Manufacturing Mavericks

Greg McHale interviews Kylan Hastreiter, Vice President of Hastreiter Industries, located in Marshfield, WI. Kylan’s parents started the shop in the late 1980s in a hog shed with one Makino LeBlond lathe. Today, they specialize in complex parts for the aerospace industry and are a driving force in introducing young people in Wisconsin to manufacturing—even creating a makerspace for students at their facility. 
  • Every kid has a machine shop in their basement, right? ( 5:11)
  • Turning over the reins to the next generation & rebranding the business (8:13)
  • Introducing kids to STEM as part of the long game to build up a local workforce and a thriving manufacturing industry (12:48)
  • It’s fun to have the latest & greatest technology! (21:47)
  • Building a culture that embraces change  (24:55)
  • Investments that had the biggest impact (27:08)
  • Getting two machines for free  (29:22)
  • How Hastreiter Industries impacts Wisconsin’s cheese industry  (31:46)
  • Predictions for the next 7 years (33:58)
  • Kylan answers the classic  “What do you know now, that you wish you knew then” question. (37:14)
Links Referenced:

Creators & Guests

Host
Greg McHale
Greg founded Datanomix, a company delivering game-changing production insights and intelligence to manufacturers of discrete components. Datanomix was founded on the premise that the 4th industrial revolution would require turnkey products that integrate seamlessly with how manufacturers work today—not clunky workflows that depend on human input or complex data extraction. He brings enterprise data skills to a market ripe for innovation. Greg has held engineering leadership positions at several venture-backed companies and is a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Guest
Kylan Hastreiter
Vice President of Hastreiter Industries, a machine shop that make makes fancy parts and works to make a difference in our community.

What is Manufacturing Mavericks?

Manufacturing Mavericks aren’t afraid to shake things up and stand out from the crowd. They are embracing the best tools and technology to showcase world-class American manufacturing and grow their business.

Join Greg McHale, founder of Datanomix, as he sits down with these exceptional people to hear their stories and explore the important lessons they learned along the way. Listeners can gain valuable insights they can use in their own facilities to improve their bottom line.

Greg: [laugh] Wow, that’s impressive. And so, is that very first lathe still an asset somewhere on the shop floor?

Kylan: It is. Ironically, the Makino LeBlond lathe sits next to our 10-axis multitasking mill/turn CNC.

Greg: Wow.

Kylan: So, it’s not a Swiss lathe, but basically, you got five axes for the main spindle, five axes for the sub-spindle B-axis. And just one of the things that I love about that, like, that old Makino, like, still gets used, but, you know, when we have kids that come in in tours—and I think this comes back to just kind of who we are and our culture, but it’s like, if you’re going to be in a career or a field for 40 years, and you look at that manual lathe, and then you look at that 10-axis machine, you know, that machine is only 35 years apart. Actually, it’s 33 years apart, you know? So, you know, what is your career going to look like, you know, 20 years in? Are you progressing? Are you growing? You know, are you going to look like that 10-axis or are you going to look like that 2-axis? There’s still a purpose for that 2-axis, but one’s going to go further, make more.

Greg: What a great visual. I mean, I’m older than the 2-axis, Kylan, so you’re [laugh]—

Kylan: [laugh].

Greg: —kind of making me feel, making me feel like maybe I’ve got a little dust on me. But what a great, you know, way to anchor that conversation with new folks coming into the company is, these aren’t that far apart, and you can be one of these, or you can be one of those.

Kylan: And I find that when people fit into where their passions are at, they naturally do well because they want to learn, they want to grow, and even just, you know, looking at you with Datanomix, I don’t think there’s a speck of dust, you know? Not with, you know, just the world-class product that we’ve experienced with Datanomix. But you know, and it’s the same thing with the people that, you know, we employ, or the equipment that we use, and our vendors and our partners is, you know, that passion is evident, and you can typically see the fruits from it.

Greg: For sure. So, in terms of, you know, you getting started in the manufacturing, was it helping make parts in the hog shed, or where did the torch get lit for you?

Kylan: So, by the time I was three years old, we would have actually—my parents at that time had built a house, and the machine shop was actually in the basement of the house. So, we went from a hog shed to inside Marshfield where we were on Second Street, to then to the house. And so basically, it was an open-face basement with a machine shop in the basement. S o growing up from when I was three onwards, it was, hey, every kid’s got a machine shop in their basement, right?

Greg: [laugh].

