Manufacturing Happy Hour

RVs are homes that go 60 miles an hour. That changes everything about what goes inside them.

Chris sits down with Sean Petterson, CEO of Supersede, a company combining recycling and manufacturing in an unexpected way - turning recycled plastic into structural building materials. Supersede started with boats, where wood has an obvious problem - boats get wet!

From there, the company moved into RVs, where the materials face constant movement and thermal cycling, on a production line that can build an entire RV in a couple of hours.

Sean also explains the thinking...

There's a lot more coming out of Iowa than corn.

Chris heads to Des Moines for a live conversation with four guests who each know Iowa manufacturing a little differently.

Dominique Hain and Cami Schaefer share how Women in Manufacturing Iowa grew to over 900 members in three years. Denny Williams and Denise Hill take it from there, discussing automation, hiring, and just how deep Iowa's farm roots run through its factories.

The conversation also uncovers some of the products many people may not know are made in Iowa, including Winnebago RVs.

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You can count on Philly to bring the energy!

Recorded live in King of Prussia at the final stop of the Northeast leg of the All-American Manufacturing Summer Tour, this episode features the loudest, most engaged crowd Chris has had on the show yet.

Ashley, Brett, and Matt open the show with a look at what makes the Philadelphia manufacturing ecosystem tick, and why collaboration, not competition, might be the region's biggest advantage.

Hannah and Greg then join Matt to talk workforce development, and some of the most creative approaches to the talent...

Where's the party at? While there’s a lot to see on the show floor at IMTS 2026, some of the best conversations, connections, and memories happen after the show floor closes each day.

In this bonus episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris is joined by returning guests Jim Mayer and Emily Wilkins for an "IMTS After Hours" conversation about how to make the most of manufacturing’s biggest week in Chicago.

They share some of their favorite stories from IMTS events of the past - from spontaneous meetups and happy hours, to karaoke, to Chris’ infamo...

"New York City is where dreams come to audition", and this goes for manufacturers too.

Recorded live at New Lab in Brooklyn, this episode is split into three segments and features seven guests. Chris explores what manufacturing means in a city best known for 'wall street’.

Andrew, James, and Stacey open the show by digging into New York's overlooked industrial past, including a 250-year stretch where the city was the largest manufacturing hub in the country. Jacob, Nikki, and Miquela then take the stage to talk about what's being built in the city today, from ro...

300 episodes of Chris asking all the questions, this week he is finally in the hot seat - and it’s his high school buddies doing all the grilling!

Recorded live at Urban Chestnut Brewing, this episode is split into two parts. First, Chris sits down with a Missouri manufacturing panel - Michael Eaton, Joe Mazzola and Maria Berra to talk Apollo 13 battery cells, pepper spray, whiskey barrels, and keeping it in the family in St. Louis.

In part 2, we are flipping the script. To celebrate this milestone episode, three of Chris's oldest friends, Pat, Rob an...

Some of the best manufacturing advice comes down to one simple idea - buy back your weekends.

In this bonus episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris is joined by Patrick Carmitchel, VP of Product Management and Dustin Moore, Condition Monitoring Engineer Manager at AssetWatch, to break down what condition monitoring and predictive maintenance looks like in practice, no jargon required.

They get into the differences between preventative and predictive maintenance, why the biggest ROI often comes from just doing one thing well, and how AssetWatch's own founding story led them from wireless power research into...

We're not beating the drum this week… we're ringing Cici's bell.

Filmed live at Trinity College's Innovation Hub - our first time in Connecticut, and our first ever 9:30am taping. Not quite our usual ‘happy hour’, but our guests and the “small-but-mighty" state of Connecticut brought the energy all the same.

Chris sits down with Cici Bevin, sixth-generation President of Bevin Brothers Manufacturing and leader of the only remaining bell maker in the U.S, Andrew Gibson, CEO of AlphaQ, who came out of retirement to run a precision aerospace supplier for names like Sikorsky and Roll...

