Latest / The ReForge Podcast / Reindustrialize? There's No Re About It (with Jack Watson) | ReForge 024

Transcript

Reindustrialize? There's No Re About It (with Jack Watson) | ReForge 024 · The ReForge Podcast

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Reforged Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Matthew Chad, and we're here to explore all things AI, automation, and the American worker.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Proving that the American reindustrialization is possible, pivotal, and pressing.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into the episode.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back, everyone, and welcome to episode 24 of the Reforge podcast.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are joined with Jack Watson.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Jack.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: Hey Khan.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: Hey Matt, how are you guys doing?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Doing X in real life.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: What's up, Jack?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: The the the mutuals all connect.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so our guest today, Jack, is a fourth generation manufacturer.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Before you do the amazing uh bio, I just want to say that I think Jack was the first mutual I met off of Twitter in real life.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: And if he wasn't the first, he was in the first three.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and to do that, I went all the way to Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, to his insanely cool factory.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Colin, you want to give the intro?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so our guest, Jack, is a fourth generation manufacturer out of the one and only Buffalo, New York, right up the street from me, about 100 miles.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he has massive passion for heavy systems that keep the modern modern world running.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And through his family's business, HFW Industries, he has made it his life's mission to better those systems while building a world-class place to work.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jack, welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is great to have you here.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thanks, guys.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: And and it's really con.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you and I both have to be embarrassed because Matt and I have met multiple times.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_04: You and I live like we could almost throw a football and hit each other, and we still have a mess, so we gotta fix that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: On a clear day, I could go out to the uh to the lakefront and probably see Buffalo.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I can see Canada, so you guys aren't too much further.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'll make my way up there uh one of these days.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually flying out of there in a few weeks when I go down to visit Matt.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, go figure.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So what did we miss in that, you know, I very brief introduction, obviously, but tell us about HFW industries, you know, thermal coatings uh is just a cool, cool topic.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, let's get into that a little bit.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe tell us kind of uh fourth generation is I mean huge.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of people, obviously in my neck of the woods, your neck of the woods, we've both seen it where kids, you know, don't go into the family business.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: They move off, become a doctor or lawyer somewhere else.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you made that decision, obviously, to you know, stick around to continue building that legacy.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about that a little bit.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: So the business HFW Industries was started uh by my great-grandfather Harold in 1947, coming out of World War II.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_04: Obviously, a great time to start a manufacturing business.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, the that was obviously the heyday of the the the Great Lakes cities like Buffalo, Lake Erie, Cleveland, Detroit, and so many others.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and he was really a pioneer in what is today uh known as thermal spray coating.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um so we've built a full turnkey manufacturing and rebuild operation around that.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so yeah, I mean, it coming back to the family business was something obviously I'd grown up around manufacturing, um, grown up around, you know, coming into the shop on weekends, driving the forklift, learning to weld it, um, an age that OSHA doesn't need to know about.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um so like that was uh yeah, that was my my background.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: And so um, you know, it's kind of funny now to see obviously all the conversation on re-industrialized because um coming from the you know the family and the business that I have, it's like there's no re about it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_04: We've been here the whole time.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_04: And so you know that's why I'm excited to share the story and what we do here and um and and you know introduce new people to you know the backbone of of our country and our world um and through manufacturing.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_04: So the the HFW, that's your grandfather's initial, Sid.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: No, that's it's funny.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_04: That's what everyone thinks.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_04: And it yeah, it's close because his name was Harold Watson, but it actually stands for hard face welding, which is uh hard facing is was hard facing and thermal spray coating, you know, they're very similar, but they're slightly different.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_04: One's a weld and one's a mechanical coating.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um it was just abbreviated because we are much more than a weld shop, and today we're you know a full manufacturing partner.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so it was shortened to uh to uh you know alleviate the uh association with a pure weld shop, though most people think it's it's his initials.