E16 - Kallin Kurtz - TechnipFMC

Automation For the Future, with Kallin Kurtz.

Episode 16: Show Notes

Today, we have the Vice President of Manufacturing Technology at TechnipFMC, Kallin Kurtz, here to talk to us about automation for the now (and the future!), the biggest challenges facing the oil and gas industry, and stopping to smell the roses! This episode dives into his role at TechnipFMC and the services that they offer, before we get down to brass tacks on things like the labor shortage, the challenge of interacting with people from all over the world, and his top KPIs: delivery, cost, and safety. You'll hear how safety protocols have improved in the industry over time, and the biggest challenges TechnipFMC faces in keeping production flowing consistently and successfully. We also touch on the future of the industry, and Kallin shares some insight into renewable energy technology and the specific energy initiatives that they are implementing at their plants to work with their respective locations. Finally, you'll hear the top advice that he has regarding how you can grow yourself as a leader, and how his open-door policy is key to the success of him and his team!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Meet Kallin Kurtz and hear about his career trajectory and expertise in automation. 
• Hear about TechnipFMC and the services that they offer.
• What he thinks is the biggest challenge in the oil and tech industry today: materials.
• The impact of current government policy on his business, both in and outside the US.
• Some advice for any person hoping to follow in his footsteps!
• Discussing the shortages of programmers for robots.
• Overcoming the current labor shortage through automation, and some problems that will arise.
• Hear why Kallin recommends Extreme Ownership – and why we love it too.
• The three people that have played a crucial part in his success story. 
• The challenges of interacting with people all over the world.
• Talking about safety protocols specific to the oil and gas industry and how it's improved. 
• His most important KPIs: delivery, cost, and safety. 
• Discussing the future of the industry and a tentative prediction for the next few years. 
• The huge parts and types of equipment they use, and a little about additive technology.
• The biggest challenge they face in keeping production going.
• Hear about the location-dependent energy initiatives that they are implementing at their plants.
• Kallin debunks that myth that his industry is boring.
• His top advice for leadership: empathy and the importance of slowing down!
• How he lets employees establish the agenda of one-on-one meetings.
• The importance of transparency and authentic communication in creating successful teams. 

Tweetables:

“Automation is the path forward. There's no question about that.” — Kallin Kurtz [0:06:55]

“If your aspirations are in upper management and such like that, probably a business degree is going to help. If your aspirations are to stay in the technical world, a four-year degree is not necessary anymore.” — Kallin Kurtz [0:07:54]

“Take the time to listen. Take the time to interact with your employees and learn what's important to them. Listen to the ideas, and don't accept mediocrity from anybody.” — Kallin Kurtz [0:13:04]

“I think one of the things that is going to be really critical as we move forward with automation is, who's going to do all this automation? It's becoming a problem that people just aren't there.” — Kallin Kurtz [0:25:35]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Kallin Kurtz on Linked

Transcript

EPISODE 16

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:02] MH: You’re listening to The Industrial Movement, where we discuss the people, the processes, and the equipment that drives American manufacturing. If this is your first time listening, then thanks for coming. The Industrial Movement podcast is produced every week for your enjoyment, and the show notes can be found at our website at www.theindustrialmovement.com.

Come back often and feel free to add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow the show on Twitter @theindustrialmovement, or on our Facebook page. All links to our social media can be found in the show notes, and also at the bottom of our website.

Now, let’s get on to the show.

[EPISODE]

[00:00:39] MH: Hi, folks. Thanks for joining us on The Industrial Movement today. My name is Morty Hodge, your show host, and with me as always my trusty sidekick, Greg Smith.

[00:00:49] GS: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:51] MH: Today, we have the Vice President of Manufacturing Technology at TechnipFMC, Kallin Kurtz. Kallin, thank you so much for joining us on The Industrial Movement. 

[00:01:02] KK: Hey, how are you doing? 

[00:01:04] MH: Tell us a little bit about your career. 

[00:01:06] KK: Yeah. So as far as myself, I started out graduated from high school not knowing what I want to do. So I raised my right hand and I went and dodged bullets for a few years. Then came out of school and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I entered a technical school and started drafting. I learned a lot about part design and at that time, back then AutoCAD was just spreading its wings. So I learn a little bit of AutoCAD. Then I had more interest in manufacturing. I enrolled at the University of Northern Iowa. While I was at the University of Northern Iowa, I worked part time at John Deere and Waterloo, Iowa. That's really where I learned how to design and got interested in how parts were made. 

