Made in the USA - Season 2 Episode 4: A Measured Approach

The following is a complete transcript for season 2 episode 4 of the “Made in the USA” podcast.

Scott Robinson, Technical Support Manager: Their older brother just came out at UMass and he owes $200,000. I can go into CNC operation and make a pretty nice little pay. And I got a brand new Ford F-150 out there.

Doug Starrett, CEO: And my grandfather used to tell me as a kid, if you want to compete with somebody try to compete in their own backyard.

Tim Cucchi, Product Manager: It doesn't get any better than that after 142 years, we're still maintaining that American manufacturing, that work ethic, that craftsmanship.

Doug Starrett: What we do here is vitally important. It's not going away tomorrow.

Scott Robinson: We are the most vertically integrated factory in the world.

Brent Donaldson, Editor-in-Chief of Modern Machine Shop: Welcome to Made in the USA, the podcast from modern machine shop magazine that explores some of the biggest ideas shaping American manufacturing. I'm Brent Donaldson.

Pete Zelinski, Editorial Director of Modern Machine Shop: I'm Pete Zelinski. And Brent, you and I recently paid a visit to a plant where they are mass producing micrometers.

Brent Donaldson: Actually, that one plant was producing many different measurement tools. So why did micrometers stand out to you?

Pete Zelinski: A micrometer is maybe the most signature tool for the work of a precision machinist, that is a specialist at making precision parts in metal through machining. Listeners who are not in manufacturing might not know this, but it does not take an electronic device to measure part details with units smaller than the eye can see. A micrometer is a C-shaped measuring tool with a fine precise screw motion, gradients on the side. A machinist who knows how to use and read a mic, and you couldn't be a machinist without knowing how to do this, can measure part features accurately in thousandths of an inch. It is one of the most basic tools for precision manufacturing. But I never before thought of it as a thing that would also be precision manufactured. But in Athol, Massachusetts, we saw rows of the C shaped frames being processed outer surfaces being knurled and laser marked and the spindles and anvils of micrometers being fine ground.

Brent Donaldson: Yes, Athol Massachusetts is a quintessentially New England town with a population of a little under 12,000. So Athol is the headquarters and primary manufacturing location for the L.S. Starrett company maker of, at last count, about 2800 measurement products, most of them used in manufacturing, and 87% of those products are manufactured in Athol. Starrett is the show sponsor for season two, but it's also a company that we wanted to cover as part of the season. We are telling different stories about companies that have made choices to locate manufacturing in the United States, or keep manufacturing in the US and Starrett fits that second category. While the company does not manufacture exclusively in the US, the majority of its production is here. And in fact, the majority of its production has remained in Massachusetts. And that has been true since the company was founded in 1880.

Pete Zelinski: 1880. A lot has happened since then, world wars, the depression, inflation, the offshoring of manufacturing and through it all Starrett kept manufacturing here, we wanted to understand how and why that has been the case and what it has meant for the company. But first we'll take a look inside.

Tim Cucchi: Typically, micrometers, its accuracy is all dependent on the thread. So it's called a micrometer spindle. So this spindle started with a 12 foot piece of wire 50 to 100 steel, we go ahead and machine it, angle it thread it. From there, we'll do some heat treat to it. From there, we'll do some centerless grinding, what Kenny is doing is actually threading single point threads with a small little grinding wheel and grinding these threads. And this is a 40 pitch thread. So for every inch, there's 40 of those threads, and all that controls the 25,000 per revolution of a micrometer.

Jim Kuniholm, Machine Shop Supervisor: Because all of our tools are used by people that are working in oil or water base cooling. It has to have a knurl on it so they can get a grip on the tool. I say old man Starrett, I mean that in the best possible way. He was very fussy about knurls. These guys would spend a day on these old Acme machines getting the knurl just right, he actually would come down and work on the machines himself to see how much of a project that was to get that off the ground.

