It Always Starts with a Broom and a Bridgeport with Randal Leach

In this episode of Manufacturing Mavericks, Greg welcomes Randal Leach, Operations Manager at Ricaurte Precision, to discuss his journey into manufacturing, which didn’t start with love, but his frustrations turned into opportunity when he realized how much better manufacturing processes and work experiences could be with the right culture and technology! Randal and Greg discuss CMMC 2.0 compliance and what it means for companies like Ricaurte. Plus, you’ll learn why embracing modern systems can redefine what it’s like to run a "precision machining facility."


SHOW NOTES

• Randall's Journey into Manufacturing (01:14)
• The Evolution of Manufacturing Technology (02:38)
• The Importance of Accountability and Data (06:23)
• Meeting Hernan and Joining Ricarte Precision (07:19)
• Embracing Digital Transformation to Keep Up (11:23)
• Preparing for CMMC 2.0 Compliance (12:44)
• Future Investments and Automation Using the Visibility from Machine Monitoring (21:08) 
• Welcome Technology Onto Your Shop Floor to Improve Productivity and Make More (27:35) 
• Randal’s Final Thoughts and Advice for Future Generations (31:46)

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

Randal Leach

Operations Manager at Ricaurte Precision

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 Manufacturing Mavericks, a podcast where we showcase and celebrate exceptional people from across precision manufacturing who are boldly embracing new ways to improve their processes, grow their bottom lines, and ensure American manufacturing will thrive for generations to come.

Greg: Welcome to this episode of Manufacturing Mavericks. This week, we are joined by a great friend of mine, Randal Leach from Ricaurte Precision. Great to have you on, Randal. How are you doing today?

Randal: Good man. Thanks for the intro, and likewise, totally appreciate you guys.

Greg: Randal, I’ve had the pleasure of visiting your shop several times. We’ve done some good things together. We did a road show at your facility with an ice cream truck, and tacos, and whatever else we had going on, so I definitely know a lot about the culture and the team there. And really excited to dig in more with you specifically because I think one of the things I’ve most looked forward to at this episode is, as well as I know you, I actually don’t know the answer to the first question we typically ask on Manufacturing Mavericks of our guests, so I’m really excited to learn, how did you get into manufacturing, Randal? When did the torch get lit for you?

Randal: Hopefully it’s not too boring of an answer—and I’m always long-winded, so we’ll see how enjoyable this is—the answer I usually give to that question, Greg, is I was born into it. My father was in the industry, and then, both my grandfathers were in the industry. So, they were machinists, and then facilities managers, production managers, stuff like that. So then, you know, as my father came to be, he was—like, it was back in the ’60s—as he was growing up, my grandfather brought him to work, and was like, start sweeping the floor and start learning how to run a Bridgeport, and, you know, going from there. And then just he got into it, and then as I grew up, it was just, at the dinner table.

You know, we had a small lathe in the garage, and then I got taken to that facility on the weekends, and kind of the same thing. Then I just learned how to read drawings, and because it was around, I thought it was cool. Then, when I started doing it as a teenager on the side, honestly, I hated it [laugh]. And there’s context to that, right, where, you know, it was something that we’re all trying to kind of combat today. The oily rag isn’t all that interesting. Using process, procedure, and technology to scale and be better, is what is really interesting, and I think the industry kind of lacks, and that’s what made me excited to move forward with it because earlier in my career, you know, it’s like, oh, there is this new technology or—and whatever it is; it’s not what it is today—whatever that technology was, it was a lot of talk about it, like, “This would be good in the future,” but then there was no action.

Greg: I got to dig into a few really good things there, Randal. So, number one, so many people grew up with the sweeping the floor and run a Bridgeport thing. Is there, like, a t-shirt or something we should make for people who were brought up that way?

Randal: [laugh]. Yes, I think you and I should definitely trademark that and put that into to sale pretty quickly.

Greg: Picture of a broom, picture of a Bridgeport. It’s like a gang symbol.

Randal: Yeah, and, “Get to work, now.”

Greg: [laugh]. Exactly. Exactly, I don’t know how else to do it. Start working.

Randal: Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, it’s—it’s—it is. It’s funny.

Greg: You hated it. What did you hate?

