Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
We’ve all heard of him, and you’ve seen him everywhere with his red microphone as he visits manufacturers and suppliers worldwide, but now you’ll get to REALLY know him on this podcast episode!
America’s Manufacturing MC, Tony Gunn, shares how his internal optimism comes from many failures in life. Tony started from very humble beginnings and almost became a professional athlete, but his trajectory changed to machinist out of necessity from an early surprise in life. His passion for manufacturing and entertainment keeps Tony returning to the shop floor to capture the stories of manufacturers as Director of Global Operations for MTDCNC and the host of The Gunn Show Podcast.
SHOW NOTES:
- Manufacturing was an accident (6:42)
- Money moves inspire personal growth but also a lot of stress (9:32)
- Tony asks himself what he really wants out of life (11:29)
- Coding with the best of them (12:33)
- Karma is a you-know-what (17:18)
- Pursuing happiness over financial freedom (18.33)
- Tony has explored the world of manufacturing in its full entity for ten years (26:00)
- “Media” was also an accident, and it didn’t happen overnight (31:00)
- Helping to expand the MTDCNC into a global brand and building his team of North American presenters (34:00)
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.
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: Welcome to this episode of Manufacturing Mavericks. I’m your host, Greg McHale. As the founder of Datanomix, I’ve had the privilege of visiting hundreds of shops all across the country and in those visits, I have met some of the most incredible and innovative people in this industry. Our goal with the Manufacturing Mavericks podcast is to highlight those leaders, those mavericks of manufacturing who are innovating not just with technology but with culture, people, and process too, so we can all learn not just what they do but why they do it. We’ll dig into what got them into manufacturing, what fires them up to go to work every single day and pour their blood, sweat, and tears into keeping the manufacturing dream alive in our country.
Greg: With that, I am honored to introduce today’s Manufacturing Maverick, Tony Gunn from MTDCNC, an episode I’ve been looking forward to for a really long time. Welcome to the show, Tony. How you doing today?
Tony: Living a dream, brother. Something I’ve been looking forward to for a while as well. Thanks for having me.
Greg: You bet. So Tony, the first question we always have to ask you is, what country are you in right now?
Tony: [laugh]. That is a very solid question. I’m actually home in South Florida today. Dedicated my time to you, Greg.
Greg: That is unbelievable. So, at home, South Florida. How’s the weather in South Florida this time of year? Steamy?
Tony: You know, everyone complains. They’re like, “Oh, Florida, the summer must be the worst.” Everyone says it, right? And I’m like, “Dude, I’m right on the coastline.” We’re 70 to 90 all year long. When I grew up in Virginia, when I grew up in D.C. And Carolina, we were in the hundreds several weeks out of the year, so all things considered. I’m not mad about the summers here. I’m definitely not mad about the winters.
Greg: That’s because you are an eternal optimist, which is one of the things—
Tony: [laugh].
Greg: That we all love about you.
Tony: Ehh, so true [laugh]. It comes from a lot of failure, though, Greg. I got—[laugh]—there’s a lot of failures. It’s like, well, you could either complain about it, or you could figure out how you learn from it. So, I remain an optimist in that way. You are not wrong [crosstalk 00:02:26].
Greg: They just call that experience [laugh].
Tony: Yeah. Well, got a lot of that.
Greg: So, Tony. I mean, folks know you as the International Man of Mystery. I call you the MC of American manufacturing. You’re everywhere with that red microphone, visiting great shops, great manufacturers, great products, all over the country—all over the world—and bringing light onto the story of manufacturing, and who are the people, and what drives them, and what are the innovations that you’re coming up with. And I think one of the really interesting things is that a lot of people look at folks in your position, as an MC or broadcaster, whatever you want to call it, and some people are like, “Man, those people, they just grab the attention. They’re just out there, you know, they just talk in the microphone and, you know, they’re just a good-looking face, and did they really even know anything?” And every time I’ve seen a post like that on LinkedIn that involves you, I try to be one of the first comments. It’s like, “Guys, Tony knows what the hell he’s talking about.” [laugh].
Tony: [laugh]. Thank you for that.
Greg: Tony’s an expert in manufacturing, from your early career in it, but then also, I mean, you just have so much exposure to so many different businesses, and products, and innovators out there. So, I think it would be great in this episode for us to hit on two things. I think the first thing, Tony, is to learn about, how did Tony Gunn get into manufacturing? What did you learn? How did you climb the ranks, and then how did that ultimately turn into you wanting to do what you do today with MTDCNC and helping tell those great stories of manufacturing?
And then I think a fantastic chapter two would be to talk about some of the best technologies, innovations, cultures, practices you’ve seen from the—I’ve been to hundreds of shops, so I have to believe you’ve been to over a thousand? Maybe a couple thousand, and I think it’d be great to pick your brain on some of those. How does that sound, Tony.
Tony: Let’s do it, man. I’m excited. I’m happy to be here. I love sharing the story. If it motivates one person, if it inspires one person, I think we’ve done our job today. So yeah, thanks for hosting this. Thanks for asking the right questions, and yeah, this will be a fun story today, especially since I consider you a good friend, anyway.
I mean, you and I got to go to a Dolphins game together, you’ve been on my podcast a couple of times. Your technology is incredible. I’ve got to spend time in machine shops talking about Datanomix and what machine monitoring has done for them. So, for me today, this is just a joy, having a—I’m drinking water today, but I say, having a glass of water with a friend.
