Manufacturing Culture Podcast

Jim Mayer
  • 5.0 (17)
  • Personal Journals
  • Updated Weekly

Manufacturing is more than the products we make; it’s the people who make the parts. On The Manufacturing Culture Podcast, I sit down with leaders, innovators, and everyday heroes to uncover the stories behind their journeys in the industry. We talk about where they started, how they’ve grown, and the challenges they’ve overcome along the way. Each episode brings a unique perspective; some practical, some inspiring, and all rooted in the human side of manufacturing. From lessons learned on the shop floor to big ideas shaping the future, it’s all about the people who make it happen. Because at the heart of every company are the people who work there, and every person has a story.

  1. 1d ago

    Alex Huckstepp | The Paperwork Tax

    Alex Huckstepp has spent his career where new technology meets the people who make things. A mechanical engineer out of USC who graduated into the wreckage of 2010, he spent the next decade running commercial strategy at four hardware startups in a row: 3D printing, metal additive, robotic forming, composites. All of them fundamentally new ways of making physical things. Then he and his co-founder Benny got tired of begging investors for money to build complex hardware, and went looking for a problem they could solve with software. They found it inside the tens of thousands of small high-mix shops across the country. Before writing a line of code, they spent three months inside twenty to thirty machine shops, trying to be flies on the wall and failing, because curiosity got the better of them. What they learned shapes the best part of this conversation. Shops don't dislike software because they're behind. They dislike it because software has never served them. And work doesn't leave the country over the labor rate anymore. It's energy and materials, it's tariffed machine tools, it's the two or three people in a nine-person shop tied to a desk doing paperwork, and it's the friction of getting a quote out of your local shop when someone overseas will answer the phone. Alex and Jim don't agree on everything, and the episode is better for it. It ends where Alex's work lives: a barbecue and a cooler of beer in a square mile north of the San Jose airport that holds more than a hundred machine shops, most of which have never met each other. Key Takeaways It isn't the labor rate anymore. The gap has narrowed to two or three times on skilled labor. The real drivers are energy, materials, equipment, and overhead.Speed is the product. Engineers source overseas because someone answers. Responsiveness and a firm lead time often beat a lower unit price.Overhead is the quiet killer. In a nine-person shop, two or three people sit at a desk doing paperwork, a ratio you do not see overseas.We should not be tariffing machine tools. If the goal is a domestic base, equipment should be incentivized, not taxed.Ecosystems beat isolation. A hundred shops sit within one square mile near San Jose and most have never met.You can't argue people into the trade. Kids follow visible, successful people in their own communities, not campaigns. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and who Alex is 02:19 Icebreaker: if your life were a movie 03:43 What culture means to Alex 06:30 Why culture is an alignment of values 08:22 Choosing mechanical engineering 10:03 Graduating into 2010 and the first job 12:43 Four hardware startups in a row 14:55 Why some people are wired for startups 17:49 How Uptool started 22:54 Three months inside thirty machine shops 25:35 Building software shops will actually use 26:20 Why US shops lose work to Asia 29:24 Energy, materials, and tariffed machine tools 30:52 The overhead nobody counts 33:42 Where the hollowing out really started 35:15 The workforce problem underneath it all 37:46 You can't convince people to care 40:42 Why Uptool shows up in person 42:57 A hundred shops in one square mile 45:11 The future: a lot of little SpaceXs 47:30 Where to find Alex Find Alex LinkedIn: Alex Huckstepp Uptool: uptool.com Shop map: usamachineshops.com Catch Uptool at IMTS in September, their first show as a startup, in the software section

