
Manufacturing Culture Podcast
by Jim Mayer
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On the show
From 21 epsHost
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Recent episodes
Sunny Han | It's Not Science Fiction, It's Manufacturing Fiction
Sep 1, 2026
Unknown duration
Tiffany Bryson | I Want to Be Known for Seeing People
Aug 25, 2026
Unknown duration
Steve Feamster | The Weld No One Will Ever See
Aug 18, 2026
Unknown duration
Jim Goerges | He Never Laid Off a Worker Because of Automation
Aug 11, 2026
Unknown duration
Ronak Gandhi | Make American Manufacturing Badass
Aug 4, 2026
Unknown duration
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9/1/26 | Sunny Han | It's Not Science Fiction, It's Manufacturing Fiction | Ask most people to picture the future of manufacturing and they will describe a slightly better factory. Ask Sunny Han and he will describe a self-replicating machine you launch into an asteroid belt, go to sleep for a thousand years, and wake up to find has built a communication network across the galaxy. That is the altitude this conversation runs at.Sunny is the founder and CEO of Fulcrum, a manufacturing technology company that connects more than 700 manufacturers with the digital infrastructure they need to compete. He did not grow up on a shop floor. He was a kid writing code at seven, certain he would spend his life playing StarCraft, who drifted into building software for manufacturers and got quietly hooked on the depth of it. The more facilities he toured, the more intoxicating it got: the operator who can feel a microscopic burr with a fingertip, the single crystal of metal grown to survive supersonic speeds. He kept coming back to the well.But the reason to listen is what Sunny has worked out about AI and trust. He is one of the clearest voices on where artificial intelligence fits on a shop floor and where it does not. He explains why classical computers are deterministic and the real world is not, why these new probabilistic machines are a gift and a hazard at once, and why the answer is deterministic guardrails and a human who stays in the loop, because in a medical device shop that last one percent is the entire world. Along the way he reframes change management, argues that people love change they get to author, and lands on the line that named this episode. The future isn't science fiction. It's manufacturing fiction, and his whole job is turning it into reality faster.Key TakeawaysThe real world is probabilistic. Classical computers give the same answer every time. CNC machines and AI models do not, and understanding that difference is the key to using AI safely on a shop floor.Deterministic guardrails make AI trustworthy. Let the model generate options, but when the answer has to be exactly right, it looks up the feed and speed chart or the tool database. Creativity where you want it, certainty where you need it.Keep a human in the loop. Even at ninety-nine percent, the last one percent can be a twenty thousand dollar mistake or worse, so Fulcrum builds evaluation and judgment frameworks that flag what still needs human eyes.Infrastructure was the missing layer. Fulcrum set out to do cool things with compute and found the orchestration infrastructure under manufacturing barely existed. Build a good one and people plug everything into it.Chapters00:00 Welcome and the ask01:20 Meet Sunny Han and Fulcrum02:42 Icebreaker: life as a sci-fi movie03:28 Making parts in space, and von Neumann machines09:40 What culture means to Sunny12:20 Why a company needs a mission, not just values14:52 What he thought his life would be16:23 Stumbling into manufacturing22:29 What problem Fulcrum set out to solve26:40 Becoming the orchestration layer30:43 Breaking into a skeptical industry34:53 People don't hate change, they hate change they can't steer37:22 Deterministic guardrails, explained43:38 Why you still need a human in the loop45:12 Where manufacturing is headed47:45 Manufacturing fiction48:10 What makes him proud: perseverance49:47 Where to find SunnyFind SunnyLinkedIn: Sunny Han (Fulcrum)Fulcrum: fulcrumpro.comEmail: [email protected] | — | ||||||
| 8/25/26 | Tiffany Bryson | I Want to Be Known for Seeing People | Tiffany Bryson is one of Jim's oldest and closest friends in this industry, and she is also, as this episode reveals, the reason the Manufacturing Culture Podcast exists at all. Twenty drinks deep on a curb in Atlanta in 2022, she listened to Jim describe the handful of shops with great cultures who had written back to him, and told him he had to start telling those stories. Then she kept texting until he actually did it.But this conversation is Tiffany's story, and it is a good one. A recently divorced single mom selling houses, she took a job with the creative title director of first impressions, which was really the receptionist, at a manufacturing association. The first time she walked onto a shop floor, she saw