When I graduated, I moved on. I went into the automotive world. I learned quite a bit about manufacturing and automation there. At John Deere, I learned a lot about part design and that really helped me in terms of fixture design and knowing how parts were made. When I really stepped off into the automotive world that's really, really learned about how machining worked, cutting tools, and those kinds of things. My undergraduate in Manufacturing Technology and my master's degree is in Manufacturing Engineering Technology from Minnesota State. It's all technology based.

[00:02:32] MH: Yeah. I see there's a lot of automation, currently and in your background. Talk to us a little bit about your areas of expertise in regards to automation.

[00:02:42] KK: Yeah. So a lot of the automation projects that I've done throughout my career have been surrounding machine tools. It's just really been in the last, oh, I'll say five to six years, I've spread out and actually done automation applications beyond the machine tool world, still machine to a world is still very critical in terms of automation, becoming more so obviously, but now I'm branching off into things like automating bending wires and automating moving parts around the factory and things that I never would have thought of 20 years ago.

[00:03:16] GS: That's great. Tell us a little bit about TechnipFMC and what you do for them? 

[00:03:23] KK: So TechnipFMC is an oil and gas manufacturer of equipment. They make a lot of equipment for the surface market and the subsea market. I got into oil and gas a while back when I was working for a machine tool distributor doing automation and machine tools. I ended up going to work for Cameron Corp. Long story short, I ended up at TechnipFMC, which does the same thing that Cameron does. The oil and gas space is very interesting. Large lot sizes are one. So you really have to be on your game in terms of processing equipment and knowing your processes, because you can't afford to mess up a 10 ton block that costs hundreds of 1000s of dollars, especially when you're lining it with ink and oil and other things that really add to the cost. So you really have to be on top of your game.

[00:04:19] MH: What type of products and services does Technip offer?

[00:04:23] KK: TechnipFMC, I'd say their largest portion is the subsea market where we're making what we call trees for subsea oil extraction. Then we also are in the surface market where we're selling valves and hangers and a lot of other equipment used to extract oil on the land. It's all oil extraction equipment, it's all stuff for routing oil. We even make like the umbilicals and flexible lines that go underneath the ocean. It's all facets of manufacturing equipment for oil and gas. 

[00:04:59] GS: What's the biggest challenge in manufacturing today or even specifically in the oil and gas industry?

[00:05:05] KK: In manufacturing in general, everybody that comes on here, I'm sure you say is finding qualified people, right? That's not a new thing. One of the biggest challenges is material and just getting material, and then the logistics costs has really gone up over the years. So you really have to start being closer to your source in some of those places where you might be close to your source, you may not have the best labor market. It really is important to have processes that are stable, capable and repeatable. If you don't, it's expensive.

[00:05:43] MH: How much is government policy impacting your business?

[00:05:47] KK: At the current time, so from the US market perspective, we've stopped most of the growing, especially on federal lands. So the market inside the US is pretty soft, but outside of the US, there's a lot of activity, especially in the Middle East, then in the Pacific. That's where primarily most of the actions that we do quite a bit in Latin America too, especially Brazil. Some of our customers there have a lot of activity going. I'd say those are probably the three big places where most of the oil and gas activity is going. 

Obviously, with the situation in Russia now, I think that they've been pretty much shut down. I know BP and Shell have suspended operations there. There's not much activity going on there in terms of at least our company. I'd say it's stable, but it's not increasing in terms of the equipment market.

[00:06:44] MH: On personal mastery, what advice would you give somebody wanting to follow your footsteps and your career path? A younger person that maybe you mentor. What's some of the things that you'd give to them?

[00:06:55] KK: Automation is the path forward. There's no question about that. My son just recently went from one college to another, dropped down and decided to move with some friends. I told him, “Why don't you come here, I'll send you, you can go to robotic school. Within six months, I'll have you making six digits.” Of course, he wouldn't want to do that, he wanted to go back to school. But if you want to get into automation, you don't need a four year degree. The shortages of programmers for robots and especially in the SCADA and PLC world, is enormous. There's not enough of them, there's not enough good ones, for sure. That's a huge shortage that we have right now. Not only that, they're hard to keep, because they're constantly jumping for dollars, right? Especially in developing worlds like India, and China, I mean, you cannot hold on to these people, but if you find good ones, they're hard to keep. 