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I I gotta admit, Colin, I did not want to ask him because I suspected this could happen where I feel stupid, where I didn't know some technical machine shopper welding term.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So always a gamble.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: That that's part of it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody can claim to be a fourth generation, you know, industrialist.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we we are fortunate to have Jack where we get to make fools of ourselves and and ask some of those questions.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, that's what I do every day is make a fool of myself.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_04: And that's but that's the only way you learn.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So absolutely.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I talked a lot about kind of the energy screen.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry, Colin.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you the story when I went to Jack's shop, and this is gonna get you motivated to drive over to Buffalo.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I was up there for the FAA trade show.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: We were showing off my big green vehicle, the one that does the uh the all-electric snow blowing.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then you know, Jack had uh commented or or DM'd me on Twitter somehow, and I was like, Oh man, I'm in Buffalo.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: We need to go over and check this out.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I go, it's super industrial, you know what it looks like.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: It looks just like eerie in the industrial sector.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um go inside, you know, Jack's a lot younger than I thought he would be, but it's because he started, as he said, at a at a uh very early age.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then immediately, you know, it gives me a quick safety orientation, gives me some safety glasses, and we hit the same and we hit the uh sidewalk.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And enormous, enormous uh rolling mill pieces of equipment getting refurbished in there.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess a lot of these rolling mills all around the country, which could be anything from carbon to steel, right, Jack, all comes off a rolling mill.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: They're tearing this stuff up every six months to 24 months, something like that.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's constantly getting the machines are getting torn down and sending to HFW to get retooled.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: They're the ones that keep the original OEM equipment running because they can refurb the entire line.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um who's explaining to me that the OEM parts can wear out in as quick as like four months in a very abrasive product, again, like carpet.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you're rolling carpet, you know, you're running carpet, running carpet, and you're just tearing up the machines.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then um he immediately says, Hey, you want to see a robot?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: He takes me over, they've got a robotic uh thermal spray cell.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: They'd rather be you have more than one, but we watch one of them work and they're turning this piece of equipment and they're hitting it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of looked like dragon's breath.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like my kids are into dragon shows and the dragon breeze fire.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's what's coming out of this thing.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then something that I can't quite see is happening on the surface of the rolling equipment to where now it's super hard.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, Jack, you were telling me you can get some of these rolling parts extended from like four months between maintenance teardowns, like two years.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you're like dramatically enhancing the performance of the plant.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, I you you've posted some really cool stuff, Jack.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, on X and elsewhere, but you know, for the audience that isn't familiar with thermal spray, I mean, obviously, as Matt said, you know, you're able to extend the life of it, but explain what the process looks like a little bit and really what's the application?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Where's where's that use case?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, Matt did a pretty great synopsis of it and explaining it in terms I think most people can understand.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_04: But um, thermal spray is really interesting.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_04: It started, you know, right around the time when my grandfather started the business.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, he he built the business around thermal spray, which was back then kind of the emerging technology, you know, similar to how 3D printing is today.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, the the the whole concept back then was to be able to repair parts.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_04: And so some of the old school engineers still they're like, oh, thermal spray, that's used to rebuild parts, right?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_04: And that is still a large portion of what um thermal spray can be used for, but it's it's really advanced now to help enhance the performance of uh precision process equipment.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_04: And that's so that's primarily what we're doing is you know, anything from uh mining and and processing equipment up to um chemical facilities, refineries, uh energy, even into electronics like uh you know, flat panel fabrication, semiconductor fabrication um to enhance the the equipment and and help equipment that works in some of the most extreme environments on earth last longer.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um and we've got a lot of success stories of doing exactly that.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's uh I had messaged you a while back, and and I still think of how you know how dumb the question was.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I said, wait, so like you guys could do stuff for turbines, like if we're talking high heat applications here, like turbines for generating power, that that's kind of important.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like you could do that, right?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, yeah, that's that's a big part of what we do.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, you you guys are touching so many industries here.