January 3, 2025 • 36 mins
Leadership today transcends mere management techniques; it thrives on genuine connections and understanding your team's needs. Fred Stipkovits with UltraTech Aerospace shares invaluable insights on the power of listening, the importance of authentic communication, and how he transformed a struggling organization into a cohesive and empowered workforce.
• Fred's unconventional journey into leadership
• The detrimental effects of the technical expert trap
• Emphasizing the power of listening in decision-making
• Building trust through communication
• Raising performance expectations without fear
• Streamlining organizational structure to improve efficiency
• Importance of documented communication
• The role of personal support in professional success
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Ryan Nelson (00:00):
All right, we are ready for part two of our
interview with Fred Stipkiewicz,and I think you probably really
enjoyed part one.
Part two he gets into more ofhis own journey at his company,
how he has shown up there, whathe's done.
We see a little bit of himtalking about the power of
listening and avoiding some ofthe traps that we get into in
the industry, and he also talksabout the importance of knowing
(00:23):
your audience in order to haveeffective communication and you
might need a pg-13 warning forthat in that moment, but Fred
does a great job justcommunicating how he
communicates.
And then he says a line in thisinterview that I just love.
He talks about how you can'tlead by fear, and I think that's
something that's just inspiringand I really appreciate him
(00:43):
boldly stating that.
And then he'll also talk aboutsome of the communication
challenges in the company andhow to avoid those.
So enjoy this part two of ourinterview with Fred Stipkiewicz.
But hey, let's talk more shop.
(01:07):
I want to.
You had an interesting journeyinto this role.
You interviewed twice for thisrole.
Can you talk to us about this,because I think there's a
critical nuance in this that weneed to understand about what
leadership is.
Fred Stipkovits (01:21):
Yeah.
So you know, as I mentionedback, I spent when I left the
military.
I got into the aviation fuelingindustry.
I worked for a couplemanufacturers in Kansas City
that built aircraft fuelingtrucks.
I was spending 120, 150 days ayear on the road all over the
globe, I mean all over the globeVenezuela, colombia, vietnam,
(01:43):
nigeria, afghanistan negotiatingequipment contracts with global
oil companies and had gottendivorced, had gotten remarried a
few years later was starting afamily, and it was time that I
was not getting anywhere from acareer standpoint, from a
(02:04):
financial standpoint, from agrowth standpoint.
It was again, as I mentioned,lessons in what not to do.
When you're afraid that yourpeople are going to leave,
that's because you're nottreating them correctly.
And so I left.
But I don't know what I wasgoing to do.
So I get on Indeed and I punchin aviation and up pops this
(02:28):
business development managerposition at Ultratech Aerospace.
I'm like, I think I could dothat.
Let's just throw my name in thehat Interviewed, got the call,
interviewed, interviewed with,you know, some of the holding
group, holding companies, folksInterviewed a number of times
(02:49):
and didn't get the job.
And I'm like, well damn, youknow, I was really looking
forward to that one.
I thought aerospace would befun to get into.
Everybody I met were phenomenalfolks that I interviewed with,
so I left.
I went off to anothermanufacturer phenomenal folks
that I interviewed with, so Ileft.
I went off to anothermanufacturer.
I started a, went off and didgovernment contract work with
(03:11):
another manufacturer growingtheir government contracts
division Was there three or ahandful of years, a couple of
years, and ended up leaving.
Got a call from an old fuelingaccount fueling customer of mine
to take over as a vicepresident of ground support
equipment operations.
So I oversaw all ground supportequipment maintenance at 60
(03:34):
airports, which was a disasterof a job.
It was back to traveling threeweeks a month all over the US.
I was there six months and thevice president of HR from our
holding company, from our parentcompany, called me up Random
phone call.
Hey, I know you just got thisVP position, but would you be
(03:57):
interested in talking with usagain?
I'm like I guess, sure, what doyou have?
Ryan Nelson (04:06):
I don't have any new stories to tell.
I'm still the same.
I guess.
Sure, what do you have?
Fred Stipkovits (04:09):
I don't have any new stories to tell I'm
still the same guy I was beforeyeah, same crazy guy I was then.
So overcomes the jobdescription and it's for the
president of the company.
And so I'm like, hey, I'mreally confused.
Didn't get the BD position.
You call me back a couple yearslater for the president
(04:32):
position.
What's up?
Well, you know we've had threepositions, three people in this
position since we've owned thecompany.
We didn't hire you for the BDposition because we didn't think
you would stick around longenough to you know it wasn't
going to work out for you.
We truly believe you have whatit takes to come in and lead our
(04:56):
company and help right the shipand get it going better and in
the right direction.
So, interviewed that was in Julyof 21,.
Interviewed July, august,september, got the call in
October, accepted and started inNovember and it's been, you
know, a lot of sleepless nightsand long days since, but it's
been unbelievable.