Selling the equipment is the easy part. The real revenue shows up after the sale.

Sam Neva, Vice President of Sales for Service Lifecycle Management at PTC, joined the show to talk servitization - what it means, and why it's becoming the difference between OEMs who scrape by on hardware margins and ones who build real recurring revenue. Chris caught up with him live at PTC's headquarters.

Manufacturing folks, we didn't forget about you! This episode is geared squarely toward people building equipment. If you want to tighten up your sales process and make your...

Digital, real, real, digital. It sounds simple, but it's rewriting how a warehouse gets designed.

Joel Thomas has spent over a decade in the Intralogistics space and now leads OEM Sales Data Center and Life Sciences at Siemens. Markus Thiel just crossed the six month mark as Head of Intralogistics, after years on the manufacturing operations and supply chain side of the business.

Chris caught up with both of them live in Atlanta during MODEX, over a Weiss beer and a pilsner at Halfway Crooks. They talk about what Intralogistics is, and how it's changed...

Fine tuning manufacturing like a guitar - that's the kind of parallel you can expect from this episode.

This week Chris sits down with Rush LaSelle, CEO at Fathom, recorded on site at their Hartland, Wisconsin facility over a Spotted Cow beer. Rush's path into manufacturing started at Fanuc, moved through the early and unproven days of mobile robotics, and later took him into the highly regulated world of healthcare automation.

They get into digital manufacturing today, how the Kiva and Amazon story changed the way people think about robotics and logistics, and why more...

Two worlds that have never previously spoken the same language are now building the same machine.

This week Chris sits down with David Nichols, CEO, Co-Founder and Engineer at Loupe, an alum of the show making his return. We are also joined by Kristen Quasey, Architecture & Portfolio Sales Manager, and Jan Bajorat, Senior Director of Software-Defined Automation, both at Siemens, for this special bonus episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, live from Automate 2026.

Together they get into software-defined automation, what that looks like on the shop floor, and why it's picking up momentum right now.

What does it take to build something well, on purpose, in a world that keeps pushing you to move faster?

This week Chris sits down with Tyler Mincey, Co-Founder and General Partner at Baukunst, a San Francisco and Boston based collective of creative technologists that also runs an early-stage venture fund. Tyler opens up about where the name Baukunst comes from and what building with intention means to him, drawing on a path that started with the touchscreen on the original iPhone at Apple.

Tyler breaks down research Baukunst has been running on AI adoption...

What happens when a former SpaceX engineer decides manufacturing software needs to be completely reimagined?

In this special live episode of the podcast, recorded at Arts District Brewing in Los Angeles as the final stop on the Golden State Takeover Tour, Chris sits down with Karan Talati, CEO and Co-Founder of First Resonance, to explore one of manufacturing's biggest transformations: the convergence of AI, software, and reindustrialization.

Karan shares the story of growing up around manufacturing in Chicago, his experience during SpaceX's explosive growth, why he founded First Resonance, and how AI agents are poised...

What if your AI strategy doesn't need more agents, just a better plan?

This week Chris sits down with Joseph June, who leads AI strategy at PTC to talk about what companies are getting wrong with AI - going too broad too fast.

Joseph goes into why picking one problem and really solving it is the way to go when onboarding AI. He shares a great example of what a strong AI use case looks like on the shop floor and unpacks the concept of ‘production data foundation’.

The conversation turns to where agen...

Andres Naranjo sailed a race around the world, wrote Japan's digital agenda, and spent his sabbatical teaching himself AI from scratch.

This week Chris sits down with Andres, CEO of Software Toolbox, to hear some incredible life stories and dig into what bringing AI into the industrial world looks like right now.

Andres has lived a lot of lives as a consultant, entrepreneur, ocean racer and AI builder. He's pretty direct about why he walked away from consulting to pursue his current endeavors - the AI wave was moving far too fast to be on...