Greg: [laugh]. Yeah. Well, you know, at the end, we can try to do the official Gunn Show, VIP Bourbon toast. I got a little bit—
Tony: Oh goodness.
Greg: Behind the shelf behind me in my office [laugh].
Tony: I got some sake in the fridge. I might have to go sake today.
Greg: Let’s do it. All right, Tony. The man behind the machine, how’d you get into manufacturing? What kind of stuff have you done? Take us through the journey.
Tony: Yeah, I’d love to. And to be fair, bits and pieces of this story I’ve shared, kind of to give teasers to people when they—I just throw them out in an interview or the podcast. Like, “When I was a machinist and I did so-and-so”—it’s like, well, what’s the full story, Tony? Damn it, tell me the whole story. So—
Greg: That’s why I’m here.
Tony: So, I’m going to try my best to condense this in a way that’s still enjoyable, while not elaborating so much that we’re here for the next five days, which we certainly could be with my journey, Greg. So, I’ll do my best. But you know, I didn’t mean to, man. Um, I got into manufacturing completely on accident. I say this often.
I thought for sure I was going to be a pro athlete. Like, I didn’t care about school. I was a dummy in high school. I got kicked out of three colleges because all I cared about was soccer, and some of the other [explicitives 00:06:28] that might go into college life. But I mean, that was, I was at that level, right?
I was, you know, I was the MVP of my team as a freshman, I was the sixth leading scorer in the nation for JUCO as a freshman. My sophomore year in college, I was on the, like, all Big East team or something like that. I mean, my path was paved. And I was even on, like, practice squads for the professional teams before I stopped playing. And manufacturing was an accident.
I was a very, very young father—unintentionally, but to be fair, was also a true gift that probably saved my life—but unintentionally a young father. And the history of work that I had done up until the story I’m about to share was life guarding, two weeks at, like, a McDonald’s so I could pay for prom, and a few months as a manager at Pizza Hut while I was in college. Like, life guarding was my thing to do, really, and I love that job, actually. I wish I could have done—I wish I could have been a Baywatch, you know? That would be an awesome career.
Greg: [laugh]. You probably could have been.
Tony: And I was—you know, [laugh] this is way off-topic, but when you graduated high school, did you get any of those, like, superlatives or whatever they are?
Greg: Yes.
Tony: You know, like, funniest or best all around or whatever it was. Did you receive any of those awards by chance? Like, you probably got, like, studliest or smartest or something, right?
Greg: I got some. This is about you. We’ll keep this about you.
Tony: [laugh].
Greg: There was some good stuff there [laugh].
Tony: Well, completely off-topic, but I did win best-looking as my superlative when I graduated, so maybe I could have done Baywatch. Regardless, I was a young father [laugh] who had no real work experience, and I needed to find a place with no pre-existing conditions on the insurance plan. There’s so many insurances out there that say, you know, if you had planned for this, we can give you insurance, but you didn’t plan for anything, and here we are. So, it happened to be a manufacturing facility.
And this manufacturing facility did precious metals. So, your gold, your platinum, your silver, palladiums, all the different types of materials, right? And when I got hired, I was a no-name nobody that needed a job, and I ran a hydraulic press that punched holes in metal. On the weekends and the evenings, I would mop, I would sweep, I would wax, I would take all the overtime I could. I was doing anything I could to make money for my family, of course.
And I think I might have started at, like, $5.25, $6.25, something like that.
Greg: Woof.
Tony: I mean—yes, it’s low rates, but, I mean, this is 25 years ago. I’m an old man now, Greg. I hear you say, “Woof,” but that was 25 years ago at this point.
Greg: Yeah. I made $5.65 25 years ago [laugh].
Tony: Okay, okay. We’re on the same page. We’re similar areas. So, it was a great machine shop. And my department was the anniversary band apartment, so we made rings and such, and there was probably a good 40 CNC machines. Take a picture, sometimes, of me in front of an OmniTurn, a GT-75 OmniTurn. It was the first machine I ever programmed.
But what I knew was that I needed to make more money. And at this point in my career, Greg, I didn’t care what if it manufacturing or anything else. In fact, four years into working at this precious metals place, I got frustrated because I wasn’t making enough money. I was like, “Forget you guys. I’m out of here.”
And I went and worked a night shift road construction for about a year as a traffic foreman. And I was just, like, I’m making bank right now. But then I wanted to make even more money, so I started working night shift there, went back to the jewelry company to work, like, a shortened day shift and, you know, I was running the department. I ended up with, you know, six or seven patents that were through the company itself. [unintelligible 00:09:51] part of the company improvement committees, ran [I-Think 00:09:53] Software, which is, like, six sigma lean manufacturing, but like, an automated version.
I was considered top 5% in the world of understanding how to machine platinum, saved the company $100,000 in Platinum alone in material cost and savings and cycle times. And then I moved into more of your standard, like, steels, and [unintelligible 00:10:11], and brass, and copper, and that kind of stuff, in a radiator coil-type world. And I ran the R&D department and the pipe machining department there, and taught myself how to run the machines in that department. Then I slid over to the woodworking world for a few years, where helped run a four acre woodworking shop where, through that time of a few years, I actually ended up going from running a router to running the floor to connecting the interior designers’ design and running the software that took that information and applied it to the machines, so the machines had the right information of what to cut out. And then I moved to the right-hand man of the owner, where we designed kitchens upwards of six figures for lots of people in the Virginia tri-state area. And then I became an interior designer and ran a spot up in D.C.