Kylan: You know, the way that my parents existed was—because there’s really, when you have a family business, you know, on one end of the spectrum, kids can become entitled, and on the other end of the spectrum, they can become burnt out, and they don’t want anything to do with the family business. Really more of that happy medium was, you know, we were in the shop, we would be sanding parts, I remember being super young kid, you know, pulling parts out of the Mazak, you know because it was being, you know, bar-pulled, and parts were just getting spat out in the parts catcher. You know, it’s like, I remember doing stuff when I was a kid, but my parents really kind of pushed us to say, “You don’t need to be part of the business. Go be who you’re designed to be, who you’re meant to be, you don’t have to be here.” You know? We helped out in the shop when it was really needed, but it was kind of that balance.

And so, the manufacturing was always there, and I think that the things that make manufacturing successful, you know, that efficiency mindset, and you know, just things like that was instilled in us. And so, I think that’s what happens sometimes is, you know, how you were raised, you’re raised in a way that all of a sudden, you realized, “Oh, I was actually kind of raised for the things that my parents came out of, just because that’s where they came out of.” And so, we weren’t really forced into the business, but it just became a natural fit, when I finished college, and just decided that, you know, with what the company wanted to do, not just from a growth perspective, but manufacturing, and making really cool parts, but also what we could do in the community with the business. And from a nonprofit perspective, we’ve launched a makerspace in town to give kids exposure to manufacturing and engineering. And you know, so I think that’s where a lot of that passion, kind of—it wasn’t necessarily—I wasn’t passionate about manufacturing when I was a kid, but it grew into it, especially based off of what we were able to do with the business.

Greg: Wow. Yeah, several great things you brought up there that I definitely want to tunnel into, Kylan. I think the contrast, you know, you suggested about family businesses and what can happen, right, you can be spoiled, you can be burnt out, or you can be somewhere in the middle, I think that’s definitely a risk, and certainly something I’ve seen in family businesses right there. Sometimes folks just don’t want to be a part of it at all. Sometimes they want to be a part of the benefits, but maybe they don’t want to put the work in, and the happy place is somewhere in between those two poles, for sure.

Now, you mentioned around 2016 is when you got involved in the business; sounds like your siblings did as well. So, kind of, what happened there? So, you went to college, figuring out, you know, what really do you want to be, and you all ended up being drawn back to the business. And then sounds like you rebranded, probably some strategy and decisions that happened there, so take us through that.

Kylan: I finished my education and business administration in 2016. My final semester, I was actually studying abroad in the Middle East, and so got back to Wisconsin in June. And my brother, my older brother started in May the month before. And I mean, we were walking in and there’s four CNC machines, and basically, a small… but significant operations, I guess you could say. And it was pretty much just, “All right, guys. Well, we got to do sales, we got to do marketing, we got to do this, this, and that, and let’s figure it out.”

And so, it was a lot of just figuring it out. There was, you know, one role that Keegan started, my older brother, that then I ended up taking on because it just—we just kind of shook into our roles. And even to this day, like, what he does, I wouldn’t want to do what I do, and what I do, you know, he doesn’t want to do. And then my little brother went through the same machine tool program at the technical college that my father went through, and so then he’s—so then my younger brother started full time in 2017, the year later. So, it wasn’t until 2018 that we rebranded from UTM to Hastreiter Industries, particularly from the perspective, as a couple-fold, you know, what was the meaning behind UTM, and you know, our website was UTM Machining, so it was Universal Tool and Machine Machining.

Like, it just didn’t encompass where we’re going as an organization, and what our vision was for being able to really make impact, whether it was with our work environment, our employees, within the community, to our customers, et cetera. And you know, and ultimately, when you have a multifaceted vision, what do you call that organization? And for us, you know, if we put our name on it, there’s nothing to hide behind. Who we are is our name, and so that’s why we rebranded and renamed to Hastreiter Industries. And even if you look at our logo, it’s a lowercase ‘h’ and a lowercase ‘i’ put together to be a capital H.

And essentially what I get at with that—and I’ll use this analogy. If we were the only machine shop in America, could we function? Absolutely not because there’d be no vendor support, there would be no, you know, supply chain, there would b—you know, and so it’s not hard to make the conclusion, then, is that, you know, with your customers, your vendors, your employees, your community, the schools—well, even the schools and us are part of the community—that all of that together can be synergistic to be made bigger, you know, just like that lowercase ‘h’ and lowercase ‘i’ can never be bigger until you put them together to be capitalized. So, it’s a little bit symbolic, just from, you know, our philosophy as a business, and really how much further we can go together with the right partners.