Randal: The idea of what it is, was cool, and then the mundane going back to the Bridgeport and a broom, like, oh gosh, this isn’t what I thought it was. And then it’s a lot more manual labor at that point, right, with Bridgeports and all that. It isn’t the sexy, sophisticated, oh, I’m actually designing something, or whatever you want to try to wrap your head around that, and it was just kind of, I guess it’s the easiest way to say it is, it’s not what I thought it was, you know? You think that you’re going to be in there doing something maybe more high level, and why would you? Don’t know anything yet. And if you don’t know what you don’t know, that’s dangerous.

Greg: So, you get into it, and you’re like, God, this is not—[laugh] all those years of dinner table conversation, boy, dad did a great job of making it sound much better than it is.

Randal: No at the time, in fairness, he was much higher level and involved in the fun stuff, as opposed to—

Greg: Got it. So, you get involved, and then you used a phrase. You said, people, processes, and technology. Is that what you said earlier?

Randal: Yeah, process, procedure, and scaling through technology.

Greg: Got it. And so, when did that dot get connected? And I mean, I’m guessing that’s the thing that started to make it sexier than the broom and the Bridgeport for you?

Randal: Yeah, I think it was. It’s difficult, right? So, you’ve got to start somewhere. And again, I didn’t have any formal training in it. I was just around it, and had the literal luxury of having a father that taught me how to read drawings, and understand what machines were doing, and that, but there was no actual practice there.

So, then when I got really into it as a profession, I was in quality, and I think that was a good place to start because then it was an education, and you start to see, you know, here’s the rules that we need to follow, but it’s kind of that jump when I left the quality department, and went into production, and then that’s where the fun really began. And then seeing, okay, now I know the rules and the basis for this, so if someone’s trying to blow smoke, we can call them out. But then, how do we make this faster? How do we make this more efficient?

And then the tools that evolved with that as the industry grew, and the machine monitoring. And I’m plugging you guys in that, but I mean, even today—kind of jumping way too far ahead—is, oh, okay, now, what can I do with this? And it’s going to give me benchmarks, and the ability to hold people accountable, and to—you know, if you’re not measuring, you’re not growing. So, it was all those kind of things that started to say, okay, this actually is interesting, albeit on the surface level, and then that just keeps getting better the deeper you go. Again, kind of lack of involvement because you’re young and you want to do more, but you’ve got to go through some kind of paces to get a knowledge base to add value.

Greg: Undoubtedly. And so Randal, I mean, I know that Hernan certainly shares and preaches accountability, and data, and clarity, and repeatability. Did you, sort of, develop some of those perspectives prior to meeting Hernan, and then hooked up with Hernan? Or how did you come to meet Hernan and Ricaurte Precision?

Randal: The company that I worked for prior to, is how I met him. He had just come on board at Ricaurte, and was taking that over. And I mean, his whole thing from the industry he came from, was exactly that: you are held accountable, there is process and procedure, and then you have a clear roadmap of where the next step is, and this is how we can grow. As he was trying to do all those things—and it was a facility pretty close; it’s no longer in business due to Covid, and the previous owner had passed and whatnot—but that’s how I met him, was just working through [farming workout 00:08:10] and everything as they tried to grow.

And you’ve talked to him a million times. He’s so open and wants to learn and what else is out there because if it can help me grow, then why wouldn’t we do that? And age-old saying, you know, he’s willing to put his money—or RPI’s money—where its mouth is, right? So, all the things that I thought was kind of irritating at previous companies I had worked at, where it was the talk of, “Yeah, cool. We should do that.”

I’m sure you’ve had that conversation a million times with people coming through booths at trade shows or whatever, saying, “Oh, this is a really cool digital platform you guys offer. We’re totally interested.” And then it just fades to the ether. And that’s so frustrating because it’s, okay, this could help. And not everyone has that opportunity, I totally understand that, but it’s chicken, egg, egg, chicken, whereas if you don’t do it, you’re probably going to get left behind, so why not go ahead and do it?

And if you really are serious about growth and tracking and all that good stuff that you get out of it, then why wouldn’t you, right? The ROI on that’s just completely worth it, right? Back to meeting Hernan, we just kind of kept in touch, and were talking, and whatnot, and then because he was a vendor of ours, we were close and talked about it, and he was always generous with his time with me. And then the opportunity just came up and said, “Hey, you know, do you want to come do this with me?” And I jumped at it.

And I didn’t even know what I was getting into realistically when I came on board with him because I didn’t realize, oh, I mean, it isn’t just this one piece; it’s all of it. It is what is the best ERP system out there for us? How can we monitor this and get better? What quality systems can we use to streamline this? And we’re in Southern California. It’s air quotes, “Famously expensive,” and whatever else, so how do we scale and make our lives easier?

