Episodes

  • Is 2025 the End of Cam Screw Machines? EP 257 (Reupload)

    Is 2025 the End of Cam Screw Machines? EP 257 (Reupload)
    Jan 28 2026
    Is an Acme-Gridley the mink coat of machine tools? A well made product that still does a great job, but nobody wants another one. In 2025? No. Not yet. On today’s podcast, Lloyd and I talk about our used machinery business over the last year. We saw one customer drop 20 million for five INDEXs to replace every cam screw machine in their shop. At the same time we sold machines to a multinational automotive supplier who is buying hundreds of Davenport screw machines—many older than me—I’m 45 by the way. ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. . View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Interview Highlights The Mink Coat Discovery This Thanksgiving, while going through my mother’s closet, my dad found her 40-year-old mink coat in perfect condition. Once worth $10,000, ChatGPT now values it at maybe $250 to a dealer. The discovery sparked an uncomfortable comparison to the cam screw machines in our stock. “Of course, mink means Acmes to me because Acmes helped pay for the mink,” Lloyd reflects. “These are very functional, valuable machines that were running good parts where we bought them and we feel they have value, however… we have to doubt ourselves.” He poses the question that haunts our business: “Let’s say it is 1-5/8” RB-8 Acme. How much money could somebody potentially make on that machine over the course of one year?” He figures $25,000 to $50,000, maybe more with the right job. “We would sell that machine in that price range. Yet we find no buyers. From an economic standpoint, to me that makes no sense.” A Brutal Year The machinery dealing business has been tough this year. While many of our customers’ businesses remained steady, indecision paralyzed buying decisions—particularly around tariffs. “One of the polls I did on LinkedIn asked if indecision because of tariffs caused them to not buy equipment this year.” Fifty percent said that was one reason why they had not bought equipment. And I will never forget this year’s deal from hell. ”We bought a machine in Germany, sold it to a company in the United States, and then BOOM—tariff. We went from an amazing deal to… I’m amazed we didn’t lose money.” I hate tariffs for a lot of reasons. This one was extra personal. The $20 Million Paradox The market presents striking contradictions. One of our customers recently got rid of 30 cam screw machines, selling them for “$2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 a piece,” then spent over $3 million each on INDEX CNC multi-spindles—$20 million total to replace their entire shop floor. “I was shocked,” Lloyd admits. “The question was, are they that much better than a 1” Acme?” I explain the economics: “They make an entirely different kind of part. They make a part that you could make a dollar from where you make 10 cents from an Acme part. Or they’re making $10 on that part, and on the Acme, they were making a quarter.” The new machines can handle medical parts, complex geometries—the kinds of high-margin work that justifies the investment. The Davenport Bet Meanwhile, another customer is betting the opposite way, buying hundreds of Davenports for facilities in Mexico and China. Today’s Davenports have a similar design to their original one from 115 years ago. The company is buying so many they’ve ordered Davenport’s entire production capacity for new machines while simultaneously buying used ones. Good ones, bad ones, anything they can find to rebuild. “There are many uses for small parts as bushings or as inserts or pins,” Lloyd explains. “And if you’re catering to a world market… they’re saying to themselves, we want to tremendously expand our capacity because we believe there is a market there and people have abandoned this market.” The China Question Lloyd sees a broader pattern: “The Chinese appear to be able to make good product, not maybe the quality of product being made in the United States or in Europe, but close to it at a fraction of the price.” He worries about Chinese companies producing chips “90 to 95% as good” as NVIDIA’s but selling for 30% less. “They’re able to make an electric car now in China and sell it in the Chinese market for under $10,000, and they’re selling them now in Germany for as low as $16,000.” “In my mind, we’re in a war with China—an economic war.” Gratitude We end where we began—with gratitude. “I get the privilege of working with you,” Lloyd tells me. And I tell him that I have a gratitude list every day in the morning, and he’s on it. Readers, ...