Greg: I love how you went so far as to encapsulate that even in the design of your logo, I know how important culture is to your company. You know, I’ve walked the shop floor, I’ve met many of your team members, and I—you know, you talked about community several times there. So, you mentioned earlier, you invested in a makerspace, you bring students in on tours, it sounds like. Tell us more about, really, the culture of the shop, and the culture of the community, and what you guys are trying to build out there and why you’ve put your name behind that.

Kylan: So, I think the culture is—I mean, most cultures are always—should be dynamic, at least. On one side of the coin, there’s the culture that stems from just why do we exist as a business, and that comes into the flavor of—you know, so from our personal philosophy, really, the order of importance is God, family, work, right? So, work is an important part of what we do, right, but the family business doesn’t own the people. The people are all here to serve the business, and then we all win together. And then from the results of our resources we’re able to invest back into the community, so for example, you know, the Mid-State Technical College new machine tool lab that’s being sponsored by Hastreiter Industries, you know, that’s just an example of getting back from a financial perspective, but it really should be more than just, you know, financial in my perspective.

So, when we look at, you know, the local schools, it’s working with the schools and supporting them and their education program and the technical education. And you know, so like, for example, at the makerspace, I use the example of, you know, if you think about your typical high school—and we have a very good school system in Wisconsin, when you look at state rankings—is even when you look at those schools, you go to your fi-ed class, and you have how many sports to choose from? Ten? And then you go to your tech-ed department, and how many clubs do you have? Zero? One? Two? So, why are you surprised if you don’t have workforce, right? So, either we can be part of the solution, or you just, you know, cry about it.

Greg: I know you guys don’t cry about it [laugh].

Kylan: [laugh] Thanks. So, Ken and Sondra, so my parents started a nonprofit back in 2011, that division started 2013, that it actually became a 501(c)(3). Shiloh Bound is the nonprofit. So, you can kind of tell there’s things that we do, there’s long-term vision behind what we do as an organization.

And so, the operating entity of the makerspace is called C2. It stands for ‘Collaborate and Create.’ So, the loc—so we created the, it’s an industry-driven makerspace that services multiple school districts from one location, so there’s an economies of scale. So, there’s the machining pod, the laser pod—so it’s like a laser cutter-engraver—a fabrication pod. And the pods are like the technology groups: engineering and electronics pod, 3D printing, there’s now a textiles pod that’s being added because all these different pods are reflective of local industry.

And so, now industry has sponsored all these different pods—or are in the process of sponsoring as we’re adding the textile pod right now—and so now you think about, you know, who teaches? So, now we have a metalworking club, a robotics club, junior level, senior level, we have a technical theater and cosplay club, which is an interesting one. And then there’s additional clubs. So, now all of a sudden, there’s all these extracurricular clubs that the kids never had. So, now when you have the metalworking club or the 3D printing club, and they say, “Hey, I want to go use that machine over there that removes metal. Oh, it’s a lathe?”

Okay, so who’s teaching, you know, that machining level one, level two, level three? It’s people from industry, people from Hastreiter Industries. Relationships get built. You know, think about Boy Scouts, who teaches the nuclear science merit badges? The radiologist, right? You know, so now we’re thinking about it from a STEM perspective for manufacturing, for engineering, for things like, you know, whether it’s the metalwork and electronics, the wiring, the coding, whatever it is, people from industry, and those relationships get built.

And businesses are scary to most kids, and so all of a suddenly, they’re learning some really fun stuff, and they’re showing up out of their own passion. I mentioned passion earlier. These kids are showing up out of their own passion to make things, to design things, to learn things, on their own time. It’s extracurricular, and it’s very open-ended so they’re able to apply their passion in creative ways, and also in collaborative ways. So, there’s a lot of soft skill development.

And so, now they build those relationships, and they say, “Hey, I’m really excited about, you know, Technology A. Oh, you’re a company that uses Technology A in the industrial park down the road?” Where are they going to want to work? Now, they’re going to want to work at that company. They’re going to do their youth apprenticeship there. So, Wisconsin has a very strong youth apprenticeship program, that you can do your junior, senior year. Basically, you can get school credit, and go to work and get paid for it. It’s a Department of Workforce Development Program as well.

And so, now these kids, you know, it becomes almost a form of advanced career counseling, as well. And now, I mean, if you think about, you know, the opportunity as a business, where you might be working with these kids in a club for years before they even come and work for you. So, there’s already been a level of mentorship that’s ahead before they even start working at your company, which is immensely powerful.