Your frontline team can only perform as well as the processes they're handed.

So why are so many leaders still blaming the wrong people instead of listening to the ones closest to the problem?

In this weeks’ episode Chris sits down with Jason Woodard, a 35-year manufacturing veteran, CEO of Geislinger Corporation, and author of Manufacturing Leadership That Works.

Jason gets pretty candid about what he's seen over the course of his career. We're talking a plant manager leaving nasty notes on dry-erase boards for exhausted frontline workers, and Jason himself rolling up hi...

Growing your own machinists and orchestrating robots across four continents, is this what the future of manufacturing looks like?

This live episode from Hapa's Brewing in the Bay Area features two panels of people who have built careers at the intersection of mechatronics, automation, and industrial innovation.

First up, Vinod, Kevin, and Adam get into what it takes to build a skilled workforce from the ground up, talking about apprenticeships, college partnerships, and growing your own talent in-house.

Then we get into the bigger picture with our founder panel Kim, Glenn, Nick, and...

What if the biggest efficiency problem in your factory isn't your machines, it's the dead time you waste before you even get to one.

Workers queuing at ADP and ERP terminals every morning. A wing rib scrapped at the cost of $18,000 because the wrong work instruction was on screen. A program gone forever when the machinist who maintained it quietly for a decade retired to Poland. David witnessed all of these problems within his manufacturing acquisitions despite them having advanced tech for the time period.

Chris sits down with David Caputo, Co-Founder of Harmoni, to...

What happens when manufacturers stop competing for talent and start working together to develop it?

In this special LIVE episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris travels to Wausau, Wisconsin for a collaboration with the Central Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance (CWIMA) to explore how manufacturers across the region are working together to strengthen workforce development, accelerate innovation, and build a thriving manufacturing ecosystem.

The discussion features five manufacturing leaders representing a wide range of industries:

Content becomes forgettable when the key message isn't wrapped in storytelling.

People don’t retain information anywhere near as well as they remember stories they hear, and this is where manufacturing is missing a trick.

Manufacturers are battling false perceptions that the industry is dirty, dingy, not innovative and not creative. But what’s really happening is a failure to communicate the good stuff - the advanced systems and problem solving going on behind factory walls. The things that impact almost everything we touch in our lives.

Chris is joined by Danny Gonzales, CEO...

20 years ago, automation was a pipe dream for industrial workers, 10 years ago it existed in research and development labs. Now it's fully operational in warehouses, production facilities and even mines.

The companies driving robotics forwards are going one step further than developing smarter AI. They’re figuring out how to apply that advanced engineering to ‘gritty’ manufacturing – and there are few places that understand that world better than the Steel City.

Pittsburgh has become an important ecosystem for developing autonomous technologies, the combination of engineering talent and thriving industrial background has turned it into somewhat of a tes...

For women working in skilled trades, running into someone who knows what the work feels like doesn't happen every day, Sisterhood of Trades was founded to build that connection.

Through platforms like Discord, LinkedIn and TikTok, the community is creating a space where women in the industry can connect with peers, share opportunities, find mentorship and grow their careers.

Recorded live from The Manufacturing Exchange at ARTISAN works in Rochester, NY, for the second time hosting the podcast, Chris sits down with CEO Nush Ahmed, and Chief Strategy Officer Brooke Laing to talk about how...

Full automation and AI on the factory floor are great, but the line still doesn't run without people who can feel a part click into place wrong or hear a tool burn.

That space between what technology can repeat and what only an operator can sense is the art of precision manufacturing.

Recorded live from The Manufacturing Exchange at ARTISANworks in Rochester, NY for the Rochester stop on the Rust Belt Renaissance Tour, Chris is joined on stage by three guests who think about that space every day. Matthew Bradley is Program Director at Moog...

American manufacturing’s next chapter is being written one region at a time, and Northeast Ohio is one of the places setting the standard.