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: What what is it really that um, I guess from your perspective, has been driving a lot of these OEMs to to move to partners like HFW?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, the big the big thing for the last several years, and going back to even before the the reindustrialized movement, has really been just this draining of uh manufacturing knowledge and talent.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, when when our business started, and and even to this day, a lot of our selling strategy is to work with the corporate engineering departments uh at these large companies, similar to what Matt does.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_04: And um the problem is that these, you know, when you know, even when my dad was coming up in our business in the 90s and early 2000s, you know, the corporate engineering teams were hundreds and even thousands of people.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_04: And now there are, you know, tens, if not like two, three, four, five for these very large companies.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_04: So uh the manufacturing knowledge left, it retired, it was bought out.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: And now uh that knowledge is just gone, you know, whether we're talking material science, um, you know, chemistry, um, you know, all these sorts of uh process sciences.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you know, it was funny, Matt, you were talking about all the all the uh, you know, we need more technical founders that have these kind of backgrounds, and that's exactly right.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_04: And companies need that knowledge too, but they don't have it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: And so um, just just as Matt is doing, you know, we're finding that we're filling the gap in a lot of cases.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_04: We have the manufacturing engineering knowledge, we have the engineering team, and we have a lot of the manufacturing and the materials expertise, um, not so much from an academic uh perspective or um, you know, sitting here theorizing, but from practical application, you know, we have 80 years of experience doing um work in these complex, uh very challenging industries where you, you know, again, you're working with all sorts of acids and just like the most destructive things on earth.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so the companies are really, there's a there's a need for that knowledge.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Colin, I think, you know, uh uh Jack, I'm glad you talked about this because I don't think we've hit it on, we're on episode 24 here, and I'm not sure that we've hit it yet, which is major corporations have outsourced engineering and technical, right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that trend began a long time ago.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh certainly it's been either already completed or happening my entire career.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we've seen um corporate engineering teams go from a size of 400 to say 30, right?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And when when you get down, what happens to the engineers inside of my profile clients, Jack's profile clients, is that they're really a lot more around administration.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: They have to manage things like the maintenance request, the capital budget request, the annual OpEx budget, manage a bunch of vendors, right?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: So they're they're kind of more in a project management role as opposed to a pure engineering or subject matter expertise role.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you know, the things that we do on the front end, like designing a new factory, that that is for the production, right?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: When we do that, there's new throughput, new capabilities, possibly new products available, you know, from our clients.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: The way I look at HFW is they are the reliability and uptime partner.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: So you have the factory, you have the gym set, you have the data center, the fab, whatever it is.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you want that thing to keep running as good as it was the day you bought it, you gotta have HFW in there because they're the only one of the few um groups in the United States that can keep that thing up and running and can get all your parts rebuilt, especially as you mentioned.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: These environments, the the I think it's cost prohibitive to go in with a say a metallurgy that can resist all these adverse environments and these harsh conditions, high temperature abrasiveness, et cetera, that Jack refurbishes.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's much more economical to buy close to industry standard equipment that's intended for your industry and then just have a deal with HFW where they partner with you to keep everything running.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's it's not surprising, unfortunately.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it we haven't touched on kind of the shift in the engineering piece of it, like you said, but I mean, as an aggregate kind of on the whole, it's every part of these companies has been shrunk down.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, Jack and I obviously live in you know, these Rust Belt regions that have built their name on industry for decades and decades, now very much um living in a world where where that kind of that post-industrial you know consequences of that.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, Jack obviously Buffalo, you know, has made some great progress in the last few years from the economic development side of things, some uh you know, exciting, very exciting new uh stadium I hear, uh just opening up there um for for some Buffalo team or whatever.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um go Texans, throwing that in there.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: But um talk to me about kind of your your perspective on the this regional brain drain, the development and kind of evolution, what we're seeing both on the reindustrialization kind of focus of it, but just the impacts at the community level.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_04: Well, first off, you're being Erie is weird because it you've got the Steelers, Browns, and uh Bills.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: So it's kind of like the radio seems to be.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and then here you are completely out of left field.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_04: So um that that's interesting.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_04: But uh um no, the you know, that's I think that's the biggest problem that all of these cities have to address first.