Greg: You talk about passion in others, Kylan. I mean, I just heard it in you. That’s, you know, your desire to not just sit back and hope that people want to get into manufacturing, that they want to get into design and engineering, that they want to make stuff. You’re making it happen. I mean, and it’s not just like, “Hey, here’s a scholarship for a seat at a community college,” right, which is kind of the, you know, the standard or easy answer. I mean, this makerspace sounds like a fantastic time. Is there somewhere people can go to see what it looks like and what programs are available.

Kylan: Yeah, the website is c2makerspace.com. So, it’s the letter C and the number two makerspace dot com. And then there’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. There’s social media for it.

And so, we’re based out of Marshfield, Wisconsin, where we’re located right now, and it’s good to have things like those scholarships, but not every problem can be solved with just raw dollars. I was just going to say in the example at the makerspace, you know, it was higher education partnered with K through 12, partnered with industry, partnered with the Chamber of Commerce, you know? And every type of institution has inherent strengths, inherent weaknesses, and we just put all that together, and we made something happen. And, you know, and it’s making an impact. You know, it’s educational for the students, it’s workforce development for us and the community, and with it being so collaborative between these types of institutions that’s that synergy that I was talking about earlier.

Greg: What you did was incredible that you literally looked at the gaps at every level of the equation, I mean, you started with not enough clubs and interest at the high school level, right? Not a physical place to go, even hang out and try to make it happen. No access to the equipment to get an interest in it if you wanted to, and then no obvious place of where to go if you wanted to try your skills, the workforce program that you leverage, and then the real conversations inside of businesses that, like you said, are typically scary, like, “Oh, that’s a place that big, old people go to do things, and that’s not somewhere I go.” But you’ve literally created on-ramps from all the different components of the ecosystem where people could possibly generate an interest, and you know, like I said, I can tell you can do it out of just an absolute genuine passion for seeing, you know, solutions to these problems coming to fruition, and not just saying, “Hey, you know, this is the hand we’re dealt.” It is beyond impressive. So definitely, you know, folks should check out that C2 Makerspace. I’m sure it’s very impressive, and I’m guessing you have even bigger visions for it as your programs continued to deliver success.

Kylan: Basically, December was our soft launch, last December, so a year ago, and then we’ve been going through, ramping up the programs, adding clubs, adding additional pods, like, the textile pod that I mentioned, the textile pod, for example, like, we have textile manufacturing, in this area for pop-up tents, for campers, we have shoe manufacturing. So, there’s all sorts of unique applications that we don’t even necessarily think about from a metalworking perspective, right, but the kid that is meant to be a machinist, they got to get an opportunity to get in there and be that. The kid that’s meant to, you know, be, you know, career B, C, D, E, et cetera, if we can give them an exposure, we’re getting the right people plugged in the right locations. And ultimately—not ultimately, but when we looked at the statistics, when we look at Wisconsin, we have the highest concentration of manufacturing out of any state. Like, manufacturing is what we do.

Then, when we look at Central Wisconsin, is a four-county area, we grew by 0.1% population from 2014, 2019. That meant the average county was growing by under 25 people a year. And there’s 100,000 people that are retirement age right now. And so, manufacturing is actually the largest industry in Central Wisconsin, but the people are growing up in these communities not understanding the reality of their own community.

They didn’t know that manufacturing is the largest industry, and plus they just assume that it’s dirty, it’s dark, it’s not well lit, it’s not safe, it doesn’t pay well. But then when you finish looking at the statistics, the average job in manufacturing in Central Wisconsin paid 65k a year across all education levels. So, it was also the largest employer, fastest growing, but we weren’t growing our population. And then it comes back to the fact that we just weren’t retaining our people. They’re leaving the area.

Why are they leaving? Because they don’t know about the opportunities. They didn’t have the clubs, they didn’t have the pathway. If people are leaving the area and getting good paying jobs, that’s a success, but we know that’s not the case, when people have degrees that they can’t find work for, which means there’s opportunity for improvement. Just like in manufacturing, we have continuous improvement, and we’re always trying to make things better.

Like, if we’re not doing that for our community, then we’re leaving opportunity on the table, you know, whether it’s workforce development, just pure betterment of life, et cetera. And so, when I looked at the demographics, like a lot of companies in our area are in trouble right now already from trying to find a workforce, but it’s going to be that much worse ten years from now, 15 years from now, so we have to do something now. So, that we can solve, really, tomorrow’s challenge.

