece entitled, "Give It a Shot," (https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/give-it-a-shot/) I knew I had to have him on here to chat about it. "I don’t think we’re quitters. I think we don’t try." That's one of the many memorable lines. The a...

Send us Fan Mail Tech Ed teacher Craig Cegielski of the Eleva-Strum School District in Wisconsin wasn't satisfied just doing the usual stuff when it came to teaching his students the craft and the business of machining. So he came up with an idea: make an actual business out of his upper-level students' work! That's where Cardinal Manufacturing got its start, and now it's a fun...

Send us Fan Mail Manufacturers in particular, but really any business in general, can learn a lot from Dave Yonkman! He's the President of his own PR firm, DYS Media, LLC, and he's got a wealth of experience on what works to attract and keep great customers, and how to grow your business. Here's a preview of our superb chat: make your customers, not you, the heroes in their "st...

Send us Fan Mail Jason Ray saw an opportunity with the antiquated processes machine shops used to quote their jobs. So he and a friend founded Paperless Parts to help shop owners bring how they do things into the 21st century. In addition to being a guru on that, Jason is also a wealth of knowledge on the general topic of how to win in today's competitive manufacturing environment. And he sho...

Send us Fan Mail There was a whole collection of characteristics Nikke Gonzales has that made me want to interview her here on Manufacturing Talks: to highlight just a few, she's an expert in automation for industry and supply chain; she takes on seemingly way too much in her life, just like I do; she brings fresh new perspectives to the sometimes stodgy old "make it" and "move...

Send us Fan Mail I always love it here on Manufacturing Talks when I get to explore a business that's tied to one of my personal interests. As a lifelong bicyclist, then, it was an absolute pleasure getting to chat with Shane Cooper, President and Chief Sockologist of DeFeet International, producer high-quality American-made cycling socks and other apparel. Shane had so much to share - about...

Send us Fan Mail Where do I even start when it comes to Ashleigh Walters? Some years ago she had left her engineering career in corporate America to be a stay-at-home mom. But then her father-in-law came calling; he needed her to sort out the finances at his company, Onex, Inc., in Erie, Pennsylvania which is both a product and service outfit for refractory materials and systems for the steel indu...

Send us Fan Mail Titan Abrasive Systems started nearly 70 years ago, originally based in the founder's backyard shed, focused on equipment for sandblasting, surface preparation, and surface finishing. For our 20th episode, their President, Brandon Acker, joined me to tell how the company, based just north of Philadelphia, continues today to make high-quality blast room equipment, blast cabine...

Send us Fan Mail When the American flag they'd received as a wedding present quickly became worn and tattered, Katie and Wes Lyon went looking for something much better, and preferably made in the USA. They couldn't find it, though, so instead they teamed up with their friend Max Berry and founded Allegiance Flag Supply to make their own. After some fits and starts, they found the busine...

Send us Fan Mail My pals all over the manufacturing world do amazing things. But let's face it: a lot of us were never educated in running a business. So I took advantage of the opportunity to have my friend Chris Panagiotu on the show to give us all some education. Chris is the owner of CAPitalize Your Finances, LLC. He's a wealth adviser and a certified financial planner. He hosts his...

Send us Fan Mail Way up in Houghton, Michigan, there's a little company that's making nearby Michigan Tech University a new destination for space technology. Brad King, who helped found Orbion Space Technologies, picked the location because of the exceptional technical talent the school generates. (And the staggering natural beauty of Michigan's Upper Peninsula doesn't hurt eit...

Send us Fan Mail A lot of you probably know about KA-BAR because of their iconic US Marine Corps fighting knife. But the company's history goes a lot farther back than WWII. It's a fascinating story, and today KA-BAR is making some outstanding products (do check out the tactical spork!) CEO John Stitt and Director of Sales and Marketing Joe Bradley joined me to tell me all about it. They...

Send us Fan Mail Dianna Huff is one of my favorite industrial advocates out there, since we share a passion for American manufacturing (though I will say she beats me big time on actually buying American!) She's had some great experiences in writing about manufacturing and helping producers market their goods in today's digital world. And along the way she's found ways to buy almost...

Send us Fan Mail Eric Girouard grew up doing blue-collar work, went to college and learned about business, then worked in the fashion world. But his hometown friends who went into the trades begged him to launch a workwear company to get them the gear they needed. So he did. His friends were right about there being a big market for that. It's been going gangbusters ever since with BRUNT'...

Send us Fan Mail Here's an educational one for our manufacturing audience. Aimee Ridella, in her previous job with Weber Shandwick, was the best PR partner I had in helping me find great stories for some of my earliest Forbes articles. Now doing internal communications work at DTE Energy, she came on to help teach us what people in manufacturing should be thinking about when it comes to PR, a...

Send us Fan Mail The lumber commodities market can be tough to negotiate, especially for smaller companies. Getting price transparency for buyers and dealing with credit risks for sellers were always a problem, even before today's crazy marketplace conditions. Mike Wisnefski had been trading lumber since the 1990s, and back in 2009 he saw an opportunity when the CME Group started trading lumb...

Send us Fan Mail Back before the pandemic, Mike co-founded his company, Veryable, which introduced an app and other innovations to provide on-demand labor for manufacturing and supply chain companies looking for better way to right-size their workforces. Then came Covid, and what Mike says was a deliberate attack on small business that's hit manufacturers particularly hard. Tune in and hear a...

Send us Fan Mail Chip and Cory happened on a rather large "barn find" piece of American industrial history, and, taking the bull by the horns, they've now established an exhibit in Pittsburgh of the most amazing handcrafted wooden patterns for steel casting, and thousands of associated drawings. What brought this steel plant scrapper and oil painter together to accomplish such an am...

Send us Fan Mail Back in the mid-1970s, a guy named Michael John Stevenson got fed up with labels not sticking to plastic. So he came up with a solution: make the graphics part of the plastic itself! So were born Mold In Graphic Systems (MIGS) and Polyfuze, the companies Stevenson founded to sell his labeling solutions. Now Jason Brownell works with customers on those very same solutions, while al...

Send us Fan Mail For the first episode of 2022, I had a great time talking to Jake Hall, The Manufacturing Millennial. By day, Jake is a Business Development Manager for Feyen Zylstra. But in his social media presence, his passion is to work with manufactures, integrators and end-users to share his knowledge around automation, robotics, and Industry 4.0. His passion for automation and high-tech ma...

Send us Fan Mail Gretchen is one of the most-recognized advocates of American industry around. She's President of her own manufacturing technology solutions company, Magenta Technologies, established 2015 after she'd done several stints in telecomms and media. She's also founder of her made-in-America manufacturing advocacy organization, USA LOVES MFG. Tune in to hear her whole stor...

Send us Fan Mail When West Point graduate and former US Army helicopter pilot discovered that just 3% of apparel purchased in the USA is made in America, he set out to change that. His company, Authentically American, sells casual business attire and leisure wear. It's high-quality apparel made in 12 different states by American workers. Tune in to hear his whole story!

Send us Fan Mail Tom Sega had a travel bag fail him long ago in his former life as a sales guy. A friend recommended he get a new one from Duluth Pack, a maker of high-end duffels and bags right there in his own hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. Tom did and became a huge fan. When the company hit on hard times, he heard about it, bought them, and brought them back. Then he did it all over again with...

Send us Fan Mail Ben Findlay is the founder and CEO of Machine Compare, where he's created an online marketplace for buying and selling manufacturing spare parts. Companies anywhere with obsolete or excess parts can list them on the Marketplace, and people who need obscure and hard to get items can search and find them there. As said in my Forbes headline when I wrote about Ben, he's mad...