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um, is we've you know, we've we've got a talent problem because, and not that there aren't people here, there still are, and you and and training is so important, and it I mean it's something that we are laser focused on being you know, industry leading when it comes to training people up from you know having baseline skills to being um skilled machinists and welders and thermal spray technicians and engineers.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, we need to focus on retaining the young talent that is coming out of our high schools and universities.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, I I I studied uh I had a I had I had a really great elective class when I was in college.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_04: I went to Miami University outside of Cincinnati, um, another, you know, pretty similar city in in that regard as far as having a you know a formal former industrial past and trying to figure out its future.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um and we studied Columbus.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_04: And Columbus is in a lot of ways uh the Midwest Austin.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um and one thing that they they started with was focusing on uh keeping a lot of the Ohio State grads in uh Columbus post-graduation.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's really just sparked something in me because you know, uh we have the University of Buffalo, which is one of the New York State's largest public universities, well, and still one of the larger public universities in the country, probably top 50, I'd I'd guess, in terms of uh student population.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you have to focus on retaining those students, um, keeping them in Buffalo.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_04: And and and every city has, you know, Erie, you've got obviously the Great Barron campus.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you you know uh Cleveland's got a wealth of universities, Detroit, same thing.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: All these cities, um, you know, we can't all be going to the uh the sunny, beautiful shores of Jacksonville, Florida.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So um not not everybody gets to spend their weekend surfing.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you can surf on Lake.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: You see what it looks like when we telework in Jacksonville, right?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Let me just move out of the way so you can you can see all the options that we have here.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: So no, you you guys absolutely should hang out in Jacksonville.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good second home place for the two of you.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: I encourage you to keep your roots where you are, but you know, your second home, come on, take the kids to the beach.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm just kidding.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: By the way, while we're on Jacksonville, so I I do have to publicly admit that I owe Jack Watson a bet.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: We bet on the Jaguars Bills playoff game last year, and so I owe him another trip back to Buffalo.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: And calling it was a win-win.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: If I won the bet, all he had to do was come to Jacksonville and he could bring his kids.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's a win.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: So now I gotta figure out am I going solo or am I taking the kids up to Buffalo?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll sort that out soon.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I I do remember I owe you all that bet.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: We'll have a great time.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we'll do Niagara Falls.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_04: We can do some hiking.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, that's the other thing is I think a lot of these cities have so much to offer, but um I don't think they've done a great job selling themselves.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_04: And and you know, you know, I I really like everyone wants to blame the weather, but I I I think I don't know, I think a lot of it just comes down to positioning.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: And I mean, you look at us, even a city like Indianapolis, they've done such a great job of uh of building out and becoming a hub for sports and medicine.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_04: And um, you know, they're in the middle of nowhere, and most of their sports sporting events are in February and March, and that's not exactly the best time of year to visit Indianapolis.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: So I think a lot of it is just like these ingrained excuses and the tired old sayings.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_04: I get, I mean, I'm sure you're the same.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_04: I get really frustrated hearing those.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I'm really just passionate about, you know, these are great cities, they have tremendous histories and so much, so many great things, and just building on the legacy and same thing with our business personally, like that's what excites me, and that's why I want to to continue, not only obviously like you know, starting small with the business, but then also building into uh um you know the greater um uh demographic and uh um uh development of our region as a whole.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, and that's one of the things I've I've really enjoyed.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, some of the content and things you post online is it's you know, more than just business.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you you see yourselves very much as stewards of the community and have you know that role there.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I I get kind of I I think being younger and in this region, it is very easy to get that negative kind of, you know, it's it's past the tape day, there's no chance, you know, everything's happening elsewhere.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but that's not true.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you guys are such a great example of that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you you know, you've mentioned you guys are expanding your team, you know, made some cool upgrades, you know, to your spray shop, you know, some experimental things you guys are doing.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not it doesn't have to be manage decline.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be kind of a slowly fading away and and rusting out uh of this old infrastructure.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, HFW has made it fourth gen, you're fourth generation.