a BROADcast for Manufacturers

Read the article here: When will AI usher in a new era of manufacturing? Lori: Not even getting into the AI component of this, but I was fascinated that this manufacturing process to create diapers. There's 40 separate loose streams to assemble per diaper. Erin: Just that assembly line, and I'm sure there's a ton of automation within that already. And they're producing 1200 diapers a minute? In 14...

Meet Dayna Johnson Dayna Johnson is the Emerging Technology Programs and Operations Leader at GE Gas Power. She joined GE in 2012 as a commercial manager for high-voltage electrical substations and has held a variety of roles since then, including participating in the Accelerated Leadership Program. Prior to GE, she worked as a civil engineer, designing water and wastewater projects. She holds a B...

Meet Bill Fournet Bill Fournet is Founder & CEO of The Persimmon Group, the award-winning management consulting firm he founded in 2004. Bill has been a project leader for more than 25 years in the IT, engineering, manufacturing, and business change areas. He has led or overseen large and mega projects in excess of $10 billion. Sometimes called “The Navigator of Chaos,” Bill loves to solve com...

Meet Tato Corcoran Tato Corcoran was born & raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and spent the first decade of her professional career in Silicon Valley. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, she started flipping homes & building a portfolio of rental units in Milwaukee. In 2022 she acquired Brandt Molded Marble, a sleepy manufacturing business on its way to extinction. Tato has spent...

Meet Mia Ivetic Mia is currently the Corporate Vice President-Service Manager, Board Member and minority owner of Uzelac Industries. She has worked at Uzelac Industries full-time for the past 3 years while handling the company’s marketing in her previous roles over the past 8 years. She has a strong background in Marketing, Advertising and Project Management. Most recently, she worked as a Project...

Lori: Erin what is something you just learned? Erin: Well, I'm in the process of learning is that has there Yeah, I in the process of learning. So, um, we all remember the left brain, right brain, you know, the left brain is the logical part of you and the right brain is the more poetic part. That's been dispelled a bit. This is not exactly correct. However, there are parts of the brain that do ma...

Meet Loretta Mulberry: Loretta is a passionate advocate for language accessibility. As a business development manager, for Terra Translations a Milwaukee-based language services provider. She's on a mission to improve safety measures and equity for everyone involved in manufacturing and construction. She is born and raised in Wisconsin broad. Who has seen the positive impact of breaking down langu...

Meet Prashanth Sharma: Prashanth is the CTO at thought focus and leads the technology function across all business lines and customer engagements. With over 22 years of industry experience. Prashanth is spearheading the next wave of technology growth at thought focus, motivating teams to exceed customer expectations. He's a natural innovator with entrepreneurial flair. Prashanth is driven to archi...

Meet Trent Guyer: He is the VP of Marketing and global digital strategy. He has experience working with the various departments that make Grasshopper unique in the industry as a family-owned company with in-house marketing, in-house manufacturing, final assembly, and post-sale parts inventory. Daily, he works with a team to expand upon Grasshopper's decades of performance as a dependable brand to...

Meet Nicki Vo: Nikki is an accomplished innovation leader with over 17 years in the chemical industry. She has held various roles as an individual contributor, manager, and senior executive leader. She holds a BS in chemistry from UW Whitewater, an MS in chemistry from UW Madison, and Executive MBA from our IT, which is consistently ranked as a top 10 school by US News and World Report. I didn't k...

Meet Gregg Potter: He is an international collaboration coach and the founder & CEO of Project Connect. A marketing firm in Madison, Wisconsin. He has worked in the restaurant industry. As a general manager, district manager, and consultant with a good amount of time spent at Starbucks in Los Angeles. He uses his experience and training as a facilitator, a futurist, and a conflict resolution m...

Meet Kate Bruns: She is a lifelong writer, who spent 20 years working in the higher education communications world. She was living in Des Moines, Iowa when her husband took a new job and the family moved to Neenah Wisconsin in January 2020. After a short time as a very reluctant pandemic homeschool teacher dabbling in freelance marketing communications work, she jumped at the opportunity to embrac...