Brent Donaldson: The voices you heard belongs to Tim Cucchi, product manager, and Jim Kuniholm, machine shop supervisor, respectively. And just an FYI here Starrett’s facility in Athol is ginormous. And during our visit over the course of two days, we conducted interviews in several different locations at the plant. Those range from nice quiet offices to noisy production areas. The entire facility employs about 600 people and indeed manufacturing at Starrett means manufacturing employment long-term skilled work done in many cases by people who grew up not far from this plant. Here is CEO Doug Starrett.

Doug Starrett: My background is I started here, as a young man, I should say high school student, working in the plant in various positions. I started here they call me an errand boy, basically, they set up work for people in the plant. And I joined the business in 1975 so I'm headed on 45 or so years. I'm fifth generation and a lot of people when they look at it, the history it's interesting between the founder and my grandfather becoming president, there were two other presidents ran the business and Frank Ball and David Findlay, succeeded LS in 1922. And my grandfather was a mechanic. He started here when he was 14. He graduated from high school and he was quite skilled. They called them back in the day master mechanics that worked in the tool room. And that's how he came up. And he had a lot of inventive genius himself. He was responsible for a lot of the new product offerings from about 1940 through his death in 1962. And he was the one responsible for the international expansion.

Pete Zelinski: Starrett the company got its start with founder L S. Starrett’s invention, the combination square. This is a tool you probably know, a metal rule slides through a slot in a straight edge held at a right angle. A thumb screw allows the rule to be secured at any position. Before this device was invented, carpenters, machinists and others worked with squares that could not be adjusted.

Doug Starrett: Well, the business started at 1880, with Laroy Starrett. He invented the combination square, and that was really the thing that springboarded the company coming into business, it's interesting to note that he was like a lot of industrialists at the time in the 1800s, grew up on a farm in South China, Maine. And he learned a lot about machinery and equipment, obviously being on the farm, but he had to farm himself out. Early on to run farms in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the family got in a little bit of trouble. He was running farms with people that had quite a bit of money in Newburyport. He was quite successful in that endeavor. And during the winter, he was taking care of equipment, repairing equipment, and so forth. In his spare time, he was tinkering. And he was always involved in inventions. In fact, I think at the time of his death, he had over 100 patents to his name, which was kind of an interesting fact about him. And he was looking for a place to start a business and met a gentleman that knew of Athol and he actually took a train out here and found this is a terrific place that he thought had skilled mechanics and water power, as you know what New England was like in those days, and a hotbed of ingenuity and invention was going on in the town. So that's where he really got his beginning. Well, the first tool was very simple- he had invented a meat hasher which was one of his first tools, and he looked at what the pattern makers were using for tools. And the idea on the combination square, everybody used fixed square blades. And he said he had the idea of having a sliding blade, where a tool could be used as the first color combination square for a reason. It is a tool that you can use for depth measurement, length measurement, squareness angles, and he envisioned this becoming much more useful for the regular tradesmen but also for the pattern maker.

Brent Donaldson: The L.S. Starrett manufacturing facility in Athol today is a study in contrasts. It's an old facility, lots of hardwood transoms over the office doors complex layouts from various renovations and expansions, but it's the plant’s production areas that are the continuous focus of improvement efforts.

Matt Wells: My name is Matt Wells. I'm the director of operations in continuous improvement here at Starrett in Athol, Mass, responsible for all aspects of the manufacturing process from environmental health and safety, quality, production and methods engineering. It really starts with being out on the floor, making yourself available to your team, listening to what they have to say, and then identifying some of those problems. So one area we've really been struggling with is in one of our machining departments, we're not getting enough throughput through that specific area, in order to maximize our output in assembly, and again, focus on our customers, which is getting our on time delivery performance back to where it belongs pre COVID years.

Brent Donaldson: Matt says the answer to this throughput challenge proved to be updating a set of fixtures on an automated machine.