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: You are clearly not stopping, you know.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I guess um you you mentioned kind of bad marketing, if you will.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of these regions they don't do a good job positioning themselves.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think the real advantages are of you know the these post-industrial communities, uh, you know, the rust belt area, if you will?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, from a from one perspective, I mean, you go on online and and all it is is our generation talking about how nothing is affordable anymore.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_04: So let's just start with that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, people complain about the taxes in New York State, and and I would um having you know, paying them, I certainly agree, I would like them to be a little bit lower.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_04: But at the same time, I bought a house and it wasn't that much of a, you know, like it was, you know, well within what I could afford.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and not just me, you know, you know, I have I have a coworker who started, you know, went to um a technical program for two years, then has worked for us for the last six years.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_04: He's 26 years old as well, same age as me.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, he bought a house before I did.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the affordability in cities like Buffalo and Erie and Rochester and uh even Cleveland is is fantastic.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's the you know, that's one thing.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, the the there's there's a lot more to do than I think the narrative is, especially now.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: Cities have grown so much.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, Erie, I I was in Erie for the first time as part of the metal program and just was blown away by um just even this was in March.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: Again, not the the best time of year to visit any of these cities.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_04: And I was, you know, just the beauty and and everything there has been to do and and and the investment that has already happened.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's the first thing is affordability.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_04: And then you also see you have great people, you have great culture.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, yeah, some there are some areas that need improvement.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not here saying that anything's perfect and that you know, you you are gonna see some of the issues that um these cities have gone through and there are struggles, but you know, that I think there's a gr there's still a great ethos of getting things done.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of that that industrial history.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_04: And I think you are seeing a resurgence in interest in these cities.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_04: Obviously, it kind of parallels with some of the reindustrialized movement, not only from the actual reindustrialized event, but also all the different, you know, the federal administration, but also, you know, at the state levels, people are realizing, wait a minute, you know, manufacturing not only provides um the inputs and the resources we need to make our economy and our world run, but also having that in our own country is um imperative for national defense.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's also you know, and great jobs too.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_04: And we gave that away.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so I think there is a realization that it went too far and that um there's a you know uh just so many different benefits to having that.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I think you know, when you look at the future and what's ahead, um, you know, the Great Lakes are a fantastic place to locate a manufacturer because you have um access to natural resources like water, which is hugely important.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_04: You have access to natural gas.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, Buffalo and Erie are are still very close to huge portions of the population in North America while still being um you know well uh well within the affordability of most people.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and and you're also you know, you're you're super close to Toronto, uh Cleveland, Detroit, uh, New York, um all sorts of different things that you have uh close amenities to, and you but you get the benefit of being able to actually afford a house.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I I mean that's one of those things that I I I love hearing somebody else say that.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you know, I'm 100% with you there.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of people though don't they they can't get past some of those things.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of it comes down to um, you know, we don't have again a lot of these fourth generation companies, we don't have champions like you who are out there kind of singing praises of, hey, this region's great, there's opportunity.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but more than that, you know, it doesn't necessarily seem like there's a lot of people who are out there um really building for the future in these regions.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, that's something that HFW is doing.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I obviously there there's plenty you can't tell us.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, got to keep the secret sauce secret for now.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what's some of the uh cool stuff that you guys are working on that you're looking forward to, you know, the next five, 10 years type of thing?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we're super excited right now.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_04: We're in the midst of upgrading our spray shop.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, pretty uh uh at the end of the at once the project is completed, I think it'll end up being around the three-quarter of a million dollar upgrade.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um, primarily upgrading a lot of the infrastructure, which is the boring stuff, but it's also the stuff that is critical as we're learning with a lot of the geopolitical uh activity.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so that that will, you know, the one thing that with that project in particular is it will really improve the uh the comfort level um of the shop.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_04: So the we use HVOF high velocity oxygen fuel systems for a large portion of our thermal spray coatings, and these are literally uh miniature um uh like rocket engines.