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    49 mins
  • The Turnaround Formula, with Neil Lansing-EP 256 (Reupload)

    The Turnaround Formula, with Neil Lansing-EP 256 (Reupload)
    Jan 28 2026
    Today I’m talking to a guy who believes every company needs to be built to last—not just to flip. Neil Lansing is a turnaround specialist who left private equity to bet his own money on small, underperforming businesses. He’s taken companies from 18 employees to over 400. From $2 million to $40-50 million in revenue. And when everyone else was laying people off in 2008, he told his refrigeration company’s team: “We need more clients.” After transforming mom-and-pop service companies one after another, he found his final stop, Piedmont Machine & Manufacturing. At 67, he’s not looking for the next flip. He’s building something that will outlast him. ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. . View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Interview Highlights The Journey from Satellites to Shop Floors Neil started as a satellite engineer at Hughes Aircraft, became a CFO of a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, then worked in private equity doing turnarounds and startups. But eventually he walked away from working with other people’s money to bet his own cash on small businesses. It wasn’t an easy mental shift. As he told me: “I remember the first time I did something. I was sitting there and I remember, now I’m not in corporate America, I’m not in these nice New York digs… I’m in some place where it’s like, my God, what did I get myself into?” But then he told himself: “Quit crying, figure it out, make it work.” The Five-Person Rule One of Neil’s key insights is his management structure. Nobody has more than five direct reports. Not supervisors, not managers, not even Neil as owner. This tight span of control is how he grew his refrigeration company from 10-18 people to over 400 in six years while maintaining quality and accountability. “Everyone has to do what we’re supposed to do,” he explains. “If we all do what we’re supposed to do and take the accountability of what we’re supposed to do, then it can work.” Growing When Others Retreat The 2008 financial crisis tested every business owner, but Neil’s response was counterintuitive. While the country was laying off 700,000 people a month, he gathered his top 10 guys and said: “We’ve just got to get more clients.” By Christmas, they were bringing in all new work. Then their existing clients–Target, Publix, Costco – suddenly needed massive expansions. Neil went from laying off 40-50 people to desperately hiring them back plus another 40-50 more. Why Manufacturing, Why Now After several successful turnarounds, Neil decided manufacturing would be his next chapter. He bought Piedmont Machine in Concord, North Carolina, seeing opportunity where others saw decline. The company does Swiss machining for smaller diameter work and can handle parts up to 30 inches in diameter—from roller bearing components for landing gear to automated door systems. He envisions growing his company to 80-100 employees, consolidating into a new 60-75,000 square foot facility, and implementing comprehensive training programs. The Grinder’s Legacy Neil calls himself a “grinder” – someone focused on day-to-day execution rather than just deal-making. His philosophy centers on personal responsibility: “If I don’t do what I’m supposed to do, then I can’t pay these people. And if I can’t pay these people, that means that we did it wrong.” What drives someone to keep grinding at 67? Neil says it’s about legacy, not money. “Everything I’ve done, it still works. It still runs. If I do something and it goes under or it stops being in existence, then I feel like that’s not a good legacy. That means I didn’t do it right.” Neil doesn’t know how to run a machine and doesn’t want to. He knows how to run a business with clear strategy, deep understanding of people, and balls, and he’s still betting big because that’s what real builders do.
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Running a CNC Swiss Medical Shop, with Shawn Gaskin–Ep. 161

    Running a CNC Swiss Medical Shop, with Shawn Gaskin–Ep. 161
    Aug 10 2022
    Our guest on the podcast today is Shawn Gaskin, owner of Swiss Technologies of New England and Stone Medical in Plainville, Massachusetts. Shawn started Swiss Technologies over 20 years ago, with one L20 Citizen making parts out of sterling silver for Tiffany and Company. Over the years, his company has grown into a diversified shop, doing a significant amount of medical work. If you want to learn about the medical Swiss components business I recommend you check out this interview. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h Main Points After high school, Shawn worked for a friend of his dad’s who owned a jewelry factory. The company purchased a Citizen L20 Type V Swiss lathe to make parts out of sterling silver for Tiffany and Company, which went into items like key rings, pill boxes and whistles. Shawn characterizes machining sterling silver as across between machining aluminum and titanium. It produces chips like aluminum and the has the abrasiveness of titanium. The jewelry company rented space for the Citizen in a nearby machine shop, where Shawn was tasked with learning to run it. After several years, Shawn’s boss gave him the opportunity to find more work for the Citizen, giving him a 15% commission on what he brought in. Eventually, Shawn started his own company, borrowing $40,000 from his parents and $80,000 from his former boss, who he then supplied parts for. He built Swiss Technologies starting with the original 1997 Citizen he had learned on. Eventually, the jewelry job slowed down, so he was forced to find new work. He