Greg: Brilliantly stated, Kylan, and one of the most innovative responses I’ve seen from a singular company, no less, you know, to try to address these challenges. Hats off to you, and I really hope that through the course of discussing this, and even through this episode, you know, maybe there are other company owners, leaders that are interested in potentially trying to understand and replicate that model in their own regions because I think you have very cleverly and creatively hit at the core root of the issue, in the form of awareness and opportunity.

Kylan: I appreciate that. And going back to your earlier statement about, you know, having big plans for the makerspace, that is the opportunity that we have is to replicate this model in other communities to make a difference in our country.

Greg: For sure. Really, really awesome, awesome chapter there, Kylan, and going through your view on community, and investment, and obviously, how that plays into culture and what goes on inside the four walls of your facility. I know another passion topic for you is technology. So, how do you see technol—I mean you talked about the 10-axis machine, right, so I know, we’re going to go to some cool places here, but how do you see technology as part of the culture of your shop? And how do you think about investments in technology?

Kylan: I mean, so you know, the first thing is that depending upon the type of markets you serve, the type of work that you do, at the end of the day, you have to have the right tools for the type of work that you do. So, the type of industries that we primarily serve is aerospace, defense, space, energy such as power generation, then we also do industrial equipment, you know, whether it’s parts for automation applications, machinery, and as well as medical is more of a growing market for us—typically, medical parts that are not left in the body, but are, like, medical devices—and then a very, very small amount of just other industries. And so, for us, especially with the markets that we serve, you know, we do, you know, 5-axis milling, 3-axis of course too, we do 2 to 4-axis turning, 5-axis mill/turn. You know, most of our lathes, you know, live tooling, sub-spindle, y-axis. I mentioned Ken got his first CNC lathe back in 1991, so we’ve always had that philosophy of if we’re going to buy another machine, it’s got to be able to service the future, in terms of capacity, sizing the machine, capability, et cetera.

You know, when you walk into our door, you know, we’ve got a bunch of our partner brands up for equipment that we use, and I just like to do that from the standpoint of, it’s kind of like, if you see a dealership, they got all the brands up? Well, for us, we don’t have our own product line; we’re making other people’s parts for them. We don’t get to put their names up. Well, we have one aerospace customer [laugh] that said we could. Shout out to Stratolaunch. You know, so you know, there’s Matsuura, [Kuma 00:23:10], there’s an [Altronix 00:23:11] mat on the floor, got Mazaks, you know?

And so, we just have the different equipment for the right works. We have such a variety of work, such a variety of parts. That technology then is just baked into our culture of—[sigh] I mean, frankly, it’s just, it is fun having the latest and greatest, right? The average person would rather drive a Ferrari than a beater, right? And so, a lot of the experiences we have with just bringing best-in-class products on board is like that, you know? The Matsurras, the Datanomix, High QA is our quality software, things like that.

But what it does is it creates a digital ecosystem that preps us for the future to be able to—and we’re starting to see those synergies now between the different products and what we’re able to pull together and get pictures that we could never see before. And for us with our culture, you know, I talked about the community being one side of our culture and being able to make a difference, but that other side is just that technology to be—you know, you walk in and there’s epoxy floors and bright LED lights and mist collectors that keep the environment clean, and people are like, “Man, I could eat off this floor,” and I’m like, “Shoot, it hasn’t been cleaned, you know, in three days. Like, it’s kind of dirty.” Like, you know, like, because we have this expectation and this standard. And you know, and sometimes we hold ourselves to a higher standard than maybe what the customer would, you know, sometimes want, you know, but that reflects and just our quality, right?

Because that technology turns into efficiency and quality of product to be able to deliver. You know, we’re ISO 9001, AS9100… you know, and it’s all reflected in that. But from a culture perspective, when we look at what we’ve done for a talent supply chain, there isn’t a surplus of machinists in Central Wisconsin. There isn’t. Like, you can’t just hire an experienced machinist, right?

But our average machinist age is in the 30s. Why? Because we’ve grown our—we’ve grown our talent pipeline. We’ve trained people in from youth apprenticeship up. We’ve got the experienced person, we’ve got the young person. And even the most experienced person that I thought would be really resistant to change, he just rolled with it these last seven years, and he’s been with us for 22 years. And, you know, I mean, the first majority of his career with us, it was just the same, right? But since 2016, there’s been a lot of change. And you know, so we ha—so, like, the guys, if we go three months without something changing, like, they get antsy. “When is something new happening?”