And that was really the introduction. And then, luckily, you’ve been around the two of us multiple times, and we all get along. Luckily, I mean, him and I get along great. And he knew me from the company, but didn’t really know me, and just totally gave me the freedom and trust to, here you go, knock yourself out. You’ve been doing this for a long time. I mean, and we talk about everything that we do, and just gave me the opportunity, and like with kind of everything we’re talking about, just okay, you know what? Let’s run with it, put our heads down and get something done.

Greg: I have to tell you, I think the combination of the two of you is just incredible because you’re both so aggressive, there’s no stuck in conventional wisdom, oh, it used to be that way. It’s literally what’s best now? How do we win now? There’s no excuses, there’s no limitations, there’s no constraints, just what do we have to do to keep winning? It’s very rare to see that combination. And I’m sure you feel very fortunate that Hernan’s given you that opportunity, and that you guys collaborate in that way.

Randal: Extremely, and him and I kind of make this joke, and it’s just we don’t have time for what we call the ‘Old Man Stories.’ And I hate to say it that way, but there’s no other way to say it. Like, it kind of what you were just talking about is, for us, it’s frustrating because all of that knowledge base, it is great, right, but if I can’t get it out of your head in a useful manner, what good is it? And that’s exactly what we’re talking about with the machine monitoring stuff, the ERP systems that are digital. And it’s still funny, you run into these roadblocks where—and it—you know, again, we shouldn’t say old man stories or whatever else, but come up with a different saying for that because you’ll get into AS9100 auditors. “We have a fully digital system.” “Ooh, I don’t know. Is that AS?” And it’s like, well, yeah, it is, and here’s why. But now the industry needs to catch up to all this technology because it’s going forward, and it’s made life a lot easier, and us capable to do what we’re doing with our growth, and being aggressive, and not trying to slow down or be slowed down by the lack of.

Greg: For sure, and I think you just hit on one of the hottest topics right now, right? We can say we just came back from IMTS a couple weeks ago, and one of the big concerns that I think is finally really being felt across the industry is, what the hell does it mean to be CMMC 2.0 compliant, and you know, all the different things there are to think about to get there.

Randal: Yeah, I think again, we talked about it personally—you and I and your team—a lot while we were there. It’s a hot topic for Ricaurte, obviously. We want to be prepared when this thing hits and not be on the back foot. It is nice that it’s being taken seriously. I think, again, other people could take it more seriously. And I say that just because the ball is in our court with it right now in terms of we’re not being audited just yet, and it has been pushed back a few times and whatever else, but that gives us a little bit of time because we’re ready for it.

And we just became CMMC 2.0 compliant. You know, we have the 110 controls, and we—Hernan and I—are aggressive. We’re taking it deadly serious. But we’re in that early age of we’re allowed to make a slight mistake and then cause and corrective action, how do we fix that?

Okay, now that gap’s bridged, and we know we’re learning from it; we don’t have to just rely on… this is what we think, right? So, we can develop this thing as we go, and then be ready for the large primes that are going to be requiring this. Because if you’re not taking this seriously and looking forward, it’s death.

Greg: Right. I mean [laugh], you’re not going to be able to do business. It doesn’t get more life or death than that.

Randal: Exactly. I mean, I can’t imagine knowing that this exists, not doing anything about it, and then how can you be surprised if then you m—you’ve been a great vendor to General Dynamics, or you know, whatever, you know, insert a prime name there, and tomorrow, “Sorry, cannot do business with you any longer.” I mean, at that point you’ve got to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

Greg: Absolutely. And bonus points to you for knowing that there are 110 controls.

Randal: [laugh].

Greg: [laugh].I don’t know how universal that knowledge is at this point, but you’ve obviously been living through the process. And I think one of the things too, that folks are trying to get their heads around is—so the 110 controls, that’s really you’re talking about CMMC 2.0 Level 2, right? So, there’s Level 1, which is 17 controls, and you can self-certify Level 1.

And that’s what a lot—like, software companies like us, that’s what we always had to do, historically, is we had to write out the 17 controls. What are they? What do we do? How do we handle data, so on and so forth, and you self-certify on that. The next level on the 110 controls, that does require, you know, some form of an outside auditor to basically validate that you meet the controls, you have your policies, procedures, documentation, everything in place.