You do not need a four year degree anymore to do well for yourself, depends on what your aspirations are. If your aspirations are in upper management and such like that, probably a business degree is going to help. If your aspirations are to stay in the technical world, a four-year degree is not necessary anymore. I'm sure the colleges out there are not going to like to hear me say that, but it's a fact. You can send somebody or you can go to, for instance, ignition training for SCADA programming, and get out and be a certified SCADA programmer and make ignition applications and make good money. You just don't need to go to school anymore, a four-year college. Sorry.

[00:08:29] MH: Yeah. Do you think that automation is really going to be what helps business overcome the labor shortage that we currently have?

[00:08:38] KK: Yeah, absolutely. It absolutely is going to change the game form. The problem is, and especially now, lead times to get automation in place, and the skills and labor needed for programming to get it in place. It takes a long time to create a stable process. For instance, Amazon has been working for years on automating their distribution network. They have an army of people doing it too. They're good at it. For some of the other companies like my company, we're getting into the automation space and we're gaining a lot of ground, but when you go to automate 15 ton parts, it changes the game, right? So a lot of labor and especially the heavy equipment and market I'd say oil and gas market, there's still a need for labor, but that labor is going to change over time to be more technical in nature.

[00:09:32] GS: Along those lines, any other books or resources that have helped you along the way?

[00:09:36] KK: From a management perspective, my favorite book is Extreme Ownership. 

[00:09:41] GS: Oh, yes. 

[00:09:42] KK: So maybe an ex-military, he like to sung a song to my heart. That book for me is probably the bottom line is accountability is what's going to get you or help you advance your career. That's what doing business is all about in holding people accountable and making sure that you're meeting your goals and objectives and then if you make a mistake owning up to it right. One of the things that I've always been big about is integrity. The lack of integrity that used to exist was stunning. It's gotten better over the years, especially with a lot of the bribery laws and stuff like that, that gotten in place, but that book is a really good book.

[00:10:31] GS: We're huge fans of that book. I actually prefer to listen to on Audible, because you get some of the sounds and action and stuff. It’s actually –

[00:10:38] MH: Yeah. Jocko and Leif are so intense –

[00:10:40] KK: His voice is so firm.

[00:10:41] GS: Oh, yes. Yeah.

[00:10:43] MH: They even put in some sound effects. You hear like gunshot.

[00:10:45] GS: Yeah, yeah. That’s exactly right. 

[00:10:47] MH: We're huge fans of Jocko. We have 10 core values that we operate our businesses by. Our second core value is we practice Extreme Ownership. It comes directly from that book. Thank you for your service, by the way. 

[00:10:58] KK: Oh, thank you. 

[00:10:58] MH: We hire a lot of vets. We believe in hiring wounded warriors and vets. That's something personally we've always been convicted to, and committed in doing. All right, let's move on. Who are the two most influential people on your career? 

[00:11:12] KK: Can I give you three? 

[00:11:14] MH: You can give me four, if you want to.

[00:11:17] KK: From a design perspective, can I mention names or?

[00:11:19] MH: Go right ahead, wherever you feel comfortable with. 

[00:11:21] KK: From a design perspective, probably the person I learned the most from in my career was Dennis Bowman. He's pretty high up engineer at John Deere now. I learned how to be an engineer from him. I learned how to apply it, the math to use. He was an incredible engineer. He really taught me a lot. My father-in-law who is a tool and dye maker. I learned how to operate machines. I learned precision, tolerancing bit, all those important lessons that an engineer needs to learn. 

That's probably one of the things that I see with newer engineers coming out of school today. They just don't have that practical application experience. They have what's in the book, but they haven't really gotten their hands dirty to understand it, right? The third one I'd have to say is a VP of operations that I had at Cameron, his name is Pete Eichler. He taught me a lot about how to run an operation. What are the key things to look for? What are the metrics that you need to watch for to make sure that the business is headed in the right direction? I'd have to say those are probably the three that had the most influence on my career.

[00:12:31] MH: Those are great. As far as lessons learned, tell us about over your career, what are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned, and maybe you can pass along some information to help the listeners maybe avoid some pitfalls.

[00:12:44] KK: Be patient. That's probably the key one for me, because everybody comes out of school, they're a ball of fire, they want to change the world, but it just don't work that way. Me being an ex-military and then I also have that education, I wanted to take the hill, but I left a lot of body bags behind, right? Take the time to listen. Take the time to interact with your employees and learn what's important to them. Listen to the ideas, don't accept mediocrity from anybody. I've worked several different places in my life and that's the reason. I mean, if a company's not interested, they just want to talk a lot and don't want to move forward. I'll move, I'll move on. I don't need to put up with that. So working for a company that is listening, wants to make progress, wants to be better and having leaders that support that is important.