And that was interesting, but it was a lot of stress, and I kind of missed the shop floor, but I knew I wanted to change in my life. So, at this point, Greg, I’m 12 years in as a machinist. Programmed, ran over 100 machines, probably different softwares, your master cams, you know, your obvious ones that go into that, but also several different materials, which is quite unique—you know, your wood, your precious metals, your more standard items—and I’m going to take a breath in just a moment, Greg, because there’s more to this journey. But I want to get you involved as well. I want the people listening to not just hear my voice alone, right? Like, I want to tell at least good enough jokes to hear you laugh.
Greg: It’s supposed to work that way.
Tony: [laugh].
Greg: You’re on the other side of the mic.
Tony: It’s so rare, though. I like asking all the questions. But at this point in my life, I was in Washington, D.C. In the Leesburg area, and my wife was six months pregnant. And I knew I wanted to change, she wanted to change. We just kind of looked at each other, like, what do you like about life, you know? What is it that you enjoy?
And a lot of people like different things, you know, mountains, warm, cold, you know, that kind of stuff. We like year-long summer and beaches. And so, we found ourselves in South Florida. Put all of our stuff into until a U-Haul, drove 20 hours south and slept for six hours, and then there’s no guaranteed job, no guaranteed place to live, nothing was guaranteed. But I took three interviews after six hours of sleep, driving 20 hours. I was hired by all three companies and took the one that was a consulting—well, it started as a machinist, but became a consulting sales position for a company that took me around the world. And that’s where the true adventure starts. But the foundation of being in machine shops and working in that world, as well.
Greg: Wow. So, much to unpack there and just—
Tony: We really could spend a full day on this.
Greg: Yes. I mean, you weren’t kidding. We might need a season on this. But—[laugh]—
Tony: [laugh]. We could. We could make a full season.
Greg: The first thing is, so with all the different experiences that you had—I mean, I understand why you didn’t want to stick with Pizza Hut and McDonald’s, but you know, lifeguards in California have it pretty good [laugh].
Tony: Not wrong, brother. You are not wrong.
Greg: And then kitchens, interior design, sales, consulting. But the thing you said that stuck out to me was, you missed the shop floor. What did you miss about the shop floor?
Tony: There’s something really cool about turning raw material into something that is either functional or a value. And taking code—because if I go back to my school days—I mean, I got kicked out of three colleges. I barely graduated. I graduated high school with a 1.26. I mean, I cannot—
Greg: Can you do that [laugh]?
Tony: —memorize—barely. I dropped out of my junior year, and went back for summer school. That’s how bad it was. And I got kicked out of Spanish every year, and I wouldn’t have graduated if it weren’t for, like, my—I was in the FFA, Future Farmers of America, and agriculture, and I wouldn’t have graduated if it weren’t for me having all of those extra classes like that. But, yeah, big dummy. Can’t memorize and repeat. Barely got through, like, Algebra 1.
And yet, I sat down in front of a machine and I could code with the best of them. I was doing line-by-line programming—G-code, M-code—I could almost, like—like watching The Matrix. You could see the formation of a product by looking at the way the code was being written. And I really enjoyed just making things. You know, that day-to-day activity of hauling a pipe into a machine, plowing through it, can I beat my old time from yesterday, my new time?
Or when I’m making something that people really just—when it’s completed, when that kitchen is complete, or that bathroom, or that entertainment center, and they just have all the gratitude in the world, sometimes even tears of gratitude because that was exactly what they had dreamed of for their lifelong house, for their family. And when we were making anniversary bands, you know, so many people saying ‘I do’ to different designs. Oh, let me tell you a super quick story, Greg. When I was at the precious metals company, Nat-Geo actually came in and did a story on us. And they did this story because there was a sunken ship off the coast of Carolina that had a ton of gold in it, and they finally found the gold. It was, like, ten million worth of gold, or something like that. So, they brought it all to us, raw brick form. I mean, this stuff was heavy, brother—
Greg: Seriously.
Tony: And—yeah, super cool. So, I remember pushing this card around with brick gold. I was like, “Oh, this is awesome!”
Greg: [laugh].
Tony: And so, what they had us do is melt down some of it. And we had a great die department. We had a great toolroom, and they made dies to make coins to commemorate the ship itself. So, Nat-Geo came in and did, like, a whole show on that. So, there’s lots of memories that I have from being on a shop floor about learning, creating, producing, allowing that creativity to thrive in that world, that I missed in other places.
But even to this day, as much as I love what I’m doing—and we’ll talk a little bit about this travel in the world bit as well because I think there’s value in that—before even hopping over to the media side, which was another complete accident. As you opened this show, and you were saying, “You’re a thought leader,” I’ve never sought the camera to be, you know, popular. But I love helping people, Greg. I love helping people, and that’s how we got to where it is today. We’ll get to that in just a minute. But the shop floor is a tangible place where items get created, and I really enjoy that.
Greg: So really, for you, it was—I mean, a 1.26, in high school, which is imp—I mean, impressive—
Tony: [laugh].
Greg: —in a very different way [laugh]—
Tony: Yeah, so bad.
Greg: For some definition of impressive, that’s like a, ‘huh? That’s amazing.’
Tony: Yeah, amazing. All right, yeah.
Greg: Professional soccer player, right? You were on the squad for D.C. United?
Tony: I’d never made it onto the field. I never actually made the squad, but I… I was the next in line—let’s put it that way—right around the time I became a father.
