Manufacturing Stories: West Michigan

Tina Zellman is the HR Director at Pliant Plastics in Grand Haven, Michigan. Thirty years ago she fell into HR by accident - off-boarding 1,500 people from a bankrupt Baltimore company in her first two years out of college, then opening a 1,000-person facility for Saks Fifth Avenue before settling into West Michigan manufacturing. We talk about why being transparent means being vulnerable, how to...

Peter Hungerford is the Vice President of Manufacturing Services at The Right Place and MMTC West in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Before that, he spent 25 years in a family automotive business. We talk about what it really takes to learn a family business, why partnerships have to be win-win, how he reads culture just by walking a manufacturing floor, the danger of shortcutting the next generation up t...

Sami Birch is the Director of Marketing & Communications at Mission Design & Automation in Holland, Michigan. When she started, Mission had 48 people. Five years later, they're at 155. We talk about how a writing degree led to robot manuals, the mentors who saw potential she couldn't see yet, why holding back constructive feedback hurts everyone, how Mission uses Maslow's hiera...

Jeff Kunkle is the owner of Dynamic Machine in Zeeland, Michigan - a 7-person precision machining shop he built from the ground up while raising four kids. We talk about starting part-time on a rented machine after hours, the client who said "I build companies like you" and gave him weekly work, and what it actually takes to bet on yourself in the trades. Plus hiring when every person is...