Matt Wells: They're not big homeruns, it's those little tiny opportunities, and you listen for those opportunities and take quick action on it. And just by changing that alone, it increased the throughput of that cell by 20%. With the level of experience that our operators have, and working with our cross training process of coupling a more junior employee with somebody who's a little more senior, and kind of developing that buddy system. So they have an individual that they can go to, if they're running into a problem, because more than likely, because we have such a huge array of products, we might not have ran that job last week. But more than likely that 40 year veteran has seen that job three or four times throughout their career and is come across very similar challenges. When we talk about our gaps in succession planning and getting people to come to the company and work for Starrett and fill some of those critical roles. We've really taken a heavy, heavy focus on how do we eliminate some of the redundant work, things like polishing or very manual operations that don't require a high level necessarily of skill, but require somebody to be able to take action on and still do. So it's an essential part, it's a value add in our process. And we can't sell a tool without performing that operation at the end of the day. So it's not waste. But we have to look at opportunities to try to automate some of those manual processes. And we have a lot of them out there, there's a lot of opportunity. So we have a team of individuals that we've currently work on that they're internal Starrett employees, that's their whole focus in life is how do we automate some of these manual processes. And really, that starts with getting engaged with the team on the floor, understanding the challenges that they're faced with, but then utilizing their knowledge of the process to help implement some of these automation projects, and then we bring them along for the ride. So then instead of being the individual that's sitting there running a manual deburring operation, now they're learning how to load unload, teach a robot, and it's developing their skill sets, that we could then leverage in other areas within the organization. So it's really our strategy over the next three years, is really how do we release direct labor? And that doesn't mean how do we get rid of direct labor. It means how do we redeploy that direct labor into other areas that require a higher level of skill? And how do we develop them and get them into those roles.

Pete Zelinski: Part of how process improvement keeps advancing is through the attention of Starrett's Methods group. This team is specifically tasked with finding opportunities in production for efficiency gain, or for savings in time, or scrap or cost, then making those changes happen.

Matt Wells: So, you know, until I came to work for Starrett, I never heard the term Methods. And that's not a common term. It's a little more in tune with process engineering, or manufacturing engineering. So at the end of the day, for our Methods group, it's really focusing on like I had mentioned earlier, how do we identify opportunities to help our team work smarter, not harder. So it's really interfacing with the operators on the floor, providing that sounding board for them to identify where they're having a struggle, and for our team to focus on identifying opportunity improvements, whether that be a design change, a fixture change, adjusting speeds and feeds, maybe working with cross training, making sure that our procedures are clearly documented. I mean, we have a lot of different ways that we can identify opportunity, whether that be through evaluating cost and understanding what tools are at the least margin that's available to them. And how can we identify where we could potentially reduce cost and improve the process? Part of that is scrap monitoring as an example, you know, out on the floor, we do what we call our daily gimbal walks which is basically visualization of our factory on the floor. And it's really focused on five key pillars, which is between safety, quality, delivery, inventory and productivity. So that's an opportunity for us to interface with the floor and understand where the operators are having their struggles. And it identifies, clearly identifies if we're having a productivity related issue. Going to see the process going to understand the process. And understand from the operators perspective, where we can make improvements.

Pete Zelinski: Here is Methods engineer, Sarah Fox.

Sarah Fox, Methods Engineer: In Methods, some of what we do is lean process, we look for process improvements to make it safer for the operator to save money to save lead time to develop new products to assist in that, to update blueprints to just offer any support. If somebody flags me down in the shop and says, I'm having difficulty with this. Is there any tooling? Is there anything that I can do? Or I have a quality issue, that would be our team here. To address the quality issue to see do we need to rework this part, is it as good as is? It's very, very broad. I feel like. I think that's what makes it so enjoyable. It's somebody said, what is your job, I don't understand. I said, just imagine emergency room for tools. That's what we do. We just want to solve the problem, help people out, it makes me really happy that in this job, I get to help people out, make their job a little bit easier. That's what my goal is.

Brent Donaldson: Continually improving manufacturing in this way, improving the way manufacturing is done in this plant has been an alternative to sending it elsewhere. Here's CEO Doug Starrett.