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_04: Uh a SpaceX engineer, I was at a conference and met this really cool SpaceX engineer.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, Yeah, we literally use these things as rockets as rocket boosters for our testing units.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: So it literally is a rocket engine that propels that's that's pretty freaking cool.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so you can imagine how loud it is, it's very loud.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_04: And so we're we're fully enclosed.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_04: We have some of the systems fully enclosed now, and the the remainder will be soon.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it also gives us a lot, we'll be able to fully enclose larger items too.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_04: So it's gonna that's a huge uh, like I said, infrastructure upgrade.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_04: We're also looking at new technologies.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, we invest uh in our equipment and our people every single year.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_04: We usually have at least one to two larger capital projects each year.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_04: And um I'm heading up our, I guess our RD efforts for kind of the next gen thermal spray, which has a lot to do with uh technical ceramics.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um ceramics are kind of the next frontier of uh of thermal spray, and and uh you know, they're heavily integrated into um, like we were talking about, uh gas and steam turbines, um, but also um the you know, the next frontier is really like we were talking about the electronics and semiconductor.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's something that we have experienced in, and we're we're continuing to develop and um be one of the only um turnkey operations that can that can do that work in North America.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, for for the audience listening, this isn't, you know, I love El Segundo, love what the guys up there are building.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm obviously I'm from Texas, born and raised there, so I've got a you know a soft spot for it.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: But this isn't happening out west, this isn't happening down south.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is, you know, the next generation of you know thermal treatments happening in Buffalo, New York.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is the rust belt place where this stuff, you know, where you really got into it.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people have to rethink the fact that it's not just happening in these hubs or these new emerging hubs, it's happening you know, in the heartland type places.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, that's that is great, great to hear.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, uh obviously labor is you know a b a big piece of it.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So while while we still have a little bit of time, I'd love to get your take on kind of how you guys approach uh you know the workforce side of it.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I know from this night in kind of our region, you know, uh workforce is a huge challenge.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you have the brain drain, you have people who aren't necessarily sticking around, mentioned a bit earlier.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that you guys have done um or seen success with in terms of hitting on the labor, finding the right people and getting them trained up?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, uh just to start, the the one thing I found to to find the right kind of people uh has been social media to begin with.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um first and foremost, I can't tell me how many times people have shown up for a tour of our business, what you know, wherever they met, whether they applied online, whether they had met me and wanted to come in and see uh even people that have lived in the neighborhood, they'll be like, I had no idea what was back here.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_04: And so, like, that's the first thing is just showing off what's behind the walls.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_04: And I think um the heavy industry in America has done a very poor job of that historically.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_04: I think that's what people like Zane, um, why uh they have an advantage because you have to be willing to show it off.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um, Aaron Witt's another one, um, more on the construction side that um, you know, he's he's someone I looked up to very early on, and he was early to this game too.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_04: It's showing off what we do.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_04: You can't expect people to come work for you if they have no idea you exist.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like everyone wants to go work for, I don't know, Apple or Tesla or um, you know, any of the tech companies because you know the product, you like the product, they're well known for being good places to work um before they laid everyone off.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and so that is uh like that's the first thing as manufacturers we have to do a better job of is showing off.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_04: That's why I'm so um, you know, it I'm so that's such a big passion of mine is showing and telling what we do.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's it's a little bit of an art because I can't show a lot of the coolest stuff that we're doing.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_04: So I have to figure out how to do it.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is the downside, you know.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Privacy and you know, the national security issues tend to make it a little bit harder, but you can show some process stuff, which is always super cool.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I and I think that that's the other thing, too, that I found is just making people feel important and explaining, you know, a lot of my work is on the commercial side now, working with our customers.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_04: And so um, you know, bringing that back and what I'm hearing from them on their um, you know, walking on their facility uh floors and and talking with their people, bringing that back and explaining to our team who's working on um a turbine manufacturer or or um chemical processing equipment rebuilds, um, explaining what that is being used, what their work is being used to produce, whether it's power, um, whether it is the equipment that keeps our troops safe, whether it is uh um, you know, parts that end up in uh planes and trains and and um whatever it is, uh explaining, you know, how critical all this stuff is.