behind the curtain, realized none of it just appears at Target and Walmart, and caught a passion she has never shaken. From there she grew the NTMA national associate program into a real revenue stream, took a leap into selling five-axis machines at GROB with no technical background, and found her footing by leaning on the one thing she always did well: connecting people. Today she runs industrial partnerships across the Americas for Blaser Swisslube, the Swiss family company that has made metalworking fluid, the liquid tool, not just coolant, since 1936, and she says it is the first place she can imagine hanging her hat until retirement.The heart of this one is what Tiffany does with the network she built. She mentors, especially women who were, like she once was, the only one in the room. She opens doors for people who do not yet know which door to knock on. And when Jim asks what she wants to be remembered for, she does not hesitate: she wants to be known for seeing people. This is a conversation about relationships as a career, about paying it forward, and about the friend who saw something in Jim before he saw it in himself.Key TakeawaysRelationships are a career, not a tactic. Tiffany built every stage of her path on networking done with real intention, and it carried her from receptionist to program owner.You can learn anything. She jumped into selling five-axis machines with no technical background, and beat the fear by realizing nobody knows as much as you assume, and that you can learn what you need to.Ask for the tour. The easiest way into a shop relationship is to ask an owner to show you their shop. Nobody says no, and thirty minutes becomes two hours of history, pride, and pain points.Mentorship is this phase of her life. Tiffany lifts up young people and women in the industry, opening doors so they climb faster than she did, and she says it costs her nothing.Be known for seeing people. Life beats everyone up. Being the person who genuinely sees someone, personal or professional, is what she wants to be remembered for.Chapters00:00 Welcome and why this guest is special04:38 Icebreaker: a murder mystery starring Linda Cardellini08:19 What culture means to Tiffany09:56 From single mom selling houses to the shop floor14:33 Where she and Jim first crossed paths at the NTMA16:34 Building a career on networking and relationships19:15 The moment she stopped feeling like a visitor21:57 Taking the leap to sell five-axis machines at GROB24:28 What the shops taught her about listening30:23 This phase of her career at Blaser Swisslube35:09 Mentoring the next generation38:34 How Tiffany talked Jim into starting this show49:05 What she would say to someone outside the industry50:34 What she wants to be remembered for53:00 Process in Pints at IMTS, and closingFind TiffanyLinkedIn: Tiffany BrysonBlaser Swisslube: blaser.com | — | ||||||
| 8/18/26 | Steve Feamster | The Weld No One Will Ever See | 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 TakeawaysThe 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.Chapters00:02 The invisible weld, and what sanitary welding protects01:01 Meet Steve Feamster and Sanitary Welding02:33 Icebreaker: a boat and a sunset04:13 What culture means to Steve05:29 Finding welding: you can always make it right06:34 The high school apprenticeship at a five-hour energy plant07:22 An entrepreneur since thirteen08:00 The road home from California and the new shop11:05 What makes Sanitary Welding different12:06 Be proud of your mistakes13:34 Pride, grinding, and the line between craft and automation17:55 What sanitary welding actually is18:37 The weight of a bad weld21:39 Building a twenty-first century weld shop22:39 The red tape choking apprenticeships28:02 What keeps him going30:01 A Detroit point of view32:01 Where to find Steve and who he's hiring33:01 3D printing stainless and Project Diamond34:08 The message to the kid with a torchFind SteveLinkedIn: Steve FeamsterSanitary Welding LLC: sanitarywelding.com (careers: [email protected])Novi, Michigan | — | ||||||
| 8/11/26 | Jim Goerges | He Never Laid Off a Worker Because of Automation | 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 TakeawaysThe 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.Chapters00:00 Welcome and meet Jim Goerges02:36 Icebreakers: your life as a movie, and what culture means05:05 The accountant who fell for a machine shop07:30 The PettyEgg and inventing to help people11:41 Four products in 1993, six thousand today15:30 Learning lights-out before the industry figured it out20:08 Why the company is named 168 Manufacturing22:37 Changing your thinking to change your outcome28:58 Automation without a single layoff31:40 What he is most proud of, and his father's story37:35 The sprint car and working hard the right way39:26 The future of PTT and the coolant automation story47:10 The future of American manufacturing53:09 Say yes to a great idea, and closing thoughtsFind JimLinkedIn: Jim GoergesPrecision Tool Technologies: Brainerd, Minnesota168 Manufacturing: 168mfg.com | — | ||||||