And then Level 3 is sort of where the giant unknown in the big bear seems to be, which is, you have to actually survive tri-annual federal government audits of greater than 110 controls. But my understanding is we’re still waiting, actually, for the full clarity on what that one really means.

Randal: Yeah, yeah. That’s our understanding as well. And I think that’s where a lot of people are saying, “Well, this thing’s going to get pushed back, and it might not be as serious as what they say.” I can’t speak to that, obviously, but what I can say is, again, if you’re not getting ready for it—and there’s so much that we learn digging into this for us of, okay, how can we protect ourselves, how can we be better for our customer, how can we streamline and what else are we doing? So, it’s not just applying it to those that are asking for it. How does this make us better?

I mean, if—sure, do I walk in and not get frustrated? I would be lying if I answered that any other way then yes, you know, I get frustrated. But are we better than we were yesterday? Are we better than we were last week? And we’re moving in the right direction and trying to—you know, whatever size facility it is, getting people to all pull in the same direction is difficult, but when you can map this thing out, and clearly articulate what it is and identify those pain points, it becomes a lot easier.

Greg: One of the other things is you’re sort of making the point of, like, look, people shouldn’t be afraid of it just because it’s this big, ominous standard. What you’re saying is these things actually make you a better business, right, make you a more competitive business, no matter what. It’s like you’re moving into a new class of capability as a supplier by doing the groundwork to get ready.

Randal: Yeah, and welcoming the challenge of I want to be better. I want to grow. If you’re fearful of that, that raises a lot of questions because what’s to fear? I mean, if you take the challenge and you try, even if you don’t get it, you fail, you should have learned something along that journey that you then can apply to try again, or I’m going to try to, you know, outmaneuver, whatever it is. I mean, you look at any level of someone who’s doing something great—I’m a huge F1 fan, so you know, watching those guys time and time again in, like, a qualifying run, and it’s just, where do we shave off tenths of time?

And that applies a lot to what we do, right? So, time is money. How can I be better, what technology or technique can we do, and then, how does this apply en masse? And then, does this meet and comply to the standards that are set upon us, you know, whether it’s CMMC, whether that’s AS9100, it’s medical, and you’re doing ISO 13845, any of those, it’s designed to have you meet a standard in compliance and be better. Because otherwise you could just go down the street to any facility that—back to the broom and the Bridgeport—and there you go.

Greg: Or maybe some used Hoss machines. No [laugh].

Randal: [laugh].

Greg: I think there’s a beautiful connection that you made for me, Randal, by bringing up the broom and the Bridgeport again. So, the front of the t-shirt is the broom and the Bridgeport. What’s the back of the t-shirt, right? What’s the now enlightened, excited to be in manufacturing, excited to be defining the future, what do we put on the back of the thing?

Randal: Thanks for that question. I appreciate that. Probably the antithesis of that, right, would be someone with a smile on their face using a digital technology, watching the machines work, and you’re using your brain instead of your body.

Greg: Love it. Love it. The Enlightened Manufacturer.

Randal: There you go. [laugh]. That’s the tagline at the bottom.

Greg: We’ll work on that. I think we can do something fun together with this. I think there’s a great opportunity. We can hand those shirts out. So, I mean, I know technology is a massive component of everything that you and Hernan do. You’ve made significant investments. I know we’ve talked about—when Hernan was on—we talked about your Matsuura machines, and how that really helped redefine the business by you guys actually losing some work during Covid that was going on those machines, but then figuring out how to do different kinds of work with them.

You are a banner manufacturing facility for digital technologies. I love those command centers that you guys have out on the floor, [four 00:20:59] monitors. You’ve got your ERP, you’ve got the quote, you’ve got the production data. I mean, there’s nothing you don’t have that’s out there on the floor. So, given the level of sophistication that you guys are at today, what’s the next wave of investments look like for you?

Randal: Moving forward further with what we’ve got in better understanding, for us, we’re looking at what is next, what type of machines are next, and then just more automation within that, so we can scale without having to add bodies, unless they’re needed, right? And that’s almost a funny thing, too, because the introduction of automation, I think, almost always for the manufacturing floor, those guys end up getting scared, and there is, you know, some thought of, if that’s doing it, I’m going to lose my job. And that was kind of the exposure that you just touched on when the five-axes came in. And there’s some people that are timid. Then they, you know, they do get that enlightened manufacturer moment where it’s like, “Oh, my God. My life just became so much easier, and look how much more I can do, and look at how much more valuable I become.” Right?