  2. Jul 14

    Todd Drouillard | Buildings as Machines

    Most manufacturing conversations are about the machines. This one is about the building around them. In this episode of the Manufacturing Culture Podcast, host Jim Mayer sits down with Todd Drouillard, licensed architect and principal at HED, one of the country's top science and technology design firms. For twenty-five years, Todd has designed the places where manufacturing actually happens: clean rooms, hydrogen test cells, semiconductor plants, robotics labs. A Detroit native whose father and grandfather worked the steel mills, he explains why lighting and daylight change a shop floor, why a warehouse is usually the wrong home for a production line, how architecture becomes a retention strategy, and why the best factories are buildings that work like machines themselves. Key Takeaways The building is part of the process. Purpose-built factories, labs, and clean rooms are engineered around what happens inside them, and the best of them function like machines themselves.A warehouse is not a factory. Wide open space does not mean it's right for production. The first question is always the process, then the power, the slab, and the steel.Small moves change a shop floor. Lighting, color temperature, painted white structure for light reflectance, and any daylight you can introduce cost little and change how a place feels to work in.Architecture is a retention strategy: safe design, a clean, quiet place to step off the floor, a cafeteria, closer parking. Small things signal that the people inside matter.The building tells the story. A well-made facility gives employees a reason to say I work there and I build things there, and pride follows. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and who Todd is01:59 Icebreaker: If your life were a movie4:36 What culture means to Todd06:43 Wanting to be an architect at ten years old10:12 The road to HED12:14 Detroit roots, steel mills, and the draw to manufacturing17:04 Buildings as machines17:41 The first thing he looks for on a plant floor18:52 When the building is wrong for the work21:57 What a building does to the people inside it24:07 Detroit, the middle class, and what a factory builds27:27 Architecture as a retention strategy30:12 Doubts, waste, and the things that drive him crazy33:20 The future: robotics, AI, and keeping the human connection36:55 What makes him proud38:04 Defense tech, drones, and R&D spaces40:40 Where to find Todd Find Todd LinkedIn: Todd Drouillard, AIA HED: hed.co

  3. Jul 7

    Anoosheh Oskouian | Challenging, Difficult, Never Impossible

    Anoosheh Oskouian came to the United States alone at fourteen years old. She had convinced her father to let her leave Iran before she finished high school, the same way she had once convinced her parents to change her birth certificate so she could start school early. She landed in Denver, finished high school at George Washington High, and then the revolution back home turned Iranians into targets overnight. So she did what she has done at every hard moment since: she set her own rules, kept her focus, and moved forward. Decades later, that same resolve is the foundation of Ship & Shore Environmental, the Long Beach company she has built and grown organically for more than twenty-five years. Today, the firm designs and fabricates custom air pollution control systems for manufacturers across the country and around the world, and Anoosheh sits on the South Coast Air Quality Management District committee that helps write the very rules her machines are built to meet. This is a conversation about grit, reinvention, and what it costs to be the only woman CEO in a room full of men. Anoosheh talks about the people who underestimated her, the young engineers she now mentors, the planet she is trying to leave cleaner than she found it, and why, after everything, she still believes the American dream is real. Challenging, of course. Difficult, of course. Impossible, never. Key Takeaways Resilience is a discipline, not a moment. From arriving alone at fourteen to building a business overnight, Anoosheh's story is about deciding to move forward and refusing to be derailed.She bet everything on herself. Draining her 401 (k) to cover payroll and rent for two months, she insisted on doing it on her own, and 25 years of organic growth followed.She writes the rules and builds the solution. Sitting on the SCAQMD committee, Anoosheh helps shape air quality regulations and then engineers custom systems that enable manufacturers to meet them.Clean air has no borders. Her work spans the US and China because pollution migrates, and the goal is a cleaner planet, not a cleaner zip code.Representation changes the room. As the only woman CEO she knows in her field, Anoosheh mentors young women, opens her shop to interns, and proves what is possible by standing in the room and speaking her mind. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and what this show is about00:59 Meet Anoosheh Oskouian and Ship & Shore Environmental03:30 Icebreaker: if your life were a movie05:47 What culture means to Anoosheh08:59 Leaving Iran alone at 1411:31 The revolution, being a target, and going it alone14:25 University of Colorado and a love of chemistry15:49 Fluor Daniel and the road to Long Beach18:30 The overnight bet that started the company20:33 Growing the team and opening in China22:32 What Ship & Shore designs and builds26:58 Inside the process, from assessment to clean air30:39 Writing the rules and building the technology34:57 Being the only woman CEO in the room38:13 Mentoring the next generation41:23 A tour of the shop floor44:03 The future of American manufacturing49:38 Where to find Anoosheh Find Anoosheh LinkedIn: Anoosheh Oskouian Ship & Shore Environmental: shipandshore.com

  4. Jul 3

    Hexagon's Shop Floor Social Dallas | The Shiny Object vs. the People Who Make It Work