[00:13:35] GS: What are some of the day-to-day challenges you face in your current position?

[00:13:40] KK: I'm not based at a plant. I'm in a global position. I'm interacting with people all over the world. So that provides a challenge to me. I do speak some other languages, but most of the ones that I interact with that I don't speak those, that provides some challenges. On a day-to-day basis I'm on the phone a lot. Then probably every other week, I'm on an airplane headed someplace. Then I'm designing and specifying a lot of automation equipment and working with a team of people that might be working on a project and helping them and guiding them and working with vendors to come up with solutions and moving projects forward. I'd say that's 90% of my day.

[00:14:21] GS: You do a lot of video chat meetings and such.

[00:14:26] KK: Constantly. So like right now, I'm at home.

[00:14:29] MH: Here it comes.

[00:14:30] GS: Here goes my idea. I can't believe this doesn't exist. So how does the zoom or any of the other apps not have translation?

[00:14:40] KK: You know, that's a good question. My wife would love to challenge you on this one, because she's Romanian. Nobody translates Romanian. 

[00:14:48] MH: Right. 

[00:14:51] KK: It's also one of the languages I speak not greatly, but pretty frequently.

[00:14:56] GS: I don't even know what Romanian would sound like. I'm sure it's very interesting.

[00:15:01] KK: Yeah. It's a mix of Russians love, German, Latin. It's got a Latin base. So it's an interesting language.

[00:15:09] MH: Well, I know you're not based in a plant day-to-day, but what are some of the processes that your company uses to maintain efficiency and productivity?

[00:15:18] KK: Within the plant, we use it and obeya process. We have obeya boards in the plants, and it's called different names of different places. Cameron, we called it shop floor management and TechnipFMC, they call it obeya. We have all the obeya boards, we have the meetings in the morning to go over all the list of action items, what's to, what's next, and that kind of stuff. So that process is really helped move the business forward and making sure that we've turned our deliveries around in a lot of the plants, and it's been effective.

[00:15:51] MH: Where does the name or the term obeya come from? What does that mean?

[00:15:54] KK: Well, that's a good question. I know it's Japanese, but I'm not really too educated on –

[00:16:00] MH: No, that's okay. I didn't know if it was an acronym. I didn't know what it was.

[00:16:04] KK: I learned, I'll say shop for management, which is basically the same thing. I actually, we learned it from Staufen, which is a consulting company in Germany, when I was in Cameron in Romania. It's basically the same thing. It's measuring, having metrics, holding people accountable, knowing where the processes at constantly getting your PDCA cycle improvement, and just staying on top of the operations push things forward. We've changed our delivery rates in TechnipFMC by quite a bit, by my paying attention to that.

[00:16:37] GS: What are the safety programs you guys have in place? Safety protocols specific to your industry?

[00:16:43] KK: Yeah. It's interesting about oil and gas space. It's not just the company I work for now, but oil and gas was traditionally really bad at safety, probably. I'd say the 70s, 80s. It really started to change a corner, because the some of the bigger oil companies Shell, BP, whoever. They started putting a lot of pressure on the equipment companies to pay more attention to safety. So some of our internal programs that we have, I'd say they're burnt into the culture, right. They're not negotiable, but probably one of the best programs that I've seen, not only in some of my former places I work, but this this company work now is the Stop Program. Anybody has the authority to stop working anytime you see something unsafe. That's a really key metric. It's funny, you go into some plants, and they say they have these programs. Try going forward and stopping the line. I want to see somebody do that. 

[00:17:38] GS: Yeah.

[00:17:39] KK: Others are trip hazards, stop the line. No, I don't think so. I mean, that's just an example where I think that some people talk the talk, but they don't really walk it. I've seen that in several industries. I think in the US in general, safety is pretty ingrained in the culture, especially the bigger corporations, and it's a medium sized corporations. When you get overseas, depending on the country, it can be interesting. They don't have some of the countries just don't – Europe's a little different. I mean, some of the countries just don't have the safety programs. But the Stop Program for me, I've always really liked that program. I've seen people use it, pretty much in the oil and gas space where it's critical that they use it routinely.

[00:18:28] MH: What are some of the KPIs that are important to you and that you track on a daily and weekly basis? 