Greg: I mean, you think about how good these players are. I mean, that says a lot about your ability. So, near professional soccer player, 1.26, a bunch of different jobs, early father chasing, really, paycheck first to be able to provide for your family, and along the way, you stumble into the thing that it sounds like is one of your first experiences of really figuring out what are you great at, and what do you feel like makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something, right?
Tony: Yeah. It’s a good way to put it. My heart is always the happiest when I have the opportunity to be of service to others, when I can help. And I’ve pursued different ways, platforms even, of doing that, and we can talk about that once we get into some other areas of this career path—because I have started a natural healing company where all the profits went to charities for the first year or two.
But along this journey as well, I want to just kind of share a bit of resilience that I don’t always share. So, I was not the nicest teenager, and I am kind of a believer in karma, Greg. I’m not sure if you are or not, but some people say karma is a you-know-what. But to me, karma is what you put out. So, it could be really great as well.
But I was not a nice teenager. We were—the cops called us a gang. We were troublemakers. I don’t think we were a gang, but we were like, you know, 20 or 30 re—
Greg: More of a club?
Tony: Yeah. 20 or 30 of us really good friends. Some got locked up, things like that. But in my early-20s, this kid that I was got its payback from karma. So, from about ’20 to ’23 or 4, my house burnt down; I lost everything there. My nephew, who was four years old, lost his life. Viral pneumonia suffocated and killed me in the hospital, and I had to actually—once they hooked me up to oxygen—beat myself back to life.
My brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, put into jail for a year. One of my best friends was killed, shot between the eyes. And the list kind of goes on and on. And there was a resilience there that if we can push through this hardship, everything’s going to be okay. And that was part of, I believe, what has formed a version of myself today that wants to help others because this roller coaster of life is not always easy.
So, I want to help others, and it just so happens that traveling the world for a decade as a consultant, which we’ll talk about a little bit more, and then moving into the media side of things just happens to be the journey, as I’ve always pursued happiness, and not necessarily financial freedom or a career path, I’ve pursued happiness. So, yeah, I just kind of want—I don’t talk about that a whole lot, Greg, but I figure between me and you and whatever listeners we—because I know, you’re really famous as well, and this podcast is amazing, people listen to it, so for the listeners out there who are paying attention, that’s a story I don’t share too often, but, um, it was definitely, definitely a time of real hardship. And my buddies in the machine shop world, who I consider salt of the earth, who I consider misfits a lot like me, supported me along this way.
And you know what was created from this, Greg?—I think you and I might be the only ones that know this—I actually became a hip hop artist for a decade because I was so angry and I needed to write it down. And someone was like, “You want to put music to that?” So, I wrote, like, 200 songs and released five albums to help me release the pain and suffering that I was feeling from all the things and situations I had just described.
Greg: That’s unbel—first of all, thank you for sharing that. I know that’s not easy. So, much different tragedy in there that breaks my heart. What was the rapper name, though, Tony?
Tony: Oh, it was easy. I was born with a rapper name. And you know what? I don’t even listen to hip hop, but I can’t sing, and I was writing poetry before I got kicked out of college for the newspaper, so I just put my poetry to music, so it became hip hop, but the name was—
Greg: That’s how it works.
Tony: —the name was [T-Gunn 00:20:49] [laugh].
Greg: T-Gunn. That’s amazing. That’s—how long did it take you to come up with that [laugh]?
Tony: It’s like, seconds. I think somebody else named me, and they’re like, “You were born with the name, buddy. You don’t need to come up with anything.”
Greg: It’s just there. Just—
Tony: Yeah [laugh].
Greg: —roll with it.
Tony: T-Gunn.
Greg: That’s amazing. T-Gunn, all right, I got some listening to do after this. I know that.
Tony: Oh, yeah. So, I’ve tried to delete most of it from the interweb. So, for anyone who’s listening, trying to find my music—
Greg: The internet’s forever, man.
Tony: [laugh]. Yeah. It might—
Greg: The internet’s forever. We can make a few phone calls.
Tony: Oh, my gosh, please don’t.
Greg: [laugh]. So. So, some of the things that you shared, Tony, regarding the tragedy, I mean, we know each other super well, but even some of those are not things I’ve totally heard before. I mean, that’s incredibly inspiring. There was something I was listening to over the weekend where somebody said, “It shouldn’t work this way, but you actually really learn how to live when you see death, and particularly in yourself,” right?
And this was a, I think it was a cancer survivor, and he was referring to the situation where, basically he was told, “Look, you’re not going to make it. It’s over. Start getting your affairs in order.” And it just totally changed how he thought about happiness and what matters, and how you view life, and what do you spend your time on, and who do you spend your time with.
Tony: So true.
Greg: And it sounds like, you know, given the non-linearity of your journey, as you said, seeking happiness, I think that’s super important because it’s not always a straight line. I mean, you know me well enough to know I always call it the chair-lift ride, right? You do the right things in high school, you do the right things in college, you sit down on a chair-lift, and it’s just going to go to the top. At some point, you figure out you’re on the same damn ride as everybody else [laugh].
Tony: [laugh]. How’d everybody get here?
Greg: And… you jump. And when you jump, that’s when you finally figure out what really drives you, what really matters to you, who are the people that matter to you, what are the philosophies, emotions, attitudes that matter to you, and you just start living that way, and there’s no better way to do it. I love stories like yours that aren’t a straight line. Because the straight line stuffs boring, man.
