Manufacturing Culture Podcast

Johnny Goode spent a decade as a patrol officer, narcotics detective, and SWAT team member in Bloomington, Indiana. When his dad offered him a seat at the family machine shop six years ago, it made zero sense on paper. Today, MSP is having its best quarter in 83 years. In this conversation, Johnny and Jim cover what law enforcement actually teaches you about leadership, how to dismantle a toxic culture from the inside, why bonus structures aren't the answer, and what it means to build a shop where people look forward to Mondays.Key TakeawaysGood culture is a supportive environment where accountability is investigative, not finger-pointing. How you treat people is everything.Don't confuse good luck with good tactics. Just because something hasn't been a problem doesn't mean it isn't one.Bonus structures don't motivate everyone. Find out what actually matters to your people and build around that.Putting a poor performer next to your best performer destroys culture faster than almost anything else.The best months at MSP have sometimes been the ones when Johnny was out of the office. That's the goal.You can do 10 small things in a year and be in a completely different league than where you started.Chapters00:00:23 — Introduction to Johnny Goode00:02:15 — Icebreaker: Chris Pine, drama, and starting the movie at the best moment00:04:18 — Defining culture: respect, accountability, and talking to people straight00:06:02 — From San Diego to the police academy to the National Guard00:11:58 — Joining the family business during one of the hardest seasons of his life00:14:45 — What it's like to work with your dad and build something together00:18:32 — Succession planning and raising sons who find their own passion first00:21:57 — What SWAT and the military actually taught him about leadership00:25:27 — Dismantling a toxic culture from the inside00:30:25 — Developing young talent and getting people into the right seats00:32:04 — Bringing his sons into the shop and exposing them to manufacturing early00:34:27 — The future of MSP: expansion, talent pipelines, and never being satisfied00:38:12 — Career pathing and why stagnation is the real reason people leave00:40:32 — Final thoughts: the team gets all the credit

Adam Crandall almost became a pediatrician. One afternoon in an OR changed everything. Twenty years later, he's the CRO of Addtronics, a private equity-backed automation platform that's doing something the industry rarely sees: actually protecting the culture of the companies it acquires. In this conversation, Adam's second time on the show, Jim and Adam go deeper than their first episode. They talk about the non-linear path into manufacturing, what it means to lead with people first inside a PE firm, and why Adam got emotional talking about the thank-you messages that still find their way to him years after he's moved on.Key TakeawaysCulture is the feeling you have on Sunday night before Monday morning. You know immediately whether you've got it or not.Manufacturing isn't usually the plan. It's the destination people stumble into and never want to leave.There's private equity, and then there's private equity. Addtronics' investors don't just ask about EBITDA, they ask how the families are doing.The numbers mean nothing without the people. You don't have EBITDA without people who feel valued enough to show up.Career pivots aren't failures. They're signals. Adam's OR experience wasn't a dead end.The legacy isn't the last deal you closed. It's the messages people send years later saying you changed how they lead.Chapters00:00 — Pride in Manufacturing: the orange juice container speech00:19 — Podcast Introduction02:51 — Icebreaker: Matthew McConaughey, action movies, and club sodas04:53 — What culture means to Adam Crandall08:05 — From Pre-Med to Sales: the OR story12:31 — Embracing the pivot: man plans, God laughs15:04 — Non-linear paths into manufacturing18:19 — Why manufacturing is the unplanned destination people never leave20:30 — Addressing private equity misconceptions26:36 — Addtronics' diverse portfolio: six companies, one mission32:41 — Protecting company culture during rapid growth37:08 — What makes Adam proud40:14 — The emotional weight of mentorship42:35 — A call for talent: Addtronics is hiring

Steven Gao grew up in a small town in China, taught himself computers, then made a snap decision at 18 to study mechanical engineering instead — a choice that took him from a Chinese university to Germany, to a GM joint venture, and eventually to Tesla's first gigafactory outside the US. Now he's building what he calls an AI manufacturing engineer: software that can do everything from reading customer requirements to troubleshooting a production line. In this conversation, Steven and Jim dig into what transformation actually looks like across three countries, why manufacturing is facing an engineering capacity crisis, and why Steven still feels like the technology he's building is magic.Key TakeawaysCulture is an unspoken language — it's not what you say, it's how you move, decide, and live.Transformation has three levels: changing how people do things, how they collaborate, and ultimately how they think. The hardest one is the last.Germany plans everything. China executes fast. The US is proactive. Same technology, completely different playbook in each country.For every 10 transformation initiatives, you will fail more than you succeed — and that's okay. The modules you build from those failures become your foundation.The engineering capacity crisis is real: the best engineers in the world are aging out, and not enough are coming in behind them.Steven left Tesla not because something was wrong, but because he knew a 10X opportunity doesn't come twice — and he saw the window.ChaptersIntroduction to the Podcast (00:00:28)Icebreaker: Life as a Movie (00:01:26)Defining Culture (00:02:42)Early Life in China (00:03:14)Choosing Mechanical Engineering (00:04:11)Education in China and Germany (00:05:49)Early Career and Internships (00:06:59)Working for General Motors in China (00:10:25)Joining Tesla's Gigafactory (00:11:37)Solving Problems at Tesla (00:14:16)Cultural Differences in Transformation (00:16:24)Challenges of Data-Driven Manufacturing (00:18:33)Leaving Tesla to Co-Found a Company (00:22:56)Building an AI Manufacturing Engineer (00:26:54)Pride in Engineering (00:30:28)Leaving a Legacy (00:32:35)The Future of AI in Engineering (00:34:06)