Greg: There’s the perfect description of technology into the culture, right? They are anticipating positive disruption because they’re expecting that you’re trying to make things better.

Kylan: And it comes down to two things, to what you’re saying about making things better, right? If you have a relationship with the people that you work with, and depending on your size, it’s hard to make a relationship with every single person, depending on your size, but you at least have a reputation with every single person. And a lot of that reputation is going to be based off of the relationships you do have, right? So, making the change, getting people to have buy-in for new technology, it does start with your relationship with the people on the floor, and your coworkers, your managers, your bosses, et cetera. And the second thing is just communication.

You’re not bringing in technology to make their life harder. At least you shouldn’t be, right? If it’s done right, it’s going to make their life better from some perspective. And so, when it’s communicated in a way that makes sense to them, and they have buy-in, and you ask their opinion, or you let them know that this is what they’re looking at, so they have the opportunity to speak up and throw in ideas, you have the buy-in, and eventually that builds. You know, so because we have that, I don’t know if you just want to call it repertoire, you know, they just, they expect that change to be positive in some way.

Greg: That’s incredible. I mean, anticipating changes in technology is definitely not something I hear about all over the place. And you know, being able to eat off the shop floor can definitely do that in your shop. If you want to see what that’s not like, you’re welcome to [laugh] come on the road with me sometime, [laugh] Kylan. Maybe you’ll feel even better about your floor.

Kylan: I got pictures of the hog shed [laugh].

Greg: Definitely don’t want to eat out of that.

Kylan: [laugh].

Greg: So, Kylan, I mean, obviously, again, technology, hugely passionate about it, you’ve got your people anticipating investments. It sounds like you’ve almost turned it into a game for them of, they’re going to get antsy if they don’t see something new. So, what are some of the biggest investments you have made in the last year or two, and which ones have been the most impactful for you?

Kylan: Um, so I guess when you say biggest, it can be looked at from two different perspectives—I mean, multiple perspectives, but you know, one is just the raw size of it, and another one would just be, like, what the total ROI would be. I mean, there’s quite a few different technologies I could discuss. One is actually an acquisition that I’ll talk about, but from a large investment perspective, we acquired our first Matsuura 5-axis mills in summer of ’21, which would have been, mmm, about ten months before we brought Datanomix on board. And we’ve since just added a Matsuura MX-330 PC10, so it’s a smaller 5-axis machine with a pallet pool, which is just finishing—it’s actually the probes are being installed today. And you know what—I mean, so those are, I mean, and those two, the first two Matsuuras that we bought as a pair, they are two of our most booked machines. Very, very productive, very busy machines.

But—and this kind of comes down to, you know, pairing technologies together—is, you know, with Datanomix, one of its values for us has just been getting more spindle utilization out of our machines, right, increasing production. Instead of having to buy another machine last year, we looked at the data, said, “Oh, I just need to upskill somebody to get another person on these machines, increase our output, and then, you know, basically upskill everybody else, you know, kind of across the shop,” because the Matsuuras are higher end machines, and you don’t just, you know, hop on those machines. You take some of the more experienced people and train them onto those machines.

So, then it wasn’t until a year later, then I did finally buy another Matsuura because, you know, we just looked at the data and said, “Hey, this is when we actually need to buy another machine,” even though our capacity was maxed, right? Because people will come to you and say, “Hey, we need to do this or that,” right? You know, if you’re an owner you’ll get managers that’ll say, “Hey, we need to buy another machine.” “Well, why do we need to buy another machine?” “Well, our capacity is maxed out.” “Well, why is our capacity maxed out?” They think it’s purely machine, right?

But, you know, the more data you have, the more you’re able to get some additional perspective to be able to look into making the best decision possible. And we’ve experienced that by having, you know, the data available through Datanomix. And so, you know, if you’re able to—you know, so if you’ve got 20 machines, and you basically get a 10% boost out of it, well, that’s two machines for free. Well, not for free, but for a [laugh] very, very—

Greg: [laugh].

Kylan: —low price, through Datanomix, right, because you didn’t have to go and buy whatever price machine it is that you typically buy. So, we’ve been very, very happy with, kind of, that whole process and investment, you know, from one investment kind of tying into another investment, and ironically, delaying the other investment by a year because it just turned out we didn’t need to actually hit it—need it that one year. And obviously, that’s positive for cash flow. In other areas of investment, we actually acquired a sister company, May 9th of last year, and that company is more in the welding and fabricating world. And they’re literally located kitty-corner across the street. It’s the geograph—the geographical footprint is beautiful. So, it’s really more of a campus that we have now.