Tony: [laugh]. Yeah, there’s no straight lines in this life. That’s for darn sure.
Greg: Anyone can get A’s and B’s in high school. I mean, what the hell [laugh]?
Tony: Well, thanks for that because I sure couldn’t [laugh]. I didn’t try very hard, to be fair, either. But yeah, it was—
Greg: You know, you were bored, and you were seeking a higher calling. We’ll run with that.
Tony: We’ll run with that. So, I’m going to go ahead and segue into bits and pieces of today. You know, you mentioned MC of manufacturing, you mentioned my travel, thousands of shops, right?
Greg: Exactly, yes.
Tony: But it doesn’t happen overnight. And again, being transparent and authentic for everyone who’s listening, you know, when I grew up, we didn’t have much money. It was always secondhand clothes, or grandparents were bringing us something for Christmas, or borrowing from friends. You know, we were food stamp people. We were free lunch at school people, you know, and got picked on for that kind of stuff, which is probably why I had a bad attitude.
But I didn’t get on my first flight until I was 26 years old, and that was to do a bit of work in Louisiana with some friends. And I didn’t really start traveling until I joined this company, Air Turbine Tools, when I jumped down to Florida, as I previously mentioned, we threw everything in the U-Haul. Nothing was guaranteed. And since that time—which was, we jumped down there October 2011… yeah, it’s about—yep, that was when we went down—and since that time, I have about 2 million miles, a little over a million with United, and I’ve been to about 70-plus countries at this point.
Greg: Whew.
Tony: And the reason I share that piece of the story and that version of that story is because for anyone who’s listening out there, if you think you’re starting late in life at pursuing a goal or achieving something you wanted to do it, to achieve, there’s no such thing as too late, as long as you still believe in yourself and your capability, and you’re willing to work for is what, I’ve fou—you know, a lot of luck comes when you’re willing to work. And for me, that’s applied to my life, now. I can only speak from my perspective. Everyone has their own perspective, and I share from mine, but for me, there’s great value in that pursuit, right? So, it wasn’t overnight, Greg, and it didn’t happen from having a silver spoon. It all grew kind of later in my life.
There’s a lot of young folks out there doing—now that I’m 45 I can say ‘young folks.’ That sounds a lot weird. There’s a lot of younger people out there doing wonderful things. And I had a friend asked me that was getting ready to turn 30—30 is that scary number for a lot of people, right—30—“I don’t feel like I’ve done enough in my life. I don’t feel like”—you know, “This and that. I’ve moved out to California, blah blah blah.”
Not to disrespect with the blah blah blah, but there was a lot of information in there, right? And, I looked at that person’s, I was like, do you think that what I’m doing currently in my life brings value to others, and you look up to me for where I currently sit. And they’re like, “Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you’ve written a couple of books, you’ve been on magazine covers, you traveled the world, all this stuff.” And I was like, I didn’t do any of that until I was about 34 years old. I want you to know, I didn’t really hop on planes until that time. So, for everyone listening, continue to pursue what brings you joy, and it’s achievable.
Greg: I love how you said that, Tony. There’s no such thing as too late, and there’s no such thing as what you should or shouldn’t spend your time on. You can do whatever the hell you want for whatever reason you want. And if it’s a true passion, and it’s driven by something that’s really, really important to you, you can probably do more with it than other people who are in it for different reasons could do. No one can tell you no.
Tony: I love having these conversations with you, man. Podcast or not, we can stop record, keep recording, I just enjoy these conversations with you. But I know—
Greg: Light up a couple of cigars and keep going.
Tony: Yes, sir. But I know you want to hear some more of this story. Hopefully the audience does as well. So, let’s jump into the next ten years of the career, bounce around the world.
Greg: Yeah, let’s get to bouncing around the world, and what did you learn from that?
Tony: Yeah, exactly. And that’s the thing, right? As a machinist in the machine shop, you’re limited to what you do on your day-to-day. It’s very rare for a machinist that’s not a manager—or at least, like, a corporate, even, manager—to go to the trade shows out there or to understand a lot of the technologies that don’t exist or are brought to them, is at least how my story goes. And so, when I started on the sales consulting side of things with Air Turbine, and I got to travel the world to the top 40 countries for manufacturing, and educate myself on how business is done in each of these countries, and build distributorships in each of these countries for this product to offer keynotes and consulting for high speed micromachining, I got to work alongside some of the most brilliant engineers on the planet, the ones that you think of as SpaceX, and Tesla, and Microsoft, and NASA, and Google, and Apple, and Samsung, and Facebook, and Nike.
I mean the list goes on and on to the machine shops that I’ve worked in, signed NDAs on, spent time with the head engineers, learned from, in deep capacities, on how to do things, secrets that nobody talks about with machines that are utilized in very specific ways. And this truly opened my mind before ever getting the media side of things, for ten years, on what was possible, and turning impossible into I’m possible, and really just exploring the world of manufacturing in its full entity. Because as a machinist, I was somewhat limited, and having the ability to jump from, you know, let’s say Germany, which would be considered a leader in engineering, Japan, a leader in engineering, the US, of course, all around the country, Korea, England, even, you know, Mexico is in the top ten in manufacturing, and then go to some of these developing countries for manufacturing, and seeing the creativity that goes into, “Well, I can’t afford this $3 million machine, but I need to make a similar part. How am I going to do it on my dirt floor, when I can’t even balance my machine or create rigidity,” and see how these things or even balance my microns or my tolerances because the humidity is so high, and I don’t have air conditioning. There’s just—I—gosh, Greg, I just learned so much, and I’m so grateful to all the people out there who helped mold the person I am today by introducing me to their version of manufacturing. And I just beyond grateful to have seen as much as I’ve seen.