[00:18:34] KK: Obviously, delivery cost. Big time, cost. One of my, what I can consider to be my mentors, Pete Eichler. I mean, he was always constantly on cost, right? Indirect costs, direct costs, having the right ratios, the safety quality cost and delivery, I mean is, those are the important metrics right there. Safety is always number one. It's the first thing we cover and every meeting it's normally first five minutes of every meeting. So safety's number one always, the rest of it all falls in line.

[00:19:07] MH: Where do you see your business in the next 10 years? 

[00:19:10] KK: Oil and gas is interesting. It's hard to say, because what's going on right now in the world, but oil and gas, it's a cyclical business. It's open to political manipulation, I guess, we'll call it. You saw during the Trump years when oil exploration and pumping in the United States was encouraged and we were energy independent. We were actually shipping oil and gas abroad and oil was dirt cheap. The oil and gas companies were not making money. It's the exact opposite, right? Where there's a shortage. We had a pandemic, production went way down. Now it's all starting to come back around, but 10 years from now, I'd say the oil and gas markets probably going to be stable for maybe the next three to five years. But after that, I don't really have a crystal ball on it. 

I'd say green energies for sure going to impact it. All the equipment companies are doing work in green energy space, what carbon capture, hydrogen, or wind energy. I think over time, what you're seeing is, the amount of oil and gas being consumed will decrease and the price will go up. So the oil and gas companies, I think, will still make money, but they're just going to cut back their expenses and staff and everything else in order to basically survive. A lot of them are getting into green energy, and that's going to help them be stable. Until the next – I'm personally, have the position that I don't think EVs are the last answer, right? I think EVs are the next answer, but they're not the last answer. From environmental impact that what concerns me going to where oil, I'd say the damage that we do to the earth with oil and gas and drilling is relatively unseen, unless there's a spill, obviously, that's bad. 

With the green energy, it all has some impact on the earth. For instance, all the mining and stuff that's going to take place, you're going to have runoff, you're going to have toxic metals in your water, which will end up in your food. Then I've seen solar panel processes. Where's all that solar panel waste? They filter out the water, but where's all that waste go? Well, it goes in the landfill, essentially. That's a concern as well. There's no easy answer when it comes to energy. I'd say for the next three to five years, oil and gas will be stable, but after that, it's hard for me to say.

[00:21:43] GS: Moving on to these types of equipment and talk to us about some of the different types of equipment that you guys use?

[00:21:48] KK: Yes, so our parts are really large, some are bigger parts are probably like three and a half meters long. Large boring mills, large VTLs. We do a lot of cladding, which is putting [inaudible 00:22:00] inside bores, so large cladding machines. When we go buy a machine tool, I'm not just buying a little tiny, it’s called Doosan. I'm buying a three and a half million dollar or $3 million boring mill, so it's not a small adventure.

[00:22:16] MH: Is there any equipment that you use that's unique to your industry only?

[00:22:20] KK: I would have to say probably what's becoming more unique is the use of Additive. Additive technology takes a lot of forms currently, and I'm sure you guys are familiar with some of it, but in the oil and gas space, the additive technology has to hold pressure and it can't be porous. That leaves out anything that's powdered or sintered. That leaves out anything that's plastic. The technology that we're working on is where metal or welding, essentially layers, that's a lot of the new technology that's coming forward that we're starting to use in the oil and gas space. I'd say that's probably the most original process that we have. Everything else is fairly old to the oil and gas space. I mean, it's been around for decades.

[00:23:05] MH: Is that process showing some promise? 

[00:23:08] KK: It is. It's showing some great promise. We're working with some of the big oil companies on getting some of those parts to them. The two issues that we have currently is, I can't make the parts fast enough and I can't make them big enough. So that's what I'm working on. 

[00:23:23] GS: Yeah. In regard to the equipment machines, what is the biggest challenge of keeping production going?

[00:23:27] KK: I'd say at the current time, raw material supply. It's just unpredictable, even equipment supply. I mean, you could use to order a robot and have it maybe eight or 10 weeks, or maybe it was even in stock. Right now if you go to order a robot, you're going to be 30, 40 weeks down the road before you can even get the robot in. So it really is extending the timeline to improve quicker. I'm doing a wire art 3D printing cell right now. The robot lead time is 30 weeks. Highly likely I'm not getting that project done this year.

[00:24:04] MH: Energy initiatives that you guys are implementing internally at your facilities. Tell me about those.