So, what other aha moments can we have within that? And then better service to the customer, parts in tolerance, on time, you know, any issues that come up along the way are readily communicated so we can combat, you know, any delay in that process. And again, I guess I’m not really answering the question of what’s next. It’s just those are the challenges that we hope to combat—or that we try to combat, rather—on a daily basis. Again, more machines. I mean, again, stuff with automated bar feeders, pallet systems that we can run lights out, and be more aggressive.

Greg: No, I think, Randal, I think you answered the question perfectly because what you’re really saying is, the answer is not a piece of specific technology,’ the answer is a framework, right? So, you have a lot of tools in place today, you’re measuring, you can see what your capability is now in terms of your people to machines ratios, and how that relates to your productivity, and how that relates to your revenue, and how that relates to your profitability, and you’re sort of in this position now that, like, hey, we have visibility. Now, it’s causing us to say, well, is the right move more automated-type stuff, and can we, you know, then go look at the business side, and can we get more of that stuff to feed into some of those investments, or are we seeing types of work that’s going to send us a different direction on machinery? I mean, what you’re really saying is that you’ve accumulated the visibility to actually be able to think about these things from a business level.

Randal: Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. And I think the other side of that is, too, I mean, there’s not—we really like Japanese precision machines. The tolerance they hold, the quality of the machine and everything like that is attractive to both Hernan and myself, but the other side of that is—you know, kind of my answer is being nimble enough to pivot where we need to pivot, right, and not being closed off to well, this is the road we’re headed down. You know, we can’t turn back.

Why look at that as turning back? It’s okay. This isn’t a straight road that’s only driving linear. There’s twists and turns in this, and how can we do what we do better, how can we make ourselves stronger, where are we weak, where do we need to strengthen, and what’s going to fill that gap? And then back to the technology side, we do have a lot of this data.

You know, we’re constantly engaging with our customers and letting them know where we’re at and what we’re doing, so then they know what is coming, but readily available because we use paperless parts, we use ProShop as our ERP. We use High QA as our quality inspection for in process. And then, you know, we use Datanomix for our machine monitoring. And just all of that where I’m not having to sift through the data, it’s a couple clicks, and then you get to that understanding of what’s going on quicker, so then you can make those decisions, right?

I mean, I remember when we first really started using Datanomix, and met you and [Lusty 00:25:27] for the first time, and it was like, oh, man, this might not be something I thought I wanted, right? And you get it, and you’re like, oh, this is kind of ugly. But like, I totally embraced that after the five minutes of freaking out because, like, okay, what is this? It’s an opportunity. Now, we can be better.

Now, I don’t have to worry about what was the machine doing while we weren’t here, while we’re running 24 hours—at the time—and then we come back in. Oh, it stopped at 1 a.m. It was this tool that it was running on, the machine was running at a hundred percent rapid travel, whatever it is. Like, why would I have to worry about going back and sifting through that? And when did it happen? How much production did we lose? How many parts have been created? It’s just, it’s—you guys email it to us. I mean, how much easier is it to get that and then act on that information?

Greg: Yeah, I love it. And [laugh] I’ll never forget the first, I think the first scenario that you guys really wanted with our system was for those automated machines in the back, the [MAMs 00:26:32]. And I think your exact quote was—I was dying laughing—was, “When one of these things stops. I want four people running into each other in the aisle on their way to get that machine back in cycle.” [laugh].

Randal: [laugh].

Greg: And I could just picture it, you know, like, Road Runner and Coyote, you know, the feet are spinning in place. They’re trying to get back there and get those bad boys running again.

Randal: Yeah, and the that answer semi remains the same. We just, we understand all of that better now, so there isn’t the panic moment of that. And because of process and procedure with this technology, that doesn’t happen. Everyone’s calm and collected, and okay, this is this has gone down for whatever reason—or stopped running rather than gone down—and oh, okay, you know what, it’s a tool change. Hey guys, we found a different tool that’s going to run better, or just whatever that is. And then it’s acted on in real time, as opposed to having to wonder because we’re alerted to it.

Greg: You’ve really seen by having more visibility across all your systems—I mean, you enumerated them; we talked about those command centers—by having visibility across all those systems. So, maybe when you first get something, it’s reactive because you’re like, wow, I didn’t know that. You feel bad about it. Then you dust yourself off because you grew up with a broom and a Bridgeport, and you’ve got that grit, and you say, now, what am I going to do about it, and what does it mean, and then how do I make the most or the best of what this situation is? And then you sort of get everybody on the same page about using the information to be proactive, to be ready, to be aware, and to always be thinking about just, how do I do my best?