Greg: That is incredible, Tony. And you know what I’m going to want to drill into with that setup, which is—
Tony: [laugh].
Greg: You’ve seen so much, you’ve heard so much, you’ve visited the Mount Rushmore of folks in manufacturing—before we get there because we got a segue to you started traveling, and that unlocked, boy, what can I see? What can I learn? Who do I get to meet? You know, what more stories do I get to learn? But it wasn’t—because nothing has been a straight line for Tony Gunn, right? It wasn’t a straight line from that into what you’re doing now, being the storyteller of manufacturing. So, what was that leap like?
Tony: Another leap in my life is correct, my friend, just as you described. You remember this little thing called Covid, that little thing?
Greg: I’d have to look it up, I think.
Tony: [laugh].
Greg: Could you spell that? Yeah.
Tony: Yeah, well, hit up Google, hit up Google, and then, you know, we’ll continue. But this little thing called Covid came around, and at this time, when Covid first hit, we were all sent to our bedrooms right? Like, go home. It’s going to be two weeks, at the most a month. Go home. And so, everyone did.
And because I was traveling about 300 days a year for Air Turbine, the majority of my responsibility wasn’t able to be achieved. And so, I ended up taking a reduced wage there and taking a reduced wage at another company called 5th Axis Workholding. And so, I was taking two reduced wages to equal a full wage, which made my heart happy because I wasn’t taking more than I thought I was giving. So, my responsibilities were to continue the networks, distributorships for Air Turbine, while potentially expanding the distributorships outside of the US for 5th Axis Workholding—a great company, by the way—and still have friends there. Shout out to Matt Evans, or I like to call him, [Mevans 00:31:25], but great people over there. And a great product as well.
Greg: For sure, well respected product.
Tony: Well, respected US-made product down in San Diego. So, when that happened, and everyone said it’s just going to be a month or two, and it wasn’t, we saw a lot of folks being concerned, let’s say, getting concerned. We started looking at each other as numbers and less like people, well, how much sales are you predicting? How much of this are you pr—well, we don’t know when this is going to end. Is it going to be another month? Is it going to be another year? Is it going to be another five or ten years? Is this the end of civilization as we know it, as we heard some people thinking at that time, right?
Greg: Came close. No [laugh].
Tony: Yeah, it was getting wild. So, at that point in my life, I was like, okay, this is—I’m a free spirit—and I had also, at this point, started my natural healing company as well and explored herbalism and all that stuff, right—and so—and then given back to the local community and a lot of charities, people, animals, Earth. I’ve always given back to that kind of stuff—but I don’t do that high stress lifestyle. I’ve never been great at it. I take high-stress situations and turn them into a balanced situation. Where other people might feel stressed, I’ll take it and make it calmer. And I think I have a great kind of persona to be able to take a high-stress situation and calm people down, help them feel comfortable.
But in this situation, it was darn near impossible. So, I respectfully excused myself at both of those positions at both of those jobs, put all my stuff into storage, and my family and I went backpacking through Mexico for several months. We’re just, like, we’re out of here. We’re going to enjoy our lives. We’re going to Airbnb. We’re going to start off in Playa del Carmen, head over to [unintelligible 00:33:04], go up to San Luis [unintelligible 00:33:06] to see, and just enjoy life for a little while.
During that time was when MTDCNC and I kind of connected. And for those who don’t know MTDCNC, it’s a UK-based company that started around 2007 by a guy named Paul Jones, and later brought on board Joe Reynolds—so those are the two owners right now—and they’ve been brilliant since 2007. And they kind of saw how important video marketing was almost two decades ago, before it’s been embraced like it is currently. Although it was in other industries; sometimes manufacturers a little slower to adapt to modern marketing, but they saw it ahead of time, and they did a wonderful job. And in the UK, 80% or more of the companies there have either worked with them or continued to work with them.
But they saw an opportunity, with me being in between jobs and having the machinist background with the knowledge of the international knowledge to say, this could be our moment to truly make MTD, the global channel they’d always wanted, desired, and dreamed of. And to be fair, what the industry deserves to see. The industry deserves to see technology from all over the world, from agnostic, unbiased viewpoints, and allow them to make their own intelligent decisions because they are intelligent, right? So, they saw this opportunity. They flew me over to England. We had a sit down.
You know, do you want to be the Director of Global Operations, help us expand outside of the UK? They had done a little bit in Europe. I had done an interview with them at EMO in Germany, and like, oh gosh, odds or even. So, odd year; would have been… probably 2019 or ’17. I did an interview with them.
And so, they knew me already, and they said, “Would you like to help us expand?” And I thought to myself, you know, I’ve been wanting to help this industry have a voice for a long time, and me, personally, I don’t really want all of the attention, but we have so many brilliant, introverted people in this industry that it’s almost a duty or responsibility to share their message for them because they are that clever. And as everyone can tell currently, in this very moment, I talk a lot, so if I’m going to talk a lot anyway, why not help other people share their message? I’ve never loved social media. I’ve never done great at, like, striving to grow my personal channel, but the industry deserves it, so I focused on that.