Doug Starrett: I guess I never felt it wasn't the right thing to do. Believe me, I had enough people come in here and say why are you continuing to do that? And we have morphed a little bit but I think in our business, we are very vertically integrated, you know, the outsourcing model is a pathway that many, many successful companies employ and do it quite well. There are certain skills when you do that you lose in over a decade, you won't be able to bring back into the organization. Two, we tested the waters here or we outsourced machining in CNC work, mainly because if we got capacity constraints at any time, it makes good business sense, to be able to have someone who you trust to make the product for you. Where you can handle capacity constraints, or if you're lucky enough, business grows faster than you can add capacity. You need to have somebody, and we've cultivated people that have certain skills. Now, I will tell you, from a cost basis, we haven't found anybody that competes with us on costs for machining costs. But people say, well, you can afford to pay higher costs, because you don't have all the people costs internally. But at the end of the day, you have less control on your businesses, now you put putting your important piece of the business in someone else's hands, and you don't have as much control, maybe insight of how they have businesses going, and so forth. And you saw a lot of that happened during the pandemic, we had supply chain issues, and we had suppliers going out of business. And we're still wrestling with some of that. But just think about the complexities that we've seen in the length of the supply chain. And it sounds like a great idea. Let's go to China and just move everything back here. We saw what happened during the pandemic. And that's why I think there's some evidence to bring some things about or at least to shorten the length of your supply chain. Years ago we didn't do that. I mean, even people cut businesses and made decisions that outsource, they usually outsource to somebody that's close to the plant and that they could stay on top of how they were doing as a business. It's very hard to control that when you got sources and suppliers a long way away.

Pete Zelinski: But of course, a generation ago US companies were sending manufacturing to China. Starrett went to China to sell them measuring tools.

Doug Starrett: In 1998, we made the decision, given the landscape that we saw what was going on in the US. That was the beginning of the dot com era, we could see the beginnings of offshoring some of our client base moving offshore, we felt it was important that we look at expanding into China. We're getting a lot of competition from China in those days. I was responsible, I traveled extensively in Asia, with the responsibility of where we're going to set up a greenfield site. And again, the philosophy was not to export what we're doing here. My grandfather used to tell me as a kid, if you want to compete with somebody try to compete in their own backyard because you can give them a little bit of a heartburn so we decided to go to China, one, to capture the Chinese market.

Pete Zelinski: Starrett does manufacture internationally. It's a company that has grown through expansion and acquisition over the decades into product lines beyond the handheld measuring devices we're focusing on in this episode, the company makes saw blades in Brazil, it makes optical systems in Scotland, it manufactures in other facilities in the U.S. For example, metrology systems are made in California, precision granite products are manufactured in Minnesota, gage blocks are made in Ohio and laser measurement systems are manufactured in Georgia. But the significant point is that the measuring tool manufacturing that began in Athol remained in Athol and continued thriving here, among other things, that has affected people. Manufacturing in a location staying in that place, makes the plant part of a community. Starrett has recruited a fair amount of its team, its talent from the local neighborhood.