And so, we’ve brought and so our customer base needs welding and fabricating as well, and so with the extreme amount of quality for the product lines that we have over there—we build fire trucks, for example, dump trucks, municipal trucks, and then we distribute and repair transportation tanks for hauling milk—and so with the fabrication expertise that we have there for building, you know, quality products like that, you know, we’ve brought that in-house and Hastreiter Industries now, so now we’re able to do, you know, really full-service assemblies, welding, fabricating, you know? So, that’s been a significant investment for us, but that’s led to, you know, machining opportunities, too, because we’re just able to do everything in-house. We have a fiber laser now, you know? So, there’s [laugh] a lot that is going on in our organization from an investment perspective, a little bit across the board.

Greg: That new business you acquired, I mean, location, like you say, couldn’t be better: right across the street extends the footprint, and just what incredible, beautiful trucks that come out of your work. I mean, the posts that I see on LinkedIn from, you know, different rigs and builds that you guys have put together are just gorgeous.

Kylan: I appreciate that.

Greg: And interesting to know, you know, a good chunk of the businesses is milk hauling, which if you’re from outside Wisconsin, might surprise you [laugh], but from inside Wisconsin, probably not, right?

Kylan: Yeah, we make about 11% of the milk, and somewhere around 25% of the cheese produced in the US.

Greg: And some of the best cheese, too. You pointed me in the right direction, last time I was there, on that topic. Actually going to go into crack that open for Christmas in just a few days, the 16-year aged cheddar, so my family has been looking forward to that.

Kylan: That is good stuff, yep. That old of cheddar, you’re going to have, like, the little crystals in there, and it’s going to be sharp. That’s going to be good cheese. Every state has something special to it, you know? I remember when I was down south, it’s like, man, you can get seafood that you can’t get nearly as good as Wisconsin, but then I pick up some cheese, and I’m like, “I can’t eat this.”

You know, just a little spoiled up here with the cheese. I tried. I tried eating it. I literally couldn’t. Every state’s got their special a—you know what makes them special. And that’s a big part of what we’ve seen in Wisconsin is just the huge amount of metal manufacturing, and that’s just part of what we’re a part of.

Greg: I’ll definitely let you know how my family enjoys that—

Kylan: Good. Good.

Greg: —aged cheddar. I’m really, really looking forward to it. So, you know, Kylan, we’ve covered a bunch of different topics: you know, the business starting in a hog shed; you getting involved in, you know, helping unload parts, sanding parts at a very young age; you and your siblings deciding, you know what, we do want to get involved in the business, you know, we want to make strategic impact; I think the makerspace movement, your contributions to the community, just absolutely awesome; your continued investments in technology, the new machines, the software, the digitization efforts that you have underway; I mean, you’ve done a lifetime of things in seven years [laugh] of getting involved in helping to strategically transform the business. So, with all that you’ve already done in the rearview mirror, I mean, what do you think the next seven years is going to look like? Where are you trying to position yourself to get to?

Kylan: You know, so the first thing that I’ll say is to not discount what’s already gotten us here. You know, one example with that is, you know, so it’s great to talk about new markets, new customers, things like that, but you can’t we have, we can never discount everybody else that got us here, right? Whether it’s a small customer or big customer, you got to treat them the same because if you got one single brick missing from a ginormous house, everyone’s going to feel it. You’re going to notice it. And so, even a small customer that’s the size of only one brick, so to speak, still equally important.

And so, continuing to build off of what we have from new markets, new products. And so, we just actually got our AS9100 certification last month, and so I actually haven’t even fully released the PR on that yet. And so, you know, so that creates new opportunities, new doors for us. We’re just in the process of actually, you know, sharing and relaying out there that we have welding services, fabricating services, laser cutting. We’ve got these two different certifications for welding one for pressure vessels, one’s for structural, so forth, you know?

We’re just getting into the point where we’re going to start communicating these things, you know? So, now we’re in a position where we’re going to continue to invest in machining, continue to look at new technologies like Swiss lathes for when it makes sense with one particular customer that we have, et cetera. So, continue to invest in our core competencies, but build on these other capabilities that we have to really allow us to scale to a whole new size. And why that’s exciting to me is, that scaling up gives you a bigger footprint, and a bigger footprint allows for, not just a different kind of impact, but a different size of impact. You know, whether it’s within our organization, or outside of our organizations, with customers, the community et cetera.