caught a huge break getting a job running parts that went into ATM machines. In a single purchase order, Swiss Technologies went from doing $450,000 in sales to $2.4 million. Unfortunately 60% of the company’s business came from one customer. In 2015, when the ATM machines got a new design, the work went to China, taking away 35% the company’s revenue. Shawn knew he needed to diversify, so he increased Swiss Technologies’ sales and marketing and obtained ISO 9001 certification, which increased the company’s customer opportunities. In 2018, the company obtained ISO 13485 certification for medical work. Shawn characterizes this big move into medical as an overhauling of the business. Medical Swiss Parts Business Swiss Technologies got its first medical job when a shop nearby had an overflow of work. Shawn says he realized medical work was a good place to be when he went from jobbing machines at $50-$60 per hour to $125-$150 per hour. Shawn says Medical work is generally categorized as external or internal. External medical work signifies making parts for medical devices such as IV pumps or syringes, while internal medical work refers to implantables, parts that are put into the body, such as bone screws. He says external medical work is lucrative, but internal medical work is generally more lucrative. Doing internal medical work requires significant investment, such as purchasing liability insurance. As a company doing $3.5 million in revenue with 17 employees, Shawn says he pays around $25,000 per year for insurance, and there are only four or five companies who offer the insurance. Often medical customers want suppliers to have all of their processes in-house, such as anodizing, passivating, deburring, and laser marking. Swiss Technologies and Shawn’s other company Stone Medical don’t offer all of those services, which adds to the challenge of competing in the medical parts arena. Advice for companies wanting to get into Swiss Machining Shawn says “bigger is not always better” for a Swiss machining company. He thinks a company can be successful with three or four employees and four to six machines. He encourages ambitious people to not be afraid to start with one machine making parts in the garage because there is a lot of work out there for companies who have low overhead. For companies trying to break into medical work, he recommends trying to get Tier 2 work to begin with. Shawn says if he could go back and time and do things differently at his business he would have trained his people better. When he was making high volume parts for ATM machines, the shop’s machines needed few change-overs, so his people didn’t develop their skills setting up new jobs. He says today he has the best crew the company has ever had. He makes a point of training his people to think independently by giving them time to struggle with problems in shop, even if it means machines are down sometimes. Shawn says he usually gets on the shop floor two and half to three hours a day. He says it’s good to show his employees he is with them in the trenches, to help them solve problems and for him to ...
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    39 mins
  • Attached to Multi-Spindles, with Elliott May—EP. 143

    Attached to Multi-Spindles, with Elliott May—EP. 143
    Jan 15 2026
    Our guest on today’s podcast is Elliott May, engineer at BME in Port Huron, Michigan. BME builds original custom attachments for cam multi-spindles. They also rebuild Acme-Gridley screw machines. Elliott and I talked about a lot of fascinating things in this interview. How to keep old mechanical beasts relevant, getting young people into machining, and what it’s like to work closely everyday with your dad—who’s also the boss. Scroll down to read more and listen to the podcast. Or listen on your phone with Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Find us on Social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog Main Points Custom Attachments Elliott says that customers come to BME when they want to make a part on a cam screw machine but can’t figure out how to make it happen. The company offers an extensive line of proprietary attachments such air operated pickoff assemblies, rotary recess attachments, and synchronized slotting/milling attachments. Elliott’s father, Brett, started BME 15 years ago. Nine years ago, Elliott started working at the company at age 14. His first job was cutting steel bars with a bandsaw. Later he worked in shipping and receiving, and then graduated to assembling attachments for multi-spindles. After studying engineering for a few years he began working in tandem with his father engineering attachments. Generally they are tasked with tweaking attachments already in their product line to suit the jobs of specific customers. A few times a year, they are called upon to engineer more novel devices, when a customer’s job calls for something special that they haven’t invented yet. Elliott says his father, Brett, is the “idea guy.” Brett analyzes what he wants to accomplish, then Elliott puts the idea down on paper (often CAD). They both are constantly putting their heads together to solve problems. It’s not uncommon for the two to stand at several whiteboards for long periods of time, brainstorming various drawings, trying to work out a solution. Elliott says they have a good chemistry at work, and over the years his role has changed as his knowledge and skills have grown. He admits that when he was younger and less experienced he may have been too overconfident in his ideas and he had to be put in his place. But nowadays, it sounds like he is genuinely challenging his dad in the engineering room. Acme Rebuilding As a used machinery dealer myself, selling old cam multi-spindles, I grilled Elliott on a lot of the same questions