How I Made It: Mike Lynch

So much of what happened for my career has been… I won't say it was luck, but I was fortunate. Different things happened at the right times. I started working with my dad in his machine shop. He was more of an inventor than he was a machinist. It was a garage shop, but it was a garage made specifically for his shop. He had some products that he invented and some patents, but he really didn't know machining that well. He was an improviser — he could make anything work. But he got Modern Machine Shop when I was in 10th grade.

I did terribly at school until my senior year, so there were really no college opportunities. I went to Kishwaukee College near Northern Illinois University and achieved an associate degree of applied science and mechanical engineering, which was basically a tool and die program. An instructor that taught a math class worked as the manager of a tool design department in a local company, and he hired me to come in after I graduated to work as a tool designer.

At the same time I was looking at CNC or NC because I really liked the idea of programming these machines. Within six months of my working at this local company, they got an NC punch press and turret press and they just happened to fall into the purview of tool design. That was my first experience with CNC. Later, I ended up working for a company in Rockford, Illinois, that made printing presses, and they had 17 more traditional NC mills and lathes. That was what I really wanted to get into — computer programming and computer-assisted programming. I took advantage of those opportunities. I’ve always been an avid learner, and I wanted to know what was going on.

My next job was at Cincinnati Milacron. They had computer-assisted programming, which was really what it attracted me to it. They had both mills and lathes, and they had a programming language that they sold themselves. I was constantly showing this interest in learning about CNC programming, so I was allowed into that department.

I ended up having to come back to Illinois, and the company I went to work for was an importer of machine tools called KGK International. That’s where I met a sales person for Modern Machine Shop. We had the idea to do a column on CNC. I said, “You've got a column on taxes, on gaging, on tooling, but you don't have anything on CNC. Would you like one?” So he went to Ken Gettleman, who was the editor-in-chief going back to when I worked in my dad’s shop. Ken got me started with the CNC Tech Talk column.

At the time, I had set up a program to teach CNC at KGK International. I used what I call the “key concepts” approach, made up of 10 major modules. While I was teaching all these classes, I was constantly asked if we had video courses. And I went to our management, but they had no interest in that, so I did it on my own time. Eventually, that's what turned into CNC Concepts.

We started selling training materials for CNC machines based on the same process that I used to teach at KGK. And some really good things came out of writing for Modern Machine Shop because I was getting so much credibility in in the industry. I was getting some pretty good recognition, and McGraw Hill acquisitions asked if I'd be interested in writing a book. It eventually turned into three books for McGraw Hill.

At CNC Concepts, we teach basic classes, as well as some more advanced classes. I was always amazed that the people coming to the basic classes weren't really people that were going to go back and start putting it to use on machines. They were managers wanting to learn how to talk to their people, and they were professors that were coming to learn how to teach CNC. I’ve always thought it was kind of interesting that I had so much trouble in high school, and here I am teaching college professors.

CNC programs haven’t changed much over the years. Programs written for a 30-year-old machine will still run in most current machines. The biggest leaps forward have been application-based: new interpolation types, three-dimensional machining (typically on five-axis machining centers), improvements to high-speed machining. Each of these features taken by itself may only apply to a small percentage of CNC users, but taken as a whole, they make for an impressive set of improvements.

I’ve always loved to learn, but I don’t just want to be a learner, I want to share it. I want to take what I've learned from the people that I'm working with and make sure I can pass it on to others. The column gave me a perfect avenue for doing that, along with the classes I was teaching and the books I was publishing.