But I really believe that the synergies that we have with the company we acquired and adding these new capabilities—I mean, we build fire trucks, for Pete’s sake. You open that up, look at all the wiring in that. For these customers in the aerospace world and other industries, industrial equipment, you know, we can do full-service assemblies for them, from the machining to the fabricating to the wiring and so forth. And I think that’s where a lot of the excitement for us is going to be, and growth over the next several years.

Greg: A culmination of all the technologies you’ve gotten in place, all the ways you’ve thought about serving the industries that you serve, and really doing that at 3x, 5x, 10x the size. That’s awesome. I’m looking forward to watching you and family and your team grow into that. I know you’ll get there. I can see it, you know, so intrinsically obvious in your culture and your approach to growth, and problem-solving, and customer satisfaction, and quality, so I have no doubt that will be a true story. And if we do another episode three years from now, we’ll be talking about three more acquisitions, 30 more machines, and who knows what else, right [laugh]?

Kylan: [laugh] I appreciate that.

Greg: Yeah, absolutely. So, the question we always like to wrap with here, Kylan, is if you went back in time, and you could talk to the version of, you know, when that manufacturing torch was first lit, with everything you’ve learned on this journey, what advice would you give yourself?

Kylan: I think that is a paradoxical question because if I were to go back and give my former self advice, it would change my former self, which means an unknown version of myself would now be giving advice back to my former self.

Greg: [laugh] And does it involve a DeLorean?

Kylan: So, [sigh] so I can’t tell you what that unknown self would say to former self, you know, but you know, the reality is that, you know, all those experiences, and all the things that we’ve learned, and I’ve learned over the last several years, and even before then, we take that, and we—because I’m happy with where we’re at. There’s always room for improvement, don’t get me wrong, but you know, I’m thankful to God we’re where I’m at, where we’re at. But we take all those other experiences, and we apply it to the here-and-the-now for the future. And some of those areas that we have that we’re growing in, whether it’s capacity, new technologies, KPIs on the floor, managing personalities and relationships, and I just, [sigh] I don’t think I’d even have the capability to go back and tell myself something because it still got me to who I am today, and it goes [laugh] back to that paradox, I guess. But, you know, and that’s just… and, you know, we’ll just continue looking ahead and applying what we’ve learned.

Greg: I love that answer, Kylan, because that’s almost the same answer I would give, even though—

Kylan: [laugh].

Greg: —[laugh] I’m the one that asks the question. Because, you know, you’re a dynamic and adaptive problem solver, right, and you understand that accumulated change, accumulated knowledge, and accumulated improvement is basically irreplaceable through a singular piece of wisdom or advice. And I appreciate the nuance of that answer because I think you’re a hundred percent correct. It’s really what your answer is, be you, learn the way you learn, incorporate the information, get smarter, get faster, get better.

Kylan: You know, but what we do have the opportunity is not just applying it to ourselves moving forward at a current age, but we have the opportunity to mentor and talk to the people that are younger. And I think that’s one of the big opportunities isn’t you know, to be able to go back and talk to people that are 20 years old, they are 16 years old, you know, they are trying to figure out life, and to give them advice that just, I never got when I was that age. And that’s, I think, one of the things that I especially enjoy as well about working with the schools, the tours, the community, things like that.

Greg: Great perspective there, and you know, definitely enjoy doing the same, and starting to figure out that I think I’m becoming the old guy now in a lot of contexts.

Kylan: [laugh].

Greg: [laugh] But all for the better.

Kylan: It just means you have a lot to offer.

Greg: In theory, right? We’ll see if we can reduce that to practice. So, Kylan, I’ve really appreciated having you on the show, learning more about your culture, your contributions to the community, the way you think about technology, your love and passion for the manufacturing industry, and how truly you, your family, your team members are pouring into the town, the state, the industry to keep things thriving in America. That is exactly what we mean when we talk about Manufacturing Mavericks, so thank you for making the show a better one through your experiences and your contributions, and really great talking to you today.

Kylan: Thank you for having me, Greg. This was an absolute pleasure.

Greg: Awesome. Take care, Kylan.

Kylan: You too.

Greg: Thank you for listening to Manufacturing Mavericks. If you’d like to learn more, listen to past episodes, or nominate a future Maverick to be on our show, visit mfgmavericks.com, and don’t forget to subscribe to and rate this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app.