Dustin Bowe grew up in the Bahamas dreaming of becoming a pilot, stumbled into a P&G plant tour in college, and never looked back. Now a manufacturing software founder, Dustin brings a rare combination of electrical engineering, cybersecurity, and frontline leadership experience to one of the industry's oldest problems: we ask people to run faster without giving them the tools to actually do it. In this conversation, Jim and Dustin go deep on what culture actually means, why trust has to come before credibility, and why the human on your shop floor is still the most important variable in any equation — AI, automation, or otherwise.Key TakeawaysCulture eats strategy for breakfast — and Dustin heard it from the most strategic person he'd ever met, which made it land harder.People don't show up to work wanting to do a bad job. When someone is struggling, something else is going on. Take ten minutes to find out what.You could be right all day and it won't matter if trust hasn't been earned first.Faster isn't always better. If you don't take care of your equipment, it breaks. Same goes for your people.The real problem in most shops isn't output — it's that leaders are asking people to change lagging indicators instead of giving them control over the input measures that actually drive results.No heroes. One team, one dream.Chapters00:00 — Introduction01:06 — How Jim and Dustin met at MD&M South03:27 — Icebreaker: If your life were a movie07:39 — What does culture actually mean?10:10 — Is there such a thing as bad culture?14:26 — When people stop rowing — and what leadership owes them19:45 — Have we lost sight of the humanness of our employees?24:15 — Dustin's origin story: The Bahamas, a pilot's dream, and a P&G plant tour31:18 — The hardest lesson from his first leadership role: trust before credibility38:32 — No heroes: why Superman culture kills teams40:16 — The hire that changed how he sees people44:35 — Why he walked away from stability to start a software company49:45 — What the software actually does and the problem it solves55:43 — What legacy Dustin wants to leave on this industry

Sam Fritz didn't plan on ending up in manufacturing. He studied mechanical engineering at Texas A&M, took a sales job at Keyence to get out from behind a desk, and started walking into factories across Illinois. Something in those buildings got him.Four years and hundreds of facilities later, he's Area Sales Manager at Banner Engineering, still walking in doors, still paying attention to what he finds inside. In this conversation, Sam discusses why he entered the industry, what kept him there, and what he thinks manufacturing gets wrong about attracting the next generation.His answer to Jim's question about what it would take to leave: I don't think you could take it from me.Key TakeawaysManufacturing didn't recruit Sam. He stumbled in through a sales job and fell in love with what he found. That's the story the industry needs to tell more of.The lobby tells you everything. Sam looks at what manufacturers put in their lobbies before he says a word. Awards about being a great place to work hit different than industry certifications.Good culture is loud. Bad culture goes quiet. The shops where people trust each other are the ones where grown men are tickling each other in the middle of a sales call. The ones that are struggling get very professional very fast.The talent shortage is a storytelling problem. Sam never heard the word PLC in four years of mechanical engineering school. He ended up in factory automation by accident. So did a lot of his classmates.The work's tangibility is what keeps him. He can go back to a customer and see his sensor doing something real. You don't get that selling HR software.His goal isn't to headline a comedy club. It's to do stand-up at Pack Expo, for a room full of manufacturing people who will get every inside joke.Chapters0:00 — Intro1:06 — If your life were a movie4:54 — What is culture?7:58 — Growing up a Fritz10:53 — The moment sales made sense15:00 — The Keyence years18:48 — The moment manufacturing clicked21:46 — What he notices when he walks in24:04 — When culture is misfiring26:40 — The Bad Boy of Connectivity34:31 — Why the industry can't find young people40:16 — Why he stayed49:12 — The future of manufacturing52:06 — What he wishes Jim had askedConnect with SamLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sfritz27/