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's been uh I think that's such an important part.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, it gets down to training too.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: I think, and I've said this, and I'm not gonna claim that we're uh any better.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_04: I I think most industrial training in America sucks.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um there is uh, you know, we we used to have very strong apprenticeships, and I think we're still um coasting on some of that.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_04: You know, we still have a couple guys that like we have one guy here, Fred, who uh apprenticed at HFW in the 70s, and it was a formal four-year program.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_04: You know, he he has his card after he completed it.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um we need to get back to some of that stuff, and it's not the sexy thing, it's hard to do, especially across four years.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um but training has to be a lot more than, well, just go stand over there and watch that guy for 10 hours today.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_04: Like that's that's fine for the first day, but beyond that, you have to have a formal training program that combines classroom experience uh with on-the-job practical training.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_04: You have to spend a ton of time and money on it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and you also, you know, I think we've had to realize you also it's it's no different than a sports team.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_04: You know, every draft pick is not going to hit.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_04: Um, even the first round pick you think is a sure thing.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_04: They could have a career-ending injury.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um, in the case of manufacturing, hopefully it's not a career-ending injury, but you know, they don't pan out or you know, the the work isn't for them.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_04: They decide they want to go a different route in their career.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_04: You have to be prepared for that and and have backups in place, and that's why you build the training program.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_04: So again, not I am absolutely not claiming that we have it all figured out.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_04: I know what it will take, and I know how hard it is because we've seen it and we've we've seen stories of success, but we've also we're just like everyone else, we've seen stories of failure.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, you do all the training and then someone decides they want to leave because they want to work closer to home or um you know, a family situation, or um again, they want to go into a different line of work.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_04: That but I think those are used as excuses.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I, you know, I for me, you know, it's easy to say this sitting here, but and I just I just I I get fed up with the excuses.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, all right, let's just do something about it.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um, yeah.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and because I it's easy for people to make excuses to complain, do things it it obviously takes a lot more work to get into or up your sleeves and actually fix it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I I I hear you.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm obviously I know you know I I am a kindred spirit, love what you're saying, you know, and agree with it.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's it's just exciting to see, you know, another person kind of picking up that, pick up the mantle, running with you know, uh running with obviously fourth generation again, just is a huge accomplishment.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: So congrats, you know, to you, your family on what you've built.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, for anyone, you know, listening who who is interested in actually reaching out, learning more, how can they get in touch with you?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: How can they find out you know more about HFW?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what where's where where can they get in touch?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think I'm pretty easy to find if you search Jack Watson HFW.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_04: You should be able to find uh I'm highly active on LinkedIn and Twitter.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I need to get uh more active on Instagram again.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I do have a pretty big profile on there.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_04: I just haven't been posting as actively as I would like.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_04: And then our website is hfwindustries.com and it will be overhauled.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, that that should be going live within the next couple weeks, too.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_04: So it'll be even better than it is now.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: So making moves on every front, digital, thermal, you name it, you got it.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_04: We're trying.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, awesome.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Jack, thank you so much.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: This has been absolutely wonderful today.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And to all of you listening, thank you for tuning into the Reforged Podcast.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whether we're talking robotics on the factory floor, policy that actually moves the needle, or the next generation of American makers, our goal is always the same to prove that reindustrializing America isn't just possible, it's happening right now and it's pivotal.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in some cases, like Jack, it never left.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoy this episode, make sure you subscribe and follow at the reforge pod everywhere and check out the reforge podcast for more, including our seven steps to reindustrializing.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, I'm Colin, and this is the Reforge Podcast.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in to the Reforged Podcast.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure to like, subscribe, and follow us on all of our social media at the Reforged Pod.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: We will see you next time.