we grapple with at Graff-Pinkert, our family business. I asked him if rebuilding old multi-spindles from the ground up, particularly Acmes, was a good business to be in. Graff-Pinkert still refurbishes some cam multi-spindles such as Wickmans and Davenports, but the work we do is much less comprehensive than that of BME. Also, we stay away from doing a lot of work on Acmes. The parts for Acmes can be very expensive, and the Acme rebuilding process is extremely labor intensive. For a rebuilt Acme, BME charges several hundred thousand dollars. The price depends a lot on what kind of turnkey the customer requires, if any. Elliott says the rebuilding and attachment businesses compliment each other. Often the rebuilt machines come equipped with BME’s proprietary attachments. He says he believes the cam multi-spindle business has a significant future because the machines are often still the best option for high volume jobs, assuming companies have the personnel to run them. Elliott May, Engineer at BME Young People in Machining I asked Elliott why it’s a struggle to get young people to go into manufacturing and an even greater struggle to get them to run old multi-spindles. He says manufacturing has to shake off its bad reputation from the past, as having a top-down style of management that doesn’t care about the needs of employees. He suggests that if manufacturing employees could count on a clean, pleasant work environment, and felt supported and heard by management, more people would want to go into the field. Working with His Dad I was very curious to get Elliott’s perspective about working closely with his father, as I also work with my father. I asked him if he felt like he was in a strange position as someone who is not the boss, but also not a normal employee either. It’s a position that I’ve often analyzed for over a decade. Despite being only 23, Elliott says he has the advantage of having the longest tenure at BME of all its employees. He also says because of his experience and confidence in his ability, he earns the respect of his coworkers. I remarked to him during the interview that he often referred to his dad in the third person as “Brett,” rather than “my dad.” He says it’s a useful way to draw less ...
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    41 mins
  • Pivoting to Manufacture a Product, with Michael Gimbel – EP 224

    Pivoting to Manufacture a Product, with Michael Gimbel – EP 224
    Jan 6 2026
    Most of us don’t have a knack for pivoting. We follow the standard curriculum, and we keep going forward when we get in a lane, whether we believe it’s the right direction or not. But for Michael Gimbel, my guest on today’s show, seeing setbacks as serendipity and then pivoting is a natural gift. Michael built a CNC router in his garage by age 12. He dropped out of an elite university after one year to start a company selling 3D printing technology that he invented. When the company failed, he picked up the pieces, shifting to contract manufacturing and engineering consulting. But that business didn’t excite him, so Michael pivoted again to manufacture a spindle gripper he developed for automating his own vertical CNC mills. Today his company, Gimbel Automation, is thriving and his spindle grippers are saving machining companies hundreds of thousands of dollars on automation. And he’s only 26! ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Interview Highlights The Startup Noah: Tell me about your interesting career journey. Michael: I got to college and was totally miserable. I was doing things I’d already studied and aced because they wanted me to. It was such a downgrade from the equipment. The only thing I could fit in my dorm was a little 3D printer. I went from having a full shop to just a couple of crappy pieces of equipment, taking courses I’d already taken. I got burnt out and chose to drop out after a year. To be honest, I felt like I wanted to do my own thing. Hopkins is good for the right person, but it wasn’t me. You have to want to follow everything from A to B to C by the book, believing in the process. I’m the kind of person who wants to try everything, see what I can do, and see where I fail. It’s not a place that curates failure on your own, and that’s what I really needed. Noah: Interesting. So you decided to leave after freshman year? Michael: I completed freshman year, dropped out, and convinced six or seven professors to give me about $70 grand as startup seed money. Then I moved to Los Angeles and raised venture capital. I raised about 1.25 million dollars as a 19-year-old with just a dream, a plan, and a couple of experimental 3D printers. I had invented a new 3D printing process. From there, it was its own wild ride. Noah: Then what happened? Michael: What happened was exactly what you’d expect when you hand a million dollars to a 19-year-old. I tried to run the company, but I didn’t know what I was doing. We made cool tech developments, but I didn’t understand how to manage people or how to get things to the next level. Ultimately, that first company failed. Contract Manufacturing and Engineering Consulting Noah: What came next? Michael: There’s a long, convoluted path to my next stage. The company’s assets traded hands a couple of times. The original investors didn’t want anything to do with it because it was a money pit. Eventually, it came into my hands and I ended up paying off all the debts. I had the idea to run a job shop or contract manufacturer again, to have all these machines in this space for my next chapter. I’d looked for jobs but couldn’t get behind anything, thinking I’d fall into building someone else’s dream. I wanted to build my own thing, even if it was difficult. And it was definitely difficult. I started doing job shop work for startups. I learned