In a region like theirs, the institutions and programs are moving in sync, and that builds into something bigger than any plant could pull off alone. That’s why we’re hitting the road on the Rust Belt Renaissance tour to find more places where modern technology and industrial innovation are helping to revive the area. On the first stop, we’re live from Collision Bend Brewing in Cleveland with seven leaders from across t...

General-purpose AI can answer almost anything, but that flexibility becomes a liability on the factory floor.

In this bonus episode, Chris sits down with Angelo Stracquatanio, CEO of Apprentice, a purpose-built AI company for manufacturers and the creator of A1: The AI Agent for Manufacturing Teams.

Angelo has spent 12 years building software for the people on the shop floor, starting in the pharma manufacturing suites where a 200-page paper binder sparked the idea for the company.

The conversation covers the origin story of Apprentice, the ‘Predict and Prepare’ framework behind its biggest pivots (incl...

For years, reshoring was a fringe idea. Now, it’s one of the most talked-about topics in manufacturing.

Even though the conversation is now in vogue, there’s still a challenge. Many companies are still making the same mistake when deciding where to manufacture. They’re looking at price, not total cost of ownership (TCO).

In this episode, Chris sits down with Harry Moser – Founder of the Reshoring Initiative – to break down the real math behind reshoring…and why getting that math right could unlock millions of jobs and fundamentally reshape U.S. manufacturing.

Make sure...

How do you know when your current setup has stopped working, and what to do with it when it does?

In this bonus episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris sits down with Shane Dubbelman, Head of Partnerships at MRPeasy, and Sara Duff, Managing Director at Smart Manufacture, to talk about what happens at that point, when the lack of visibility into inventory, costs, and operations starts to hold a business back.

They get into where spreadsheets begin to slack, how to think about MRP vs ERP at that stage of growth, and why a lot...

Kwadwo Som-Pimpong started making furniture in 2015 because he bought a house with no furniture and decided to build his own.

A decade later, he runs Crafted Glory, a small-batch luxury furniture brand blending West African artistry with Scandinavian design, while working 10-hour shifts at Eaton as a fabrication supervisor.

In this episode, Chris sits down with Kwadwo to trace the journey from those first end tables built in a garage to a full-scale business.

The conversation covers how Kwadwo manages the constraints of four to five hours in the shop each day, including...

Running out of warehouse space doesn’t always mean you need more of it. For Sumitomo Drive Technologies, it meant rethinking the whole operation from the ground up.

In this episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, Chris sits down remotely with Tony Barlett and Shawn Lambert from Sumitomo Drive Technologies for an inside look at a live warehouse automation project underway at their Chesapeake, Virginia headquarters.

The project combines AutoStore, an automated storage and retrieval system, with automated guided vehicles to compress 30,000 square feet of high-bay racking into a 7,500 square foot footprint, with robots handling the pi...

AI-powered predictive maintenance has been on the radar for years, but for most facilities, it still hasn’t fully landed.

Chris sits down remotely with Colin Morris, Senior Director of Solution Consulting at MaintainX, the AI-powered maintenance and asset management platform built for the industrial frontline. Colin has spent eight years working in this space, long enough to have watched maintenance shift from an afterthought to a strategic asset across North American manufacturing.

They cover the real barriers to AI adoption in maintenance: unstructured data sitting across disconnected systems, outdated assumptions about what predictive tools sh...

Most regions have pockets of manufacturing strength. Very few have a manufacturing ecosystem. Matt Bogoshian has spent 15 years trying to change that.

In this episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour, host Chris Luecke sits down remotely with Matt Bogoshian, Executive Director of the American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative (AMCC) – the nation’s only designated National Manufacturing Community of Practice.

Matt brings the on-the-ground experience of someone who has spent years helping communities across the US turn good intentions into real, durable systems change.

Together they dig into the Big Six elements that every thriving regional manu...

What happens when a multimedia entrepreneur and a concert venue owner sit down for a live podcast?