Tim Cucchi: My name is Timothy Cucchi, Product Manager for precision hand tools at The L.S. Starrett company and I have been here for 27 years. I was raised here in Athol, Massachusetts, which is the headquarters of The L.S. Starrett company, about a 10 minute walk from the company. I had a lot of family members who have worked here throughout the generations, some still currently do. And I said I would never work in a factory and of course my mindset of a factory was the late 1800s, early 1900s during the Industrial Revolution, dark dirty, you're in a dungeon working long hours. No, I think I'm going to college. Being primarily raised by a single mother for the first chunk of my life, she was really pushing the college obviously, parents want their children to do better than they did. So I grew up here and Athol graduated out of high school in 1994. Typical kid riding my bikes, bruising my knees when I fell off, fishing at the local pond, neighborhood with football games, street hockey games, and ended up going to college for a year when I went to Worcester State College, and I majored in psychology with a minor in Spanish, I've always had an interest in the human mind and why I think the way I think and why you think the way you think and just the human species in general. So I was really in tune to that. And during my first summer break, I came to The L.S. Starrett company. I remember this to this day, I was actually going to start working at a local pizza house that I had worked through all through high school, just to save some money for the summer to go back to school. And the day I was supposed to start at the pizza house, I got a call from L.S. Starrett company saying we have a job for you, come in interview please. So I came to L.S. Starrett company, interviewed and I passed on the pizza house, and I started working nights, during that summer of '95 welding carbide on the bandsaw was 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift. Being raised by a single mother, because I had a stepdad that came in with my teenage years great guy, but I had no male influence in my early stages, so I didn't know what tinkering in the garage was, I didn't know what tools were so that's probably why my mind went to the more abstract thinking, the psychology aspect. And so I said yeah, come on in. I had no idea what I was going to do here didn't even know what welding was I didn't know what measuring tools were so yes, they had to teach me a lot and a lot I just picked up on my own you know I'm very observationalist, if that is a word. What I see, I can compute and keep in my memory bank and see it two or three times and I usually have it down solid. So from that training, I was left on my own during nights. And yes, welding carbide on the bandsaw. So that was a whole new life for me and when I decided not to go back to school, I asked to get on the toolmakers program.

Brent Donaldson: For Tim, the toolmakers program was not a good fit. But the change got him off the night shift and also exposed him to making micrometers.

Tim Cucchi: So when I asked to get off the toolmakers program, I was happy I was on days. And they said, Okay, so what do you want to do here. I said I spent some time with a micrometer department, I have some family in there, I feel comfortable knowing some people there. Can I learn what micrometers are? So from there, I went into the micrometer department, I started building basic micrometers at the first level. After about three to four years of that we started creating manufacturing cells here at the L.S. Starrett company. So this was the second assembly manufacturing cell created that I was asked to go into, which was really, you know, a lean concept, I'm sure we're all aware of what that means. Everybody learns every step of the process, we did a little five piece flow, flow was continually going, work was inspected there. And it was a really great job. I raised a family, I raised my two daughters and my stepson. In that cell, that micrometer assembly cell, but from there, after about maybe four to five years in there, I was asked to go into our special order micrometer department, where a special order micrometer department is basically if you see a tool in our catalog, but it's just not quite going to accomplish the application that you need, whether say you need an angle, ground at a 45 degree upholster or standard 60 degree, that would just come through our special order department. So a lot of tool modification in there. That was really fun. Because after having been here, close to 10 years, at that point, maybe eight years at that point, I understood tools understood how to use drills and taps and reamers. So from there, I really got to modify and create tools from the bottom up. When I introduced myself out of respect, I do not call myself an engineer, for those that are degreed and had put the time in this school. I understand that and I do respect that title. So I will always say I was a methods engineer, or usually I say I was in engineering. So I got my education right here on the shop floor. But as well, I did go on to, I believe I have 10 or 11, different manufacturing certifications, everything from how to use Excel to GDT, geometric dimensioning and tolerancing. And then even into product management into finance, and LET leader education training, leader effectiveness training. Starrett does support if you're willing to continue education, whether it is to go to school be degreed, or even just certifications, Starrett will support you in that. And I would say the opportunity is for yours for the taking. It all rests on your shoulders. What do you want out of life? What do you want out of your career? And I say that to everybody, I come in contact here, the new hires if I happen to meet some of them. Previously, I was hiring people in a training cell. And that was part of my process during my interviewing is I would say, the doors wide open for you. And if you're happy running a machine, there's absolutely no judgment from me. If that's what you are happy with. You can spend 50 years here running a machine knowing what you're going to do day in, day out and be totally satisfied. If you want to build tools or assemble tools for the rest of your lifetime. Great place to do that. If you want to work your way up here, no matter what avenue, whether it's engineering, whether it's in sales and marketing, whether it's even in purchasing and buying, whether it's in programming. Most of our mid level executives for lack of better word, management originally came from the shop floor. And that still exists today. Actually, can I share a quick story? I think that might tie this in. I think this might tie this and this just lives with me. So I want to make sure I get this. 2019 I visited Mount Airy down in North Carolina that was doing some saw production. And first time I had been there, so they gave me a little tour. And I saw these welding machines. I said hey, those are the two machines that I started on back in 1995 aren't they? Because they did move those down to Mount Airy. And that was another reason why kind of I wanted the tour too because that job was going down south. Alright, but back to my story though. So I saw those machines here. And those are the machines I started on '95 I just was like pretty cool. I just smiled. Not only that though, then I saw some my micrometers that they had there and some special micrometers that they had there to check the different angles of the tooth pitch or the width of the blade. And as like I used to build those tools. I used to build those special order tools that were specially modified to measure these tooth pitch, all at the same machine that I started on '95. Hey, I used to engineer these tools to make them even better for application. And then I'm like now I'm the product manager of these tools. So, January 2019, down in Mount Airy, my first time I saw the two welding machines that I started on in 1995. And that was a full circle, from welding, to assembly micrometers, to modifying special micrometers to engineering the micrometers. Now to managing entire precision micrometers obviously included. That's a full circle of my story right there.

