Manufacturing Talks

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...

Send us Fan Mail Gail Robertson is Chief Curiosity Officer at her own manufacturing-based PR firm, GailNow. She also calls herself a recovering journalist, and is deeply concerned about where that profession is headed. But for our Episode 53, she joins us to tell her whole career story, and to encourage the rest of us to act like the real journalists of old, and challenge the orthodoxy that's...

Send us Fan Mail After reading the immortal Gary Paulsen's childrens' book *Hatchet,* Phil Rink's daughter couldn't find anything else good to read. And that's because far too many modern kids' books are politicized, vulgar garbage. So Phil took matters into his own hands and began writing them himself. His are not politicized, are not vulgar, and are not garbage. Qui...

Send us Fan Mail Matt Croson, President of the American Gear Manufacturers Association, jumps on with us for Episode 51 to tell us all about what his outfit does. Come for the education about gear-making standards and education, and stay for the discussion about heavy metal music! Oh, and if you think gears are a thing of the past with high tech taking over, think again. Matt fills us in on all th...

Send us Fan Mail It's Episode 50!! To celebrate, we've got our first return guest. Eric Starkman is one of the most courageous voices out there in journalism, bucking the narrative to fill us in on what's really going on in the world of business and policy and so much more. He talks about the rapidly approaching energy crisis and how the reliable electricity we've become accust...

Send us Fan Mail Jake Bernal joins us for Episode 49. He's an engineer who works for Hyundai's New Horizons Studio on their totally cool concept car, the Ultimate Mobility Vehicle (UMV). Jake also teaches at Montana State University in Bozeman. Tune in and hear all about this insanely awesome piece of design and engineering: how the company chose Bozeman for its new R&D facility last...

Send us Fan Mail For our Episode 48, Mark P. Mills joins us to chat about why one of the biggest bottlenecks in the "energy transition" is mining, metals, and minerals. He gave a very lengthy and detailed talk about it at the beginning of the year (see link below), and now he chats with our host Jim Vinoski to tell about some of the basic problems we're already starting to run into....

Send us Fan Mail They make the coolest product ever manufactured. Therefore, it was destined someone from the company would make an appearance here on Manufacturing Talks! For our Episode 47, Doug Peters, Regional Sales Manager at the Zamboni Company, joins us to fulfill that destiny. He tells us all about the history of the company and its iconic products, his favorite moment of his career, and n...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 46 features our host Jim Vinoski telling why things are getting critical when it comes to reliable and affordable electrical power. For manufacturing, this is the #1 risk in the medium to long term. You need to understand what's happening, and get involved in driving a major policy course correction. Here's some reading on the subject: https://www.manhattancontra...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 45 features photographer extraordinaire Viktor Mácha from Prague. When he was still a youth, his parents stopped on a trip to show him some of his country's steel industry, and from that moment he was hooked. (A student of religion and theology, he describes that moment as "a religious experience.") As market downturns and globalization took their toll on st...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 44 features the co-founders of Red Land Cotton in Alabama, Anna  Brakefield and her dad Mark Yeager. Mark is a longtime cotton farmer who built his own cotton gin years ago and was looking for a way to get more money for his crops. His daughter went to school for marketing and was good and ready to go into business with her dad, so they founded their company back in 2015....

Send us Fan Mail For our Episode 43, we chat with Melissa McMinn, Master Engraver at Melissa M Studios. She tells us how she got where she is, the tricks of her trade and the tools she uses, the kinds of work she does, and yes, the story of those fabulous dueling pistols! She's just one of three female Master Engravers in the whole United States.

Send us Fan Mail Episode 42 is a very special one, featuring yours truly, Jim Vinoski! I recently was invited to speak at the Manufacturing and International Trade Day in Helena, Montana. I spoke about the state of manufacturing in the world and in the US, and why I think Montana is positioning itself extremely well to compete for manufacturers looking for a good place to settle. Many thanks to th...

Send us Fan Mail For Episode 41, we're joined by Cedrik Neike, CEO of Siemens Digital Industries and Member of the Board for Siemens overall. He has two vital messages. First, if you're in manufacturing and you're not working on digitalization, you're getting left behind. And second, no matter how big your company is, Siemens is here to help, with a new modular product offering...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 40 features Lance Neirby, CEO of Montana Silversmiths in Billings. Learn how he went from undergrad in Minnesota to a Master of Fine Arts from Rochester Institute of Technology to Tiffany to Montana! It's a heck of a story. Lance not only knows the ins and outs of metalsmithing and jewelry making, but he's also doing a bang-up job running the show at his small ou...

Send us Fan Mail Want to learn what's going on in the world of 3D printing (a.k.a. additive manufacturing or AM)? Nadav Goshen is the CEO of UltiMaker. They recently merged with MakerBot, and now the combined companies are off to the races expanding the market for their existing printers, and looking to the future at new opportunities. Nadav joined us to tell us all about his fascinating back...