[00:24:11] MH: So we have several, some of our plants depending on where they are obviously, probably not the best move to put solar panels in Norway, for instance, because you'll be shoveling them in the winter. Now we've been moving towards renewable energies in the plants and we have one plant that's running off a windmill, and they're running all their machine tools, everything off that windmill, but of course they live close to the coast where there's constantly wind right. Then we have some plants that have gone solar. We have other plants that are going solar, but we have a big ESG initiative in our company right now to reduce the overall usage and reduce our carbon footprint.

[00:24:49] GS: What is one common myth about your proficient or field that you would want to debunk?

[00:24:55] KK: That is boring. 

[00:24:56] GS: Oh, I like that. 

[00:24:58] KK: Nobody was going into manufacturing. Mort, tell me how many manufacturing engineering programs there are in the country right now?

[00:25:03] MH: Not many. Not enough.

[00:25:05] KK: Exactly. So that's one of the biggest things that I see is people just aren't going in, because they think it's boring, it's dirty, it's dingy,  but you know what? If you're doing a robotic sell, you're probably not even going to get dirt on your hands. The industry's changed a lot, not only the manufacturing of goods, but just the processes that we're putting forth are a lot cleaner, and they create less dirt, dust and other things. I think one of the things that is going to be really critical is, as we move forward with automation is who's going to do all this automation, right? Like we discussed earlier, it's becoming a problem that people just aren't there.

[00:25:49] GS: What is one thing you would want to share with our listeners that would help them be better leaders?

[00:25:55] KK: That's a good question. As I've grown through my career, empathy and just slowing down a little to smell the roses once in a while, I think really is helpful. We get busy in our daily lives. We don't appreciate the things that we have, or the people that we work with, or the team that we have. I had a conversation with one of my direct reports this morning. I told him, I'm really glad that he's a teammate. He's like, “Nobody's ever told me that before.” Little things like that really help people gain confidence in you and want to work for you and want to perform.

[00:26:31] MH: How many meetings do you have during the week with your direct reports?

[00:26:34] KK: During the week, what I typically do, I'm just going to back up a little bit. What I typically do is I'll schedule one-on-ones, but every other week with them. It's an hour, and I tell them, it's their time, if they want to use it, that's up to them. If they don't want to use it, then that's up to them. But I'm in meetings with them about other topics throughout the week. They know I truly have an open door policy. They can come talk to me about anything. I'll get a call in the middle of day or a text message, “You got a second?” “Absolutely. “

I mean, just establishing that constant communication with the employees to gain their trust and their willingness to want to communicate with you on a regular basis. They aren't calling me looking for permission, a lot of times they're looking for validation. “That what I'm thinking right here. Yeah, you're good. Go.” Right? They're not calling me looking for my permission. If they're looking for my permission constantly, then I'm not doing a good job.

[00:27:30] MH: What makes a good one-on-one meeting?

[00:27:31] KK: I typically just let the employees establish the agenda. I mean, at some point during it, I always ask, “How are things going at home? How are you personally?” Anything that we need to talk about, I mean, to just try and draw out the personal relationship portion of that with your employees, I think is extremely important, because that helps you get a connection with them. If you don't have that connection, you're not going to be successful working together.

[00:27:59] MH: Kallin, what are the most incredible things that has happened, as a byproduct of this podcast, is a connection amongst peers in the manufacturing industry? If one of our listeners wanted to reach out to you, and bounce some ideas off of you, or pick your brain for something, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?

[00:28:19] KK: The best way for them is just to send me a message on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest way, right? But if somebody wants to email me, I'm happy to give out my personal email, kurtzk@msn.com. I'm very responsive. I've had people call me who were students of a professor I had 20 years ago saying, “Hey, my professor told me maybe I should contact you about this.” I'm very open that way. If you calling me to try and sell something, no, I may not respond.

[00:28:49] MH: Yeah. We hope it's never used for that. Kallin Kurtz, thank you so much for joining us today on The Industrial Movement. It's been a pure pleasure.

[00:28:59] KK: No problem. I enjoyed it. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

[OUTRO]

[00:29:02] MH: Well, folks. That's it for this week's episode. Be sure to visit our website www.theindustrialmovement.com to view today's show notes and get more golden nuggets of value that we have collected from manufacturing and industrial professionals in our archived episodes. 

On our website, you can also sign up for our newsletter and find links to join The Industrial Movement community on Facebook. The Industrial Movement podcast is where we discuss the people, the process, and the equipment that drives American manufacturing. I'm your host Morty Hodge, wishing you great success.

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