quickly that startups are awful customers because most don’t exist in a year or two. We slowly moved into engineering consulting. The startup company was 3D printing, but to do our own R&D, we had machines – a water jet, a Haas CNC machine. I thought, we need to make money now, so we’ll do job shop work. That’s how we started and how I paid off the debts at first. We then moved into engineering consulting and production work, like specialty stuff and art. We were doing all the stuff other shops didn’t want to do because it wasn’t full production quantities and was complicated. We took on customers who didn’t have drawings but needed certain requirements. We grew rapidly, doubling in size every year. We quickly built up to four people. Everything was great. We were mostly in engineering consulting, not only making parts but designing components, putting assemblies together, and testing them. Then COVID hit, turning our whole business upside down. 90% of the revenue disappeared. I had to lay off two people and put one part-time. This was the only time I ever laid people off. We started making face shields for a while ...
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    47 mins
  • Is 2025 the End of Cam Screw Machines? EP 257

    Is 2025 the End of Cam Screw Machines? EP 257
    Dec 16 2025
    Is an Acme-Gridley the mink coat of machine tools? A well made product that still does a great job, but nobody wants another one. In 2025? No. Not yet. On today’s podcast, Lloyd and I talk about our used machinery business over the last year. We saw one customer drop 20 million for five INDEXs to replace every cam screw machine in their shop. At the same time we sold machines to a multinational automotive supplier who is buying hundreds of Davenport screw machines—many older than me—I’m 45 by the way. ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. . View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Interview Highlights The Mink Coat Discovery This Thanksgiving, while going through my mother’s closet, my dad found her 40-year-old mink coat in perfect condition. Once worth $10,000, ChatGPT now values it at maybe $250 to a dealer. The discovery sparked an uncomfortable comparison to the cam screw machines in our stock. “Of course, mink means Acmes to me because Acmes helped pay for the mink,” Lloyd reflects. “These are very functional, valuable machines that were running good parts where we bought them and we feel they have value, however… we have to doubt ourselves.” He poses the question that haunts our business: “Let’s say it is 1-5/8” RB-8 Acme. How much money could somebody potentially make on that machine over the course of one year?” He figures $25,000 to $50,000, maybe more with the right job. “We would sell that machine in that price range. Yet we find no buyers. From an economic standpoint, to me that makes no sense.” A Brutal Year The machinery dealing business has been tough this year. While many of our customers’ businesses remained steady, indecision paralyzed buying decisions—particularly around tariffs. “One of the polls I did on LinkedIn asked if indecision because of tariffs caused them to not buy equipment this year.” Fifty percent said that was one reason why they had not bought equipment. And I will never forget this year’s deal from hell. ”We bought a machine in Germany, sold it to a company in the United States, and then BOOM—tariff. We went from an amazing deal to… I’m amazed we didn’t lose money.” I hate tariffs for a lot of reasons. This one was extra personal. The $20 Million Paradox The market presents striking contradictions. One of our customers recently got rid of 30 cam screw machines, selling them for “$2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 a piece,” then spent over $3 million each on INDEX CNC multi-spindles—$20 million total to replace their entire shop floor. “I was shocked,” Lloyd admits. “The question was, are they that much better than a 1” Acme?” I explain the economics: “They make an entirely different kind of part. They make a part that you could make a dollar from where you make 10 cents from an Acme part. Or they’re making $10 on that part, and on the Acme, they were making a quarter.” The new machines can handle medical parts, complex geometries—the kinds of high-margin work that justifies the investment. The Davenport Bet Meanwhile, another customer is betting the opposite way, buying hundreds of Davenports for facilities in Mexico and China. Today’s Davenports have a similar design to their original one from 115 years ago. The company is buying so many they’ve ordered Davenport’s entire production capacity for new machines while simultaneously buying used ones. Good ones, bad ones, anything they can find to rebuild. “There are many uses for small parts as bushings or as inserts or pins,” Lloyd explains. “And if you’re catering to a world market… they’re saying to themselves, we want to tremendously expand our capacity because we believe there is a market there and people have abandoned this market.” The China Question Lloyd sees a broader pattern: “The Chinese appear to be able to make good product, not maybe the quality of product being made in the United States or in Europe, but close to it at a fraction of the price.” He worries about Chinese companies producing chips “90 to 95% as good” as NVIDIA’s but selling for 30% less. “They’re able to make an electric car now in China and sell it in the Chinese market for under $10,000, and they’re selling them now in Germany for as low as $16,000.” “In my mind, we’re in a war with China—an economic war.” Gratitude We end where we began—with gratitude. “I get the privilege of working with you,” Lloyd tells me. And I tell him that I have a gratitude list every day in the morning, and he’s on it. Readers, ...