Pete Zelinski: Here's another long term Starrett employee, Scott Robinson.

Scott Robinson: I started at Starrett company, in 1961 I was 11 years old. And basically, in my day, back then every kid had a paper route when they were 10, or 11. And I did and there were two of us stationed at the Starrett company.

Pete Zelinski: It's not uncommon for loyal Starrett customers to call looking for a replacement part on a 70 year old tool that is either still in use or has sentimental value. Scott is one of the Starrett employees who helps these people as a Technical Support Manager.

Scott Robinson: Athol, it's a really small town. Central Massachusetts is, I mean, we, often think about trying to find a way to dig a moat between Worcester and Keene New Hampshire, and then let that eastern part of the state kind of float away. I'll tell you, I would bet you if you took a walk around the Athol and Orange, these small towns, and you asked how many people go to Boston? If you found 30 people, that'd be a lot. Everybody out here wants nothing to do with the city. We're country people. And that's what's helped because people, they want to work close, they want to stay close, they don't want to travel hours to a job. And I think that's been a big boon to us right here. You know, granted, every single tool the Starrett company makes it's not made right in this building. But I would say 85 to 90% are at least 90% I made right here. We are the most vertically integrated factory in the world. We work tightly with vocational schools in our area. We understand that our future is tied directly to young people coming into the business and we work tightly. Franklin County Tech is down here in Turners Falls, Mass. Both Timmy and I are on the board down there. You know, we've seen that. I think kids, their older brother just came out at UMass and he owes $200,000 I can go into CNC operation and make a pretty nice little week pay. And I got a brand new Ford F 150 out there. You know, I think the country is slowly seeing that.

Scott Robinson: One more voice from Starrett, the audio sounds a little different here because we met Harry on the production floor.

Harry Foster, Foreman of Mass Finishing and Polishing Department: Hello, my name is Harry Foster. I've been with the company 50 plus years, I am now the foreman of mass finishing and polishing department. This they call a spiral pinion. And inside here, this spiral is what we're seeing makes the dial move. Now we're able to get into that spiral inside that pinion to make that as smooth and as slippery as possible. That incredible accuracy. Everything that you see on this and everything that you're going to see down there goes through this roll. Now, some of this is brass. This is steel. One of the big challenges back then was to make this look uniform. And that's what I'm personally extremely proud of is that through all of this testing, trial and error that we not only cut costs, but we kept our product as good or better than what we had before consistently to get the finishes. We all buy on if we liked the color buy shirts and shoes, our cars. Our tools are no difference. No, they're accurate. And that's it. That's a hands down. Everybody accepts that and expects it quality.

Pete Zelinski: Why is Starrett different? Why has manufacturing remained in one place for this company for so long? We heard a clue when we were interviewing here is Matt Wells again.

Matt Wells: That's our steam pipes. It'll settle down here in a minute. It's that old building.