    The Shop Floor Social came to Dallas, and the room was full of people who run the floors. Hosted by Jim Mayer and brought to the community by Hexagon, this live session of the Manufacturing Culture Podcast put three local leaders on the panel: Chase Auker, a quality metrologist at Firefly Aerospace who measures everything from rocket engines to lunar landers; Andy Mears, who leads intelligent factory integration at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Grand Prairie; and Fernando Castaneda, the quality leader at SPM Oil & Gas. The night started where every honest manufacturing conversation starts: what keeps you up at night. The answers came back fast. People. Speed and scale. Schedule. From there, the room worked through the question on everyone's mind: what AI really does on a shop floor today, and the panel was refreshingly grounded in it. AI is a sharp assistant and a strong learning tool, but it's only as good as the data and the people behind it. Garbage in, garbage out. The real skill, they agreed, is knowing how to ask. What makes this session worth the listen is where it lands. Under all the pressure of cost, supply chain, cybersecurity, and a shrinking talent pipeline, every panelist circled back to the same answer. You cannot buy your way out with the bright shiny object. You invest in your people, you fix your process, and you let the technology amplify both. Then the conversation turns to the pipeline itself: why the fix starts in high school rather than the want ads, and why the best recruiter you have is already standing on your floor. This is session one, recorded live in Dallas. Key Takeaways People are still the answer. Across speed, scale, cost, and AI, every panelist came back to the same conclusion: you invest in your people and your process, not just the next machine.AI is only as good as the data behind it. The heavy lifting is structuring the data and learning to prompt well; prompt engineering is the real skill.Cybersecurity shapes everything. From CMMC 2.0 to a buried chip caught in incoming hardware, aerospace and defense shops run their own internal tools and vet every device before it touches the network.The bright, shiny object is a trap. Buying a machine feels safer than betting on a person, but technology without skilled, empowered people never delivers the return.The pipeline starts before college. The fix is to reach kids in high school and middle school, partner with community colleges, and lean on referrals, because your best recruiters already work for you. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to the Shop Floor Social 02:00 Meet the panel: Firefly, Lockheed Martin, and SPM 04:00 What keeps you up at night: people 05:00 Speed and scale, and a 41-month build cycle 08:00 AI as the assistant that remembers everything 11:00 Garbage in, garbage out: the data behind the answer 12:30 Ignorance is a choice: AI as a learning tool 14:00 Building agents that think like you 18:00 Why prompt engineering is the real skill 20:00 Please, thank you, and the drone that fought back 22:00 Capturing the silver tsunami before it leaves 24:00 Cybersecurity, CMMC, and the black box problem 30:00 Good, fast, cheap, and the cost squeeze 32:00 The supply chain is squeezed from both sides 37:00 Bright shiny object syndrome 39:00 People and technology, together 41:00 The leg nobody talks about: process 43:00 The skills gap and fixing the pipeline The Panel Chase Auker, Quality Metrologist, Firefly Aerospace Andy Mears, Intelligent Factory Integration, Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Fernando Castaneda, Quality Leader, SPM Oil & Gas Presented by Hexagon

