Manufacturing Culture Podcast

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.

Manufacturing Culture Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 171 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Manufacturing Culture Podcast, a business show with 171 episodes published.

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  Episode #169

  Steve Feamster | The Weld No One Will Ever See

  Aug 18, 202637 min

  Every glass of water you pour, every jar of baby food, every energy drink you crack open ran through stainless steel pipe that somebody welded. And if that person did their job right, you will never once think about it. That is Steve Feamster's whole craft: being invisible in the best possible way. The weld that matters most is the one no one will ever see, on the inside of a pipe, so clean that nothing can hide. Steve is the founder and owner of Sanitary Welding LLC in Novi, Michigan, where for more than sixteen years he has built the ultra-clean stainless steel systems that food, beverage, and pharmaceutical plants depend on. He came up the way he hopes the next kid will. He was an entrepreneur before he was a welder, hustling odd jobs as a teenager, and he tripped into welding under a teacher who told him something that stuck: with wood, cut it too short and it's scrap, but with metal, you can always weld it back together. You can always make it right. This is a conversation about the pride in unseen work, about carrying the weight of knowing a single bad weld could mean contamination, and about a man from the middle who can talk to the shop floor and the boardroom in the same breath. Steve is honest about the hard parts, the apprenticeship red tape, the grind of scaling with too few hands, and the fine line between automation and craft. But the through-line is a message he wants the nineteen-year-old with a torch to hear: the door is open. Steve did it, and so can you. Key Takeaways The best weld is the one no one sees. Sanitary welding is judged on the inside of the pipe, purged clean and finished to food grade, so nothing can hide and nothing can contaminate. You can always make it right. The lesson that pulled Steve into the trade is also his philosophy on mistakes: be proud of them, pass your inspection, and keep going. The door from welder to owner is open. Steve bought his domain while still working under the hood and built his own shop. He wants the next kid to know the same path is there. Culture is treating a welder like a thinker. His twenty-first century weld shop pays people to think and treats the place like a second home, which is how he competes for scarce, high-care talent. Red tape is part of the skills gap. Steve is trying to hire and train through apprenticeships and keeps hitting bureaucratic roadblocks, a piece of the workforce problem that gets too little attention. Chapters 00:02 The invisible weld, and what sanitary welding protects 01:01 Meet Steve Feamster and Sanitary Welding 02:33 Icebreaker: a boat and a sunset 04:13 What culture means to Steve 05:29 Finding welding: you can always make it right 06:34 The high school apprenticeship at a five-hour energy plant 07:22 An entrepreneur since thirteen 08:00 The road home from California and the new shop 11:05 What makes Sanitary Welding different 12:06 Be proud of your mistakes 13:34 Pride, grinding, and the line between craft and automation 17:55 What sanitary welding actually is 18:37 The weight of a bad weld 21:39 Building a twenty-first century weld shop 22:39 The red tape choking apprenticeships 28:02 What keeps him going 30:01 A Detroit point of view 32:01 Where to find Steve and who he's hiring 33:01 3D printing stainless and Project Diamond 34:08 The message to the kid with a torch Find Steve LinkedIn: Steve Feamster Sanitary Welding LLC: sanitarywelding.com (careers: apply@sanitarywelding.com ) Novi, Michigan