Pete Zelinski: This led to an aside about air conditioning. The offices have been hot in the summer, we were told, employees have memories of this company engineers, accountants, salespeople and others who work in the office, were used to making do why, here's the point. Air conditioning the office portion of this old building designed before air conditioning existed was not a high priority, in part, since it would only serve the offices, the people in the production areas handle small seasonal temperature fluctuations in the areas where they work. So shouldn't everybody. Manufacturing has remained because the company has always had the belief that manufacturing is what it does. If the company was mainly about sales and marketing or mainly about product development, that might change their focus, or where the heart of the company is. They do each of these things. But the ongoing focus at the heart of the company is manufacturing. Here's Doug Starrett.

Doug Starrett: I don't know if you've looked at the founder’s words, but his basic philosophy, we always go back to, he could do no greater good than to create business to provide employment and honest living for people. And we always keep that in mind. Because we've done that wherever we've gone in the world. You know, I violently disagreed years ago, and we were trending toward a service economy, which scared me to death. And I just think what we do here. Even though we've seen some of our customer base erode. What we do here is vitally important to the country, it's not going away tomorrow. And today, coming out of the pandemic, who would ever have thought we would have a workforce shortage crisis across almost every sector of the business.

Brent Donaldson: This workforce crisis today is the company's greatest challenge. Here again, is Matt Wells.

Matt Wells: Quite honestly, if he asked me what keeps me up at night, you know, it's how do we continue to retain and recruit new employees into manufacturing and into our workforce.

Peter Zelinski: But that manufacturing workforce is the hope too. New entrants to manufacturing will mean new users and new markets for measuring tools. Starrett's continued commitment to manufacturing in the US is in some part, founded on the expectation that plenty of others will make the same commitment. Here's Doug Starrett one final time, followed by Tim Cucchi who briefly quotes him.

Doug Starrett: I told everybody, this is the longest term play that I ever made my careers, we want to make the brand younger. And we want to put our brand and tools in the hands of young people coming up. If one out of 10 remembers us, and once you get in a position of authority and other businesses, maybe they'll think of Starrett, and what we can provide for them in terms of improving their operations and so forth. I think it's important the trades, but I also think it's important for the company.

Tim Cucchi: I think Doug's famous line, I'm sure he used it. We're in a great place. Things that get made need to be measured, and we make measuring tools. Love the United States of America. We have our faults, we're all human just like any and everybody else in every country. But in America you have the opportunity to become anything you want. Same at The L.S. Starrett company. So I tie that in to American manufacturing. And what that means to me, what that means to The L.S. Starrett company founded 1880 Right here in Athol, Massachusetts Laroy Starrett invented the first combination square blade. And from there, he took off to 3,500 precision measuring tools. And now we're down to maybe about 2,800 precision measuring tools, and out of those 2,800 precision measuring tools, 87% of those are made right here in Athol, Massachusetts, right where this company was founded. It doesn't get any better than that after 142 years. We're still maintaining that American manufacturing, that work ethic, that craftsmanship, the quality, the pride, everything we've touched on, so the heart and soul of The L.S. Starrett company is in Athol Massachusetts, American manufacturer. You see all the U.S. flags we have out, we have a Made In America literature brochure, throwing a little plug if you don't mind. About a year and a half ago, we went to market with our most popular micrometer the 436.1 series of outside micrometers, where I send their frames out to a company in Texas. I keep it here in the United States where they do a hydrographic a dip, liquid print, I'll give you a shout out where there's an American theme print, there's an eagle and a flag. How cool is it to have a micrometer in the hand that has the American theme and pride on that the flag stripes, the stars, and all that's done right here in the United States of America. It doesn't get any better than that.

Brent Donaldson: Made in the USA is a production of Modern Machine Shop and published by Gardner Business Media. The series is written and produced by Peters Zelinski. And by me, I mix and edit the show. Pete also appears in our sister podcast all about 3d printing or additive manufacturing, find AM radio wherever you get your podcasts, our outro theme song is by The Hiders so if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a nice review. If you have comments or questions email us at madeintheusa@gardnerweb.com or check us out at mmsonline.com/madeintheusapodcast.