  5. Jun 30

    Becca Wolfinger | Saving People Headaches and Heartaches

    Becca Wolfinger did not set out to run a machine shop. She figured she would cheer her husband on from the sidelines after he left the military, went to school to become a machinist, and got tired of working for people whose only answer was "we've done it this way for twenty years." Then the website needed building, and the LLC, and the logo, and one by one, Becca did all of it herself. Before long, she was scooping chips, breaking down setups, and learning to make parts on the floor of a renovated 1970s garage in North Carolina. What makes Becca different is not that she built Mill Spec Manufacturing. It's that she refuses to hide any part of how she did it. In a trade built on protecting what you know, she writes and films the mistakes, the crashed sensors, the four o'clock mornings, and the fear of signing a first industrial lease, because she believes the only way to rebuild American manufacturing is to stop gatekeeping and hand the next person a map. This is the North Carolina stop in the fifty-state shop series, and it's a conversation about culture in the truest sense: an environment where people feel free to be themselves without judgment. Becca and Jim get into why she started, why she shares, the community she's building shop by shop and meeting by meeting, what it felt like to be trusted with work that matters, and the one thing she wants to be remembered for. Key Takeaways Anti-gatekeeping is the strategy. Becca shares her failures publicly because the fastest way to rebuild American manufacturing is to help the next shop owner go further and faster than she did.Authenticity is a competitive advantage. Showing the crashes and the hard mornings validates every machinist who has made a mistake and makes the trade feel reachable.Community is infrastructure. From the Machining Summit to her own monthly manufacturing meetings, Becca builds third spaces where shop owners trade work, tooling, and support rather than competing in isolation.Small shops rebuild capacity. The mom-and-pop shops with fewer than ten employees are where offshored capacity comes back, one garage and one Tormach at a time.Education is the next chapter. Becca wants to spotlight schools, bring manual machines back, and teach the basics the curriculum skips, because everyone starts somewhere. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and what this show is about 00:57 Meet Becca Wolfinger and Mill Spec Manufacturing 02:54 Icebreaker: if your life were a movie 05:38 What culture means to Becca 06:18 Why she started a machine shop 09:30 Why she shows the mistakes, not just the wins 11:03 Saving people headaches and heartaches 12:18 Her most memorable failure 13:43 Why rebuilding American manufacturing matters 16:24 How do we get more people to start shops 19:33 The power of community 23:39 What made the Machining Summit different 26:47 Building community in North Carolina 28:11 Being a mom and "balancing" it all 29:11 The win she's most proud of 31:16 The future of Mill Spec and Becca 35:35 The mark she wants to leave 36:25 Where to find Becca Find Becca LinkedIn: Rebecca Wolfinger Instagram: @rebecca.wolfinger Mill Spec Manufacturing: mil-spec-manufacturing.com

  6. Jun 9

    Erich Baur | I'm the Guy Who Comes In With a Shovel

    Erich Baur could have gone a hundred different directions. Engineering degree from UC Davis. Peace Corps in Guatemala. Fluent in Spanish. Music minor. Instead he swept floors at a Fortune 100 aerospace shop, fell in love with precision machining, and spent the next several years going deeper into every corner of the industry: process engineering, sales, programming, supervision, consulting. Six months ago he opened Nordstrand Precision in Colorado Springs, named after the Norwegian cabinet makers in his family lineage who built the ship they sailed on. In this conversation, Erich and Jim cover what the Peace Corps taught him about manufacturing leadership, why good culture looks boring from the outside, and why he'd rather unclog a river than compete for the same jobs as everybody else. Key Takeaways You can tell the culture of a shop within five minutes of walking on the floor. Watch the faces, not the framed values on the wall.Good culture looks boring. Spindles turning, pallets full, no fires. That's the goal.The best thing Erich learned from the Peace Corps wasn't engineering. It was how to find common ground with people you have nothing in common with.If a shop with a full staff and multiple machines is competing with a guy who just started with one mill and a harbor freight saw, the problem isn't the new guy.You don't need to spend money to improve your margins. Most shops can go from three percent to thirty percent just by cleaning up the processes they already have.Don't guard your knowledge so close. The supply of shops is going to start dwindling and connection is going to matter more than competition. Chapters00:00:01 — Introduction to Erich Baur00:04:10 — Icebreaker: Deadpool, film noir, and a montage of conversations00:07:10 — Defining culture: the vibe doesn't lie00:08:29 — What to look for when you walk into a shop00:11:25 — What kept pulling him back to precision manufacturing00:13:40 — Starting at a Fortune 100 shop sweeping floors00:16:08 — Engineers Without Borders and the Peace Corps in Guatemala00:21:36 — How networking set the stage for starting Nordstrand00:35:01 — Where the name Nordstrand comes from00:38:40 — What Nordstrand actually does: machining and consulting00:43:06 — Why he's not a competitor, he's the guy with the shovel00:46:38 — How to scale Nordstrand without settling00:50:36 — Investing in people and building a home for talent00:50:43 — What makes him proud00:52:15 — Legacy: handing it off the right way00:54:08 — Final thoughts: become part of the conversation