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  Episode #169

  Jim Goerges | He Never Laid Off a Worker Because of Automation

  Aug 11, 202648 min

  Jim Goerges is an accountant who fell in love with a machine shop, and then fell in love with the one job in that shop nobody else wanted: keeping the coolant right. He was so obsessed with it that when he could not buy the tool he wanted, he built it himself, and that turned into a whole second company. His shop in Brainerd, Minnesota started with four products in 1993 and now has around six thousand, and odds are good it had a hand in the glasses on somebody's face right now. The heart of this one is a simple idea Jim has spent thirty years proving out: the best robot you can buy is the machine that makes the part. Precision Tool Technologies runs lights-out, nearly around the clock on a single labor shift, because Jim chased unattended manufacturing back when the industry still thought a mill was a mill and a lathe was a lathe. When coolant became the weak link that stood between him and a true 168 hours, he invented a full-shop coolant sensing and top-off system, now running in shops around the country. But the number that tells you who Jim is has nothing to do with spindles. He has never laid off a single person to a technology improvement, not once. He took hand deburring off his people because it hurt to do, not to cut heads. And for a crew of 23, the company 401k will clear five million this year. This is a conversation about automation done with a conscience, about a dad who came from Germany with nothing and instilled a work ethic in ten kids, and about why the unglamorous work, done with pride, is the work that builds something noble. Key Takeaways The best robot is the machine that makes the part. Jim's whole approach is to buy equipment that runs unattended rather than bolting automation onto old habits. Automation without layoffs. In thirty years he never cut a person for a technology gain. He removed the jobs people dreaded, like hand deburring, not the people. Necessity invented a product. Coolant was the weak link in running 168 hours, so he built a full-shop coolant sensing and top-off system that now sells nationwide. Culture is telling people the truth. Good news or bad, Jim tells the whole group, so his people are part of the solution instead of blindsided by it. Do more to get more. The accountant's logic underneath it all: every incremental part spreads your fixed costs thinner, and affordable automation is how you get there. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and meet Jim Goerges 02:36 Icebreakers: your life as a movie, and what culture means 05:05 The accountant who fell for a machine shop 07:30 The PettyEgg and inventing to help people 11:41 Four products in 1993, six thousand today 15:30 Learning lights-out before the industry figured it out 20:08 Why the company is named 168 Manufacturing 22:37 Changing your thinking to change your outcome 28:58 Automation without a single layoff 31:40 What he is most proud of, and his father's story 37:35 The sprint car and working hard the right way 39:26 The future of PTT and the coolant automation story 47:10 The future of American manufacturing 53:09 Say yes to a great idea, and closing thoughts Find Jim LinkedIn: Jim Goerges Precision Tool Technologies: Brainerd, Minnesota 168 Manufacturing: 168mfg.com

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  Episode #168

  Ronak Gandhi | Make American Manufacturing Badass

  Aug 4, 202649 min

  This episode was recorded as part of a paid partnership with Structify. Ronak Gandhi grew up in Fort Worth, where Memorial Day means fifty people in the backyard, dinner cooked by friends who brought their own coolers, and a clock that somehow reads midnight before anyone notices. He explains the difference between that and a New York Memorial Day, all brunch reservations and itineraries, and in doing so tells you most of what you need to know about why he built Structify the way he did. His grandfather came to this country in the 1960s, took his first job at a fish processing plant, stayed thirty years, and retired there. That story, and the values under it, loyalty, integrity, and showing up in person, shaped Ronak's decision to leave an isolating skyscraper job and build a company for the people he calls the backbone of the country. Structify helps manufacturers find real ROI for AI, lays the foundation to implement it, and captures the institutional knowledge that walks out the door when a key person retires. The promise is blunt: a path to ROI in sixty days or your money back. Recorded in person with Jim at ATD in Phoenix, Ronak and Jim get into why Silicon Valley gets manufacturing wrong, why you cannot serve this industry from a desk on the coast, why 65% of digital transformations fail, and why the problems on a shop floor are the most exciting part of the work, not the thing to hide. It closes on the line that could be Structify's whole reason for existing: he does not want the industries that built this country to get left behind in the next technological leap. Key Takeaways AI fails without a foundation. Most digital transformations fail because people rush to the solution. Structify maps the business first, then finds where AI actually drives ROI. Capturing institutional knowledge is the real win. The workforce crisis bites hardest when a key person retires, and their knowledge leaves with them. Day one is about capturing it. You cannot serve manufacturing from the coast. Ronak lives on the road, and he argues every shop is different, so no off-the-shelf solution works for everyone. Change is not the enemy. People do not resist change; they choose it every day. Give operators the tools to build their own solutions and adoption follows. Relationships beat transactions. The values he learned in Fort Worth, loyalty and integrity, are what he says the coast gets wrong and what manufacturing gets right. Chapters 00:00 Meet Ronak: two Memorial Days, Fort Worth vs New York 01:47 The moment he knew manufacturing needed Structify 05:01 The isolating skyscraper and why he left 08:39 His grandfather's fish plant and the pride in making things 11:30 Why build for a physical industry Silicon Valley ignores 16:02 A hidden industry and what outsiders should know 19:28 What Silicon Valley gets wrong about manufacturing 22:45 The workforce crisis and two narrative battles 26:21 The shop that detonates bombs to fuse metal 28:03 Why 65% of digital transformations fail 31:50 What Structify actually does 33:05 How it differs from a consultant 36:20 Why people actually love change 38:22 Finding real ROI, not AI for its own sake 40:17 What day one looks like 43:56 The five-year vision: make manufacturing badass 45:36 What he's most proud of, and why Structify exists Find Ronak LinkedIn: Ronak Gandhi Structify: structify.com