Meet Roberta (Robbie) Oldenburg: With over 20 years of experience in the design and construction industry to her role as director of business development at Findorf. As a leader in the male-dominated construction industry, Roberta has served in multiple roles throughout her career, from onsite engineer to virtual modeler to business developer. Regardless of her title, she has a special focus on he...

Links to look into for Women’s History Month: Women Driving Innovation in Manufacturing: https://www.sme.org/aboutsme/women-influencing-manufacturing/ Women Make America Initiative: https://www.themanufacturinginstitute.org/women/wma/ Erin: Hey, Lori. Happy International Women's Month. It's about us broads. Yeah. And it got me to thinking, we spent some time talking about the ladies on this show,...

Links mentioned during this episode: OPSisters Website: https://opsisters.com/ SteelToes and Stilettos: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/steel-toes-and-stilettos-shannon-karels/1139878791 Meet Kathy and Shannon: The authors of SteelToes and Stilettos. Is that just the best you have ever heard? Yeah. Kathy and Shannon share in their book, they share the finer points of a comprehensive change proces...

Links mentioned during this episode: Get it Made article: https://get-it-made.co.uk/insights/manufacturing-industries-that-employ-the-most-women THE MANUFACTURING EXPERIENCE: Closing the Gender Gap: Recruiting and Retaining Women in Manufacturing: https://www.themanufacturinginstitute.org/research/the-manufacturing-experience-closing-the-gender-gap/ Women Make America Initiative: https://www.thema...

Meet Matthew: He’s a serial entrepreneur and product development professional. He use to manage the design team for Office Max and all their private labels. Now, he has owned his own product development firm called Prototype since 2013. He’s headquartered in Fort Lauderdale. He runs a one-of-a-kind development firm that supports inventors, entrepreneurs, and large brands with designing prototyping...

Meet Allison: She is the founder of Felt Marketing. She and her team are on a mission to strengthen heart and soul manufacturing for generations by helping manufacturers retrofit their marketing to make sales easier, modifying traditional systems with modern components. She's also your marketing expert on the Manufacturing Masters on Demand platform. Lori: What's the biggest opportunity manufactur...

Meet Ashleigh: Ashleigh and her family relocated to the rust belt town of Erie, Pennsylvania. In an attempt to revive her husband's family's 56-year-old business, she used the problem-solving skills she obtained while earning her BS in chemical engineering from Auburn. And was able to change the company culture by using a coach approach leadership style. She regularly shares her story with fellow...

Meet Nicole and Michele: Nicole has been at ADP for a little over five years and services the small business community. She helps small businesses outsource many of their administrative tasks such as payroll insurance, HR compliance, and employee benefits in a small business environment. It is usually the owner that wears all the hats. It is her goal to provide a one-stop shop service so that all...

Meet Sue: Sue is the President of Obsidian Manufacturing Industries, Inc., a position she has held since 2018. She previously worked part-time for the family business while raising her three children. She has a long history within the manufacturing industry, with some of her earliest memories being of her father talking about working in manufacturing. She finds the marketing aspects of her job the...

Meet Jennifer: Jennifer genuinely enjoys helping b2b clients solve their lingering problems with analytical yet creative and innovative solutions. She is passionate about helping teams transform their organizations with quality service and delivery standards to achieve higher profits by creating efficient processes. while increasing visibility and performance optimization through data. Jennifer ha...

Meet Jamie: Jamie Irvine is the founder and host of the heavy-duty parts report. He is also a sales and marketing consultant that specializes in working with heavy-duty parts manufacturers and distributors. He's like the Joe Rogan of truck parts. Kris: Jamie, I'm curious if you can share with the audience something interesting about you that they might not know. Jamie: Well, there are a couple of...

Meet Trish: After teaching middle school for almost a decade, Trish found the translation and localization industry over a summer hiatus. Thinking it would be just a temporary job, now 22 years later, she is the US director for Terralingua Translations. Who translates content into over 100 different languages for manufacturers and exporters worldwide.  Kris: What is the most important thing t...

Meet Darrin: Over the last 20 years, Darren grew a very successful manufacturing business. He developed a worldwide marketing system with partners on six continents. Patented intellectual property, a global supply chain, and had profits 10 times the industry average. That's pretty, pretty impressive. Most impressive. He did it from a small remote island in Canada, not adjacent to the customers or...