Randal: Yeah. And I think it’s however you pitch this to your team, and whatever else because it can look like Big Brother at a glance. And then it’s, okay, why think of it that way? This is going to tell me—or whoever is watching this stuff—how productive you are. You guys have gone through different phases as well as how the information is presented because it can get really deep, or you can look at your utilization.

You know, are you doing that and making the most of this? It’s funny because of the way probably Hernan and I both are, and that’s infectious with the guys on the floor. You know, I’ll walk out, and I’ve explained how your system works, but I’ve got newer employees on the floor, and they’re digging into it, asking the questions about it, like, yeah, I want to figure out what the utilization of this graph means to that. And oh, this is so cool. So, that welcoming technology—or welcoming of that technology—is huge because they then see the benefit, and it’s not, “If you don’t get X amount of parts done today, ah—” you know, whatever that overreaction is—and sometimes that’s not an overreaction, but you get where I’m going with that—as opposed to using it as a tool, to say, this is where I’m at. What do we do?

It’s contract manufacturing. We’re a precision machining facility, so for us—and we talked about this at IMTS—I want to know before the end of the day that I thought I was at 80%, and I have an hour to go. Oh no, I’m at 20%. Where can we find out in the first hour, this is not going the way we thought? And it does that. And then the fact that all these communica—our technologies communicate together, and we actually use them, it’s not just, hey, we have technologies. What are you doing with it? And then we can respond. I mean, to me, that’s where, like, so much good comes out of all of this.

Greg: I love it, Randal. Man, we could talk all day. I mean [laugh], there’s just, there’s so much meat on the bone here. But I think I just realized, there’s something we accomplished that I think Hernan would be incredibly proud of us for doing, which is that I don’t think either of us used the S-H-O-P word so far in the episode.

Randal: That’s stricken from my vocabulary, so it definitely wasn’t coming out of my mouth.

Greg: ‘precision machining facility.’ I heard it about a minute ago, and it reminded me, yeah, I think we’ve avoided the S word on [laugh] this whole episode.

Randal: He will, he will be proud. I love it too. Great. And I mean, circling back to that, is exactly why it was bur—not even burnt. It was just like, oh, God, this isn’t what I thought it was. Just shop.

Greg: I think we got it. I think we got the back of the t-shirt. The back says ‘It’s not a shop.’

Randal: There you go. All credits to Hernan in that. We’re a precision machining facilities with million-dollar machines.

Greg: That’s right. We’re not—

Randal: We’re not turning [brake 00:31:36] motors. [laugh].

Greg: —a shop [laugh]. There’s good money in that, though.

Randal: There—yeah, yeah.

Greg: Oh, man, Randal. So, so much fun. So, the last question we like to finish with—and, man, I don’t know how you’re going to do this one because there is just so much accumulated wisdom and insight, and you’re just a machine, and it never ends, so I think this will be a fun answer, but if you could go back in time, and you could talk to that kid at the dinner table listening to Dad bringing home prints, and talking about what happens in a then-precision [laugh] machining facility, and went through the experiences that you did, and have gotten to where you are today, what advice would you share with that kid?

Randal: Probably, don’t be as close-minded as you were because as much as it was irritating, take a step back, understand you’re not going to make it to the finish line day one, or be at the top of the food chain day one. There is opportunity, and stick with it because I do like what we do, and the problems that we solve, and the growth.

Greg: Well, said. It’s stay focused on opportunity. There’s—no matter what you choose to do, right? Every job, every career, every vocation, can suck or be amazing.

Randal: Exactly.

Greg: Being President of the United States probably sucks a lot.

Randal: Probably more often than not [laugh].

Greg: Yeah [laugh]. Right? You know, driving an ice cream truck can probably suck a lot. Everything does, right, so perspective and being opportunity-driven is what it sounds like is your [crosstalk 00:33:28].

Randal: Yeah, exactly, yeah. The opportunities, they’re out there. It’s solving the problems and turning it into an opportunity.

Greg: Love it. Love it. Great note to end on, Randal. It has been so much fun digging into this. We are going to get to work on those t-shirts. We’ll work with Hernan on that. We’ll give him some credit on the precision machining facility. I think it’s going to be an awesome t-shirt. I’m not even joking about it. We’re going to get some printed up.

Randal: Awesome.

Greg: Thanks so much, Randal. Great having you.

Randal: Thank you.

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.