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  Episode #168

  Bob Teska | Dream Big, Success Is the Only Option

  Jul 28, 20261 hour

  Bob Teska describes his life as an underdog movie, Rocky by way of 8 Mile, opening on a kid getting picked on, a dad who disappeared, and a mother who told him he would not make it through his first semester of college. He turned wrenches for ten years, went to school at 26 with a newborn at home and three jobs to pay for it, and walked out with a near-perfect GPA and a path to becoming a CPA. He spent fourteen years as an audit partner advising family businesses, and then did the thing most advisors only talk about. He took the operator's chair himself. The company he chose is Dalen Products, a third-generation, 100% family-owned lawn and garden manufacturer in Knoxville that just crossed 51 years. It started when Neil Caldwell raided his kids' college funds and took a small business loan to build inflatable snakes and, later, the plastic great horned owl you have probably seen in a garden. Dalen has sold 9.3 million of them, and in 1995 NASA bought eighteen to guard a space shuttle from woodpeckers. Bob's real work is the culture. He walked into a place that felt frozen in 1982, time cards written out by hand, morale low, a wall between the office and the floor. His answer was to learn every name, take a lap on the floor every single day, and lead by one rule he states plainly: he worked for a lot of assholes, and he tries hard not to be one. He hires out of halfway houses, has kept six of the seven people he has brought in that way, and is bringing production back from China, now 85% made in Knoxville. He calls the whole project Dalen 2.0, building the next fifty years without breaking the first fifty, and he frames it not as ownership but as stewardship. He did not build this. His job is to hand it back stronger. Key Takeaways Stewardship over ownership. Bob did not build Dalen and does not treat it as his. The goal is to hand a stronger company back to the family and the next generation. Culture is what happens when leadership leaves the room. He rebuilt a broken one by learning names, walking the floor daily, and tearing down the wall between office and shop. Second chances are a hiring strategy. Building relationships with halfway houses gave him loyal, motivated workers and a six-of-seven retention rate. Reshoring is a decision, not a slogan. A new injection molder brought 15% of production back from China, moving Dalen to 85% made in the USA. Nobody wants to work is a myth. People want to work, they want to be treated like human beings, and they want to be told they belong. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and Bob's unconventional road 03:07 Icebreaker: the underdog movie 05:50 Success is the only option 06:53 What culture means to Bob 08:42 A hard start in Syracuse 10:03 College at 26 and the two teachers who believed in him 15:13 Becoming a CPA and learning to network 19:01 What ten years of turning wrenches taught him 21:02 From advisor to operator 23:02 Finding Dalen 26:13 Walking into a broken culture 30:47 Leadership is stewardship, not ownership 33:07 Dalen 2.0: building the next fifty years 33:50 Hiring out of halfway houses 42:23 The owl that saved a NASA launch 48:07 Bringing production back to Knoxville 49:25 On the front page of the New York Times 53:40 The next five to ten years 55:39 What he wants to leave the next steward 57:21 Dream big Find Bob LinkedIn: Bob Teska Dalen Products: dalenproducts.com

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  Episode #167

  Alex Huckstepp | The Paperwork Tax

  Jul 21, 202645 min

  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

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