I said yes to that opportunity, and January 1st, 2021, till now, we brought on the only Spanish-speaking channel. We brought on an Indian channel, we brought on the European channel, a Middle Eastern channel. There’s local representatives in each of these places to go along with the UK, US, North America, supporting South America. And in the next few months to years, I plan to bring on the Asian Pacific as well. Right now, I’m still flying out there, heading over to Jim Toff again. You know, I’ve been there three or four times as well. But, just supporting all of the Asian market.
And that’s currently where we sit, where I travel around the world 300 days a year, supporting, offering a voice, or a spotlight, or a pedestal to these incredible people and companies that deserve it, from an agnostic viewpoint, to share their stories. And that’s what we’re that’s what we currently are, is seeing the world through their eyes.
Greg: And I think you guys do a fantastic job of that. I know I learned so much from watching the interviews, and the companies, and just how many are out there, how many different technologies, how many different machine shops, and what they’re trying to do to get ahead. But there’s a couple things you brought up, Tony, that I got to come back to. The first one is, does your high school Spanish teacher—I mean, you backpacked through Mexico—does your high school Spanish teacher know that you’re fluent now?
Tony: [laugh]. I don’t think so. I think my entire high school has disowned to me because of the type of student I was.
Greg: [laugh]. Maybe, maybe, she’d love—
Tony: [foreign 00:36:45]. [laugh].
Greg: Si. Maybe she’d love a handwritten letter in Español [crosstalk 00:36:50].
Tony: She probably never wants to hear from me again, Greg. She kicked me out every—she said, “Go to the library, you’re so bad at this.”
Greg: I mean, hey—
Tony: Have you ever gotten a zero in a class? I got a zero in Spanish 1. Two years in a row.
Greg: That’s—I mean again, impressive is the only word that comes to [laugh] mind. I don’t know how else to say it.
Tony: Her name was Miss [Gilles 00:37:15]. Thank you for your patience that you did have. I’m sorry I was a terrible student. Maybe I will write you a handwritten letter because Greg is a nice guy, and it’s great advice.
Greg: You should do it. It might be [laugh] a life-changing moment for you. Who knows.
Tony: [laugh]. Who knows.
Greg: The other thing is, you know, so you talked about telling stories through the eyes of other people, and then doing that in an international way. So, when you started at MTDCNC, was there any presence in the United States at all?
Tony: The only presence was just videos that were being made in the UK and sometimes in Europe. There was no—when I brought it to the US I was—and actually companies, if you know, like, [unintelligible 00:37:59] and Mike Larson—incredible person, by the way—he had been watching MTD for years, and he heard that I had gone over there. He’s like, “Oh, oh, wait. Is he getting ready to bring it to the US?” Like, he was stoked.
It was one of the first partnerships we had when I brought it to the US. Because he’s like, “Finally, this thing has been around for so long, and somebody’s bringing it to the US.” But I was the first person to bring it outside of the UK and parts of Europe.
Greg: And it’s built up now to a very impressive operation. I mean, how many hundreds of filmings and pieces of content are you guys generating now?
Tony: We currently have four North American presenters, plus myself. We’re all flying around doing the best we can. I’m currently on the road 250, 300 days a year, plus the Gunn Show podcast that I host, you know, I don’t know the number, but it’s a lot. And then, if you think about it, when we go to a facility, we typically come out with two, three, four, videos. We love doing factory tours and sharing how people are doing things. We love making, you know, technology. We love dancing, having a good time, right? Tell a few—
Greg: [laugh]. I’ve seen that.
Tony: —tell a few bad, dad jokes along the way. Like, this is the kind of spirit manufacturing needs, I think.
Greg: Totally. And you hit the nail on the head with where I was heading in terms of asking about the number of pieces of content. It wasn’t, uh, brag, like, “Oh, Tony, how many followers? How many this? How many that?” That’s how many stories you guys have told and how many experiences that you’ve gotten to learn about. So, give us the top couple. What are the ones that just jump out at you? Like, you won’t believe this shop, or you won’t believe this person and, you know, what they’ve had to go through, or just the success stories. What makes the top end for Tony?
Tony: For those who know me—which would be you—I’m big on—
Greg: [laugh].
Tony: —pulling on the heartstrings. I like someone who shares—like, I mean, I love technology. Don’t get me wrong. My mind’s been blown by some of the incredible technology out there. But when it comes to shop owners, I really connect with those who empower their employees, who bring people up within a system. I’m very human-driven, let’s say.
And so, even just spending time with you, Greg, I can think of a couple of names that come out on that, and I could probably list them all, to be fair. But immediately what comes out are the folks over at Paramount in Utah, Paramount Machine Tool.
Greg: Sure. Great people.
Tony: And then our buddy, Hernan Ricaurte. Like, when you hear the people that work for these guys talk about them as owners, it’s real humbling. It really does pull on the heartstrings when all they have to say is good things. Or a guy took a pay cut to make sure everyone was okay during Covid, or they’ve always supported me throughout my entire career. You know, I needed a car one time, and boss bought me a car because I just had a family and I couldn’t aff—there’s just little things throughout the world that pull on my heartstrings because I’m very human support-oriented.