  7. Jun 5

    Chris Hutson | You Can't Buy Your Way Out of a Culture Gap

    Chris Hutson spent 30 years in manufacturing as an industrial engineer, maintenance manager, field service leader, and now VP at MaintainX. He's seen the inside of Fortune 500 operations and developed over 25 people who are now directors or above. In this conversation, Chris and Jim go deep on what drives reliability in manufacturing. It's not the technology. It's the people side: coaching, development, knowledge transfer, and the culture gap that no software can close for you. Key Takeaways Culture is alignment around shared values, goals, and behaviors, and the behaviors tell you more than anything else.79% of industrial teams haven't reduced unplanned downtime despite massive advances in technology. That's a people problem, not a tech problem.People don't leave for fifty cents more an hour. They leave because something opened the door, and that something is usually a lack of development.You can't buy your way out of a culture gap. Ben Horowitz said it, and Chris has lived it.The greatest leadership accomplishment isn't the P&L story. It's the 25-plus people you developed who are now leading organizations of their own.Don't push your vendors away. The best ones are subject matter experts and deserve a seat at the table.Chapters 00:00:26 — Podcast Introduction00:01:05 — Guest Introduction: Chris Hutson00:02:01 — Icebreaker: Jack Nicholson, mystery, and a compelling saga00:03:14 — Defining culture: values, goals, and behaviors00:05:08 — The importance of coaching and leadership development00:06:56 — Why employees leave, and it's not the money00:07:36 — 79% of teams still haven't reduced unplanned downtime00:09:23 — Chris's path into manufacturing00:12:53 — Readiness for leadership: prepared technically, not always for people00:15:06 — Lessons from vendors as subject matter experts00:16:23 — The division president with the two-inch binder00:20:14 — What causes the people, process, and technology alignment to break down00:22:39 — The silver tsunami and the knowledge transfer crisis00:24:07 — Why Chris joined MaintainX00:25:16 — Career pride: developing people into leaders00:30:55 — Final thoughts: you can't buy your way out of a culture gap

  8. Jun 2

    Johnny Goode | I Look Forward to Mondays

    Johnny Goode spent a decade as a patrol officer, narcotics detective, and SWAT team member in Bloomington, Indiana. When his dad offered him a seat at the family machine shop six years ago, it made zero sense on paper. Today, MSP is having its best quarter in 83 years. In this conversation, Johnny and Jim cover what law enforcement actually teaches you about leadership, how to dismantle a toxic culture from the inside, why bonus structures aren't the answer, and what it means to build a shop where people look forward to Mondays. Key Takeaways Good culture is a supportive environment where accountability is investigative, not finger-pointing. How you treat people is everything.Don't confuse good luck with good tactics. Just because something hasn't been a problem doesn't mean it isn't one.Bonus structures don't motivate everyone. Find out what actually matters to your people and build around that.Putting a poor performer next to your best performer destroys culture faster than almost anything else.The best months at MSP have sometimes been the ones when Johnny was out of the office. That's the goal.You can do 10 small things in a year and be in a completely different league than where you started.Chapters 00:00:23 — Introduction to Johnny Goode00:02:15 — Icebreaker: Chris Pine, drama, and starting the movie at the best moment00:04:18 — Defining culture: respect, accountability, and talking to people straight00:06:02 — From San Diego to the police academy to the National Guard00:11:58 — Joining the family business during one of the hardest seasons of his life00:14:45 — What it's like to work with your dad and build something together00:18:32 — Succession planning and raising sons who find their own passion first00:21:57 — What SWAT and the military actually taught him about leadership00:25:27 — Dismantling a toxic culture from the inside00:30:25 — Developing young talent and getting people into the right seats00:32:04 — Bringing his sons into the shop and exposing them to manufacturing early00:34:27 — The future of MSP: expansion, talent pipelines, and never being satisfied00:38:12 — Career pathing and why stagnation is the real reason people leave00:40:32 — Final thoughts: the team gets all the credit

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Manufacturing is more than the products we make; it’s the people who make the parts. On The Manufacturing Culture Podcast, I sit down with leaders, innovators, and everyday heroes to uncover the stories behind their journeys in the industry. We talk about where they started, how they’ve grown, and the challenges they’ve overcome along the way. Each episode brings a unique perspective; some practical, some inspiring, and all rooted in the human side of manufacturing. From lessons learned on the shop floor to big ideas shaping the future, it’s all about the people who make it happen. Because at the heart of every company are the people who work there, and every person has a story.

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