| 8/4/26 | Ronak Gandhi | Make American Manufacturing Badass | 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 TakeawaysAI 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.Chapters00:00 Meet Ronak: two Memorial Days, Fort Worth vs New York01:47 The moment he knew manufacturing needed Structify05:01 The isolating skyscraper and why he left08:39 His grandfather's fish plant and the pride in making things11:30 Why build for a physical industry Silicon Valley ignores16:02 A hidden industry and what outsiders should know19:28 What Silicon Valley gets wrong about manufacturing22:45 The workforce crisis and two narrative battles26:21 The shop that detonates bombs to fuse metal28:03 Why 65% of digital transformations fail31:50 What Structify actually does33:05 How it differs from a consultant36:20 Why people actually love change38:22 Finding real ROI, not AI for its own sake40:17 What day one looks like43:56 The five-year vision: make manufacturing badass45:36 What he's most proud of, and why Structify existsFind RonakLinkedIn: Ronak GandhiStructify: structify.com | — | ||||||
| 7/28/26 | Bob Teska | Dream Big, Success Is the Only Option | 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 TakeawaysStewardship 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.Chapters00:00 Welcome and Bob's unconventional road03:07 Icebreaker: the underdog movie05:50 Success is the only option06:53 What culture means to Bob08:42 A hard start in Syracuse10:03 College at 26 and the two teachers who believed in him15:13 Becoming a CPA and learning to network19:01 What ten years of turning wrenches taught him21:02 From advisor to operator23:02 Finding Dalen26:13 Walking into a broken culture30:47 Leadership is stewardship, not ownership33:07 Dalen 2.0: building the next fifty years33:50 Hiring out of halfway houses42:23 The owl that saved a NASA launch48:07 Bringing production back to Knoxville49:25 On the front page of the New York Times53:40 The next five to ten years55:39 What he wants to leave the next steward57:21 Dream bigFind BobLinkedIn: Bob TeskaDalen Products: dalenproducts.com | — | ||||||
| 7/21/26 | technologymanufacturing+4 | Alex Huckstepp | USC | San JoseCalifornia | manufacturingsoftware+5 | — | 44m 33s | ||
| 7/14/26 | manufacturingarchitecture+3 | Todd Drouillard | HED | Detroit | manufacturingarchitecture+3 | — | 37m 38s | ||
| 7/7/26 | resilienceentrepreneurship+4 | Anoosheh Oskouian | Ship & Shore EnvironmentalSouth Coast Air Quality Management District | IranDenver+1 | immigrationCEO+5 | — | 47m 06s | ||
| 7/3/26 | manufacturingAI in industry+3 | Chase AukerAndy Mears+1 | HexagonFirefly Aerospace+2 | — | manufacturingAI+3 | — | 51m 34s | ||
| 6/30/26 | manufacturingentrepreneurship+4 | Becca Wolfinger | Mill Spec Manufacturing | North Carolina | manufacturingentrepreneurship+5 | — | 35m 30s | ||
| 6/9/26 | manufacturing leadershipprecision machining+3 | Erich Baur | Nordstrand PrecisionPeace Corps | GuatemalaColorado Springs+2 | manufacturingleadership+5 | — | 55m 28s | ||
| 6/5/26 | manufacturingculture+3 | Chris Hutson | MaintainXFortune 500 | — | manufacturingculture gap+3 | — | 34m 01s | ||
| 6/2/26 | leadershiptoxic culture+4 | Johnny Goode | MSP | Bloomington, Indiana | leadershiptoxic culture+7 | — | 42m 52s | ||
| 5/26/26 | manufacturing cultureleadership+3 | Adam Crandall | Addtronicsprivate equity | — | manufacturingculture+5 | — | 47m 31s | ||
| 5/19/26 | manufacturingengineering+4 | Steven Gao | TeslaGM | ChinaGermany+1 | AI manufacturing engineertransformation+3 | — | 36m 05s | ||
| 5/12/26 | manufacturing culturetrust in leadership+3 | Dustin Bowe | P&G | — | manufacturingculture+5 | — | 54m 58s | ||
| 5/5/26 | manufacturingcareer journey+3 | Sam Fritz | Texas A&MKeyence+1 | — | manufacturingsales+3 | — | 53m 05s | ||
| 4/28/26 | manufacturinghands-on skills+4 | Kerry Burns | Mason Road Manufacturing | — | manufacturing skillslocal industry+5 | — | 39m 50s | ||
| 4/21/26 | manufacturing leadershipculture+3 | Aaron Kolosic | P&G | — | manufacturingleadership+5 | — | 40m 24s | ||
| 4/14/26 | company cultureprivate equity+4 | Todd Smith | AMFT | — | Todd SmithAMFT+5 | — | 44m 59s | ||
| 4/13/26 | quality in manufacturingchallenges in quality engineering+4 | Kieth BiegerTodd Prettyman+1 | DestacoGibson+1 | Nashville | qualitymanufacturing+5 | — | 46m 31s | ||
| 4/7/26 | machiningcraftsmanship+4 | Kyle Ellis | Torque Manufacturing | — | machiningTorque Manufacturing+5 | — | 26m 17s | ||
| 3/31/26 | supply chain managementworkplace culture+4 | Steve Shebuski | Manufacturing Culture Podcast | — | supply chainwarehousing+5 | — | 50m 25s | ||
| 3/24/26 | leadershipmanufacturing+4 | Kevin Tamanini | Manufacturing Culture PodcastAI | — | leadershipmanufacturing+6 | — | 54m 50s | ||
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