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    Less than 1 minute
  • How to Make Your Employees Want to Stay, with Adam Wiltsie–EP 130

    How to Make Your Employees Want to Stay, with Adam Wiltsie–EP 130
    Dec 9 2025
    Last week, I heard a story about an old customer of Graff-Pinkert who lost three key machinists because a shop down the street was paying more. It led me to make a post on Linkedin, asking if machinists and setup people were paid enough to attract young people to the machining field. On the whole, commenters vented that they were not compensated what they felt they deserved working in the machining industry. The post has 53 comments so far (I’m usually lucky to get one). The big question is, are manufacturing jobs in the United States, machining jobs in particular, attractive enough to fill the labor shortage that everyone continues to cry about? I thought back to one of my favorite podcast interviews, in which I spoke to Adam Wiltsie of Vanamatic, a 3-generation screw machine shop in Delphos, Ohio. In the interview, Adam told me that Vanamatic does not have a talent shortage and enjoys incredible employee retention, in part due to innovative recruitment strategies and flexible schedules. I don’t know what the company pays its employees, but Adam told me that when business came roaring back after the Covid-19 dive in 2020, Vanamatic raised wages $5 for all employees. I spoke with Adam yesterday and he said that employee retention is even better than it was two years ago. Even if you’ve memorized this story already, I recommend you check out the original blog and listen to the podcast. They’re good even a second time around! Listen with the player at the bottom of the page or at your favorite podcast app. View the podcast our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dB_nzFzt Instagram: https://lnkd.in/dcxjzVyw Twitter: https://lnkd.in/dDyT-c9h Original Blog After Graff-Pinkert sold a second used Lico CNC lathe to Vanamatic, a 3-generation screw machine shop in Delphos, Ohio, I had a great conversation with Adam Wiltsie, the company’s Director of Operations. At that moment, I was quite envious of Adam—I was sitting at my desk in my office, while he was outside on a beautiful July Friday afternoon, waiting in line his local ice cream institution Dairy Hut. Adam gets out of the office on Friday afternoons. He gets to tailor his work schedule, and contrary to what one might assume, this is not just a perk for members of the company’s leadership team. Vanamatic allows a flexible work schedule for all its 103 employees. Adam says this is a key reason why the company has not been suffering from a shortage of skilled people, that so many other manufacturing companies often complain about. In fact, 103 employees is a record number for the company, which happens to be located in a town of 6,000 people. Vanamatic was founded in 1953 by Adam’s grandfather in Delphos, Ohio. Today, the company is run by a leadership team made up of Adam, his brothers Scott and Jared, Steve Schroeder and Dave Ricker. The company makes parts for a variety of sectors including automotive, aerospace, fluid power, agriculture, construction, fittings, and refrigeration. The majority of its machines are 8-Spindle VNA Conomatics— 1-5/8” and 2-5/8” capacity. For those unfamiliar with Conomatics, or “Cones” as they’re often called, think of an ACME-GRIDLEY but heavier and a larger tool zone. Adam says the company loves the machines because “they can push feed rates like no other.” Cones aren’t built anymore so Vanamatic has its own rebuilding program for the machines. The company also has CNC turning centers, a few other brands of multi-spindles, and 10 Lico CNC lathes—picture a sexy, beefed up 11-axis CNC Brown & Sharpe. Adam is 42 years old, with three kids. He says having kids influenced his management style because it made him realize that every person works differently. Vanamatic’s management philosophy takes into account that all of the company’s employees have different requirements to bring out their peak performance and make them happy. Treating every individual employee uniquely bucks the traditional collective style of management in manufacturing companies, which Vanamatic had employed for the majority of the company’s life. Adam Wiltsie, Director of Operations of Vanamatic A while back, Adam and his brother Scott, head of Human Resources, implemented a management strategy called Start, Stop, Improve. Every year, they sit with each individual employee and ask them what they would start, stop or improve on a company level, a department level and an individual level. In the process, they learned that many people at the company desired a better work-life balance. They realized that by implementing flexible hours they could improve the lives of employees who prefer to be with their families at different times of day. Flexible hours could also accommodate employees who have hobbies or ...