And I’m not sure that this route you wanted me to go because I could talk about technology all day as well, but those are the ones that pop out immediately. You know, and Jack Russell, an amazing guy. He took a shot that was actually—I think it was, if I’m remembering correctly because it’s been a thing a couple years now, he took a shot that was either profiting very little or actually in the negative, and turned into a multi-million dollar company by believing in what existed there, implementing your software—which was intelligent of him—but believing in the people. One interview I did with one of the young ladies, she was in a completely different industry, had nothing to do with manufacturing, brought her in, and she’s done a brilliant job ever since. And those are the types of stories I like, Greg.
Greg: I love it. You’re a hearts-and-minds guy, Tony.
Tony: I am indeed. And I could talk about that a lot. And that’s why we have so many friends in this industry, you know? That’s why you and I get along is things like that. It’s the human aspect of supporting each other through good and bad times.
Greg: A hundred percent. Couldn’t say it better. I mean, when you talked earlier about when you’re going through difficult times, the outreach and the support from folks in the industry, I feel exactly the same way. You said salt of the earth, authenticity, just down-to-earth, driven humans trying to get ahead, doing really hard work to make really important stuff.
Tony: [laugh]. I like that. That is so true. That is exactly right. Doing hard work to make really important stuff. We talk about that skills gap a lot. We don’t need to dive into it because that’s a whole podcast, probably another series of podcasts of its own—
Greg: Season seven. [laugh].
Tony: Season, yeah. Seven through seventy, I think, at this point, with what’s going on. But you’re right, what would manufacturing—what would the world be like without manufacturing? We’re baking the important stuff. And that in itself brings value to a lot of folks who lay in their bed at night and are either looking for or believe that they’ve found a piece of a career that can bring them joy, right, is being able to lay in bed and feel like you’ve done something accomplished, something—helped somebody during that work day, right?
Greg: No doubt. I mean, when you learn the actual application of some of these parts, and components, and assemblies, right, that we get to see when we have the good fortune of going in these shops, and then you learn from the folks that work there, what did it go into, and what did that do for somebody? Or what did that do for something? It’s just every time I walk into a shop, I learn something, and I’m humbled and blown away.
Tony: Great. Yeah. And everybody’s doing it their version of what’s best, and it’s really cool to see.
Greg: So Tony, now we get to do one of my favorite parts of the show, which is, we have to go back in time. And in your case, I think we need a map to figure out where we got to get to [laugh].
Tony: [laugh]. Yeah. Good luck. There’s no road map that works.
Greg: But I think I can picture it. I think I can picture it. So, there’s this… you had long hair back then, didn’t you?
Tony: Ah, good call. I sure did. Old hippie hair.
Greg: [laugh].
Tony: [laugh].
Greg: So, there’s this long-haired young whipper-snapper, near-professional athlete in front of a machine, pounding away a G-Code for the first time. And you get to walk up to that young man knowing what you know now and the experiences you’ve been through. And I bet you, that guy didn’t think anything that you’ve gone through was ever going to happen for him. But if you could go back and you could have a little chat with that guy standing in front of that machine, what would you tell him? What advice would you give him? What perspective would you give him?
Tony: I’d say, “Apple, Tesla Microsoft.” And walk away.
Greg: [laugh]. You would take the Biff Sports Almanac route? Really?
Tony: [laugh]. That’s right.
Greg: You did say you were money-driven early on. You did say that [laugh].
Tony: We’re going to create [lugal 00:44:53]. We’re going to Hot Tub Time Machine on this one, Greg.
Greg: [laugh].
Tony: [laugh]. Uh, what would I really say to my younger self? The answer to the question for the fun, answer to the question is just, it’s all going to work out; keep working hard; believe in yourself; believe in others; everything’s going to be okay. You know, something like that. But I think even just have some weird old man like myself now bumping into me as my 20-year-old, I would have ignored that person and I thought it was real weird.
And also I wouldn’t want to do a butterfly effect to what’s been done now. I’m liking it so much, right? So [laugh]—
Greg: Yeah. That’s a great point.
Tony: The advice would be, you know, keep your head up, stay strong, life is going to work itself out. You know, that kind of stuff, that normal, cliche stuff. But the same time, I don’t think I—if I had a real life Back to the Future choice, I don’t think I’d say a darn thing. I think I’d—
Greg: You’d just let the randomness play out? Don’t interfere with it.
Tony: Yeah. Just—exactly. Just let it go.
Greg: We don’t want an alternate 1985?
Tony: Yeah, start disappearing from my own photos, like, Back to the Future? “Oh no, my mom likes me.”
Greg: [laugh]. Yeah, that’d be a weird one to undo.
Tony: Gosh, yeah. Oh, my goodness.
Greg: Awesome, Tony. Well, I loved having you on. A fantastic episode. So, much to learn from you. We might have to do an encore episode and dig into some more things. But most importantly, I’m glad that we got to get the story on the table of how Tony Gunn got into manufacturing, made parts, programmed machines, all the types you can think of, traveled the world in service of manufacturing technology, and now, as he said, telling the stories through the eyes of others, truly focused on the United States, but also worldwide.
So, many great stories to tell, so many great shops to visit. Tony, you are a fountain of knowledge, experience, and wisdom, in spite of what your official record says in the state of Virginia—
Tony: [laugh]. Well, played. Well played, sir.
Greg: So loved having you Tony, and look forward to many more great conversations with you.
Tony: Yeah, whenever you’re ready, brother. You know, I consider you family at this point, so let’s do it again anytime, anyplace. Cigars and drinks are on me.
Greg: I will take you up on that.
Tony: Good man. I appreciate it.
Greg: All right, Tony, you take care.
Tony: And you as well. Thanks, brother.
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.