A good conversation – with a couple beers – about creativity, grit, and what it really takes to build something that lasts.

In the first live episode of the year, recorded at The Argo in Milwaukee as part of Manufacturing Happy Hour’s 10-year anniversary, host Chris Luecke sits down with two longtime friends: Andrew J. Coate, co-founder of The Argo (a 700-capacity venue his team transformed from a historic 1950s cinema in under seven months), and Michael O’Sullivan, Creative...

Most of the time, applications from candidates with a felony record end up in the garbage can. The problem is, by overlooking people from what are seen as ‘problematic’ talent pools, you could be denying yourself access to untapped talent.

Second-chance hiring means giving people the chance to showcase their talent, hone their skills, and start again. When you do that, great things can happen for them, you, and your local region.

Here, Chris catches up with Marcus Sheanshang, President of JBM Packaging, to discuss the thriving manufacturer’s Fair Chance Hiring Program.

JBM Pa...

AI is reshaping what it means to be a modern manufacturing professional.

When a 30-year veteran retires, decades of expertise used to leave as well. How they ran a machine, which feeds and speeds worked, and all the practical knowledge that separated good from great. Now, Mastercam’s AI co-pilots can capture that information and make it instantly accessible. The learning curve that used to take years can now be compressed into months, making manufacturing careers more accessible to the next generation.

Chris sits down with Russ Bukowski, President of Mastercam, to explore how CAM te...

Fear is expensive. In 2025, manufacturers delayed billions in capital projects because anxiety, not data, drove business decisions.

But 2026 is different. Tax incentives expire mid-year, borrowing costs are down, and the hard data shows CapEx accelerating at 3-4%. The companies acting on facts while others remain frozen are the ones positioned to gain market share, capture expiring tax benefits, and pull ahead.

This episode comes to you live from the A3 Forum 2026, where the message is clear: 2026 isn't about waiting for certainty. It's about preparing for complexity with multiple strategies, acting on hard economic data, and...

There’s a commonly held belief in manufacturing: big ideas need big money, fast growth, and outside control to survive. But that playbook doesn’t work for every business or every industry.

Andrew Johnson, co-founder of HeavyTech and CEO of ShelfAware, joins the show from Everywhere Beer Co. in Anaheim, California, to talk through how he and his partners built HeavyTech, a hybrid and electric big machinery manufacturer, on their own terms. He shares the long road behind developing technology for hybrid and electric heavy machinery, and why, when it came time to scale, they made a deli...

What do smartphones, batteries, defense systems, and solar panels all have in common?

They all depend on critical minerals like lithium, graphite, gallium, and polysilicon. Access to these resources affects how people, businesses, and governments communicate, generate power, and operate.

In this episode, Chris sits down with Representative Haley Stevens from Michigan’s 11th district to discuss her plans for lessening U.S. dependence on the production and refining of these resources from other countries.

The conversation digs into the current state of the U.S. supply chain. We look at how innovation sh...

Loud, dusty and far removed from innovation. We often think of mining as separate from modern manufacturing, but our visit to Imerys West Hub in this episode challenges that idea.

The conversation was recorded on site at the largest diatomaceous earth mine in the world, in Lompoc, California. During the recording, a sonic boom from a nearby SpaceX launch cuts across the background, a reminder of how closely materials, regulation, and advanced manufacturing often overlap.

Chris is joined by Ken Rasmussen, Operations Director at the site, who shares a practical perspective on what modern mining...

A lot of manufacturing companies can build insanely complex and intricate things, but far fewer are set up to handle what happens once customers start buying. So, what happens when those products start selling at scale, contracts get longer, and customers get bigger?

In this episode, we’re joined by Chris Hale, CEO and Founder at Klear, to uncover a side of manufacturing that often gets overlooked: how money moves through industrial businesses.

The conversation explores how money flows when deal cycles are long, customers are global, and planning starts to feel less like spreadsheets an...