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    34 mins
  • The Turnaround Formula, with Neil Lansing-EP 256

    The Turnaround Formula, with Neil Lansing-EP 256
    Dec 1 2025
    Today I’m talking to a guy who believes every company needs to be built to last—not just to flip. Neil Lansing is a turnaround specialist who left private equity to bet his own money on small, underperforming businesses. He’s taken companies from 18 employees to over 400. From $2 million to $40-50 million in revenue. And when everyone else was laying people off in 2008, he told his refrigeration company’s team: “We need more clients.” After transforming mom-and-pop service companies one after another, he found his final stop, Piedmont Machine & Manufacturing. At 67, he’s not looking for the next flip. He’s building something that will outlast him. ************* Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link. . View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! ************* Interview Highlights The Journey from Satellites to Shop Floors Neil started as a satellite engineer at Hughes Aircraft, became a CFO of a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, then worked in private equity doing turnarounds and startups. But eventually he walked away from working with other people’s money to bet his own cash on small businesses. It wasn’t an easy mental shift. As he told me: “I remember the first time I did something. I was sitting there and I remember, now I’m not in corporate America, I’m not in these nice New York digs… I’m in some place where it’s like, my God, what did I get myself into?” But then he told himself: “Quit crying, figure it out, make it work.” The Five-Person Rule One of Neil’s key insights is his management structure. Nobody has more than five direct reports. Not supervisors, not managers, not even Neil as owner. This tight span of control is how he grew his refrigeration company from 10-18 people to over 400 in six years while maintaining quality and accountability. “Everyone has to do what we’re supposed to do,” he explains. “If we all do what we’re supposed to do and take the accountability of what we’re supposed to do, then it can work.” Growing When Others Retreat The 2008 financial crisis tested every business owner, but Neil’s response was counterintuitive. While the country was laying off 700,000 people a month, he gathered his top 10 guys and said: “We’ve just got to get more clients.” By Christmas, they were bringing in all new work. Then their existing clients–Target, Publix, Costco – suddenly needed massive expansions. Neil went from laying off 40-50 people to desperately hiring them back plus another 40-50 more. Why Manufacturing, Why Now After several successful turnarounds, Neil decided manufacturing would be his next chapter. He bought Piedmont Machine in Concord, North Carolina, seeing opportunity where others saw decline. The company does Swiss machining for smaller diameter work and can handle parts up to 30 inches in diameter—from roller bearing components for landing gear to automated door systems. He envisions growing his company to 80-100 employees, consolidating into a new 60-75,000 square foot facility, and implementing comprehensive training programs. The Grinder’s Legacy Neil calls himself a “grinder” – someone focused on day-to-day execution rather than just deal-making. His philosophy centers on personal responsibility: “If I don’t do what I’m supposed to do, then I can’t pay these people. And if I can’t pay these people, that means that we did it wrong.” What drives someone to keep grinding at 67? Neil says it’s about legacy, not money. “Everything I’ve done, it still works. It still runs. If I do something and it goes under or it stops being in existence, then I feel like that’s not a good legacy. That means I didn’t do it right.” Neil doesn’t know how to run a machine and doesn’t want to. He knows how to run a business with clear strategy, deep understanding of people, and balls, and he’s still betting big because that’s what real builders do.
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