The ownership team is probablyone of the best ownership teams
(05:20):
I have ever worked with.
I have ever worked with.
I couldn't have turned thisplace around without their
support, their commitment, theirhands-off approach.
They let me do my thing.
I meet with them once a month.
Ryan Nelson (05:36):
I call when I need to call, otherwise they've
exhibited full trust in myabilities, which is hard to find
you know one thing I want toexplore a little bit with you,
because when you've talked aboutthis before, I've heard you
talk about how the fact that youdidn't have machining
experience was one of the thingsthat made them unnerved about
(05:57):
that.
I think our industry has aproblem that I call the
technical expert trap, that wethink to have someone in charge,
they have to know how to runall the machines and they have
to know how to do that.
But what we end up doing is wetake in.
I use it this way we take theguy.
We expect this machinist to runa hundred widgets an hour and
(06:19):
we got 140 widget guy and we hadan 85 widget guy, and when that
supervisor leaves, we naturallymove the 140 widget guy to
supervisor because he 85 widgetguy.
And when that supervisor leaves, we naturally move the 140
widget guy to supervisor becausehe knows how to do his job Well
, doing your job and managingpeople are two very different
skill sets and we end upcreating a lot of frustration
with our supervisors because theone thing that they were really
(06:40):
good at, which was machining,they're no longer doing and now
they're trying to get 85 widgetguy to move up and because
they're falling behind, they putpressure on the 100 widget guy.
Now everybody in the departmentis stressed out and miserable
because no one's doing whatthey're they're capable of doing
.
Talk to me a little bit abouthow shops need to get past this
(07:02):
technical expert trap andunderstand that leadership is
not about the machining,leadership is about the people.
Can you open that for me alittle bit?
Fred Stipkovits (07:11):
Yeah so you're right, ryan, I've never been in
a machine shop.
My father's cousin had a manualBridgeport milling machine in
his garage that I used to seehim messing around with years
ago when I was little.
But I wasn't hired to be amachinist.
I wasn't hired to make widgets.
I was hired to harness thepowers, the superpowers of those
(07:38):
that can make the widgets.
And in order to harness thosesuperpowers, you have to
understand what they do.
And the only way to understandwhat they do is if you listen to
what they do and if you ask anyone of these guys, if you give
them the opportunity to sit inyour office and just talk about
(07:58):
what they do, how they do it,why they do it, you'll learn
everything there is to knowabout machining parts.
I know I can't necessarily goout there and run a machine, but
I can tell you that I walk outon that shop floor and I have
enough technical knowledge onwhat goes on in my shop that I
(08:19):
can regularly look at a problemand provide them recommendations
that end up a result of fixinga problem.
And I learned all of thatthrough listening to every one
of these guys and girls that areon my shop floor.
Ryan Nelson (08:35):
I want to talk about that because your first
eight weeks you dedicated tolistening.
And I have this.
There's one of the things thatwe can do for companies where I
tell people and this isn'toriginal to me but you listen
from the bottom up and then youprioritize from the top down,
and what a lot of companies dois they you prioritize from the
(09:00):
bottom up and you implement fromthe top down.
I got that wrong at first andthe idea is, if we make
priorities at the top withoutunderstanding how the systems
work, we're actually hand tyingour machinists and our team from
achieving what they have thepotential to do.
And I like to come in and helpcompanies.
Just how do we listen from theshop floor all the way up
(09:23):
through supervisors, managers,to the leadership, and then we
prioritize our systems toimplement them?
So you listened for six to eightweeks.
You told your powers that be,listen.
Don't expect return on yourinvestment for these early
stages.
I am just going to be trying tounderstand what we have.
(09:46):
What were you listening for andtell the little bit of the
story about how you went aboutbusiness those first six or
eight weeks.
Fred Stipkovits (09:52):
Yeah.
So I ran every single personthat was here through my office
for an hour, two hours, threehours, however long.
They wanted to sit in here andtalk whatever they wanted to
talk about, how they gotinvolved in machining, what they
do on the outside, what theirfamily, their life do on the
(10:13):
outside, what their family,their life and, above all, out
of every shop you've been in.
Give me the good, the bad andthe ugly.
What did you love about otherplaces that you work that you
wish it would be implementedhere?
What do you hate?
I mean, look guys, I'm new.
I didn't implement any of thisstuff.
You're not going to hurt myfeelings, so what do you see?
What do we do wrong?
What do you think, as amachinist with 20, 10, 20, 30
(10:37):
years of experience, needs tohappen?
All you have to do is ask andthey'll tell you everything that
you want to know, and you juststart taking notes that you want
to know and you just starttaking notes.
Things like we didn't havethings like grid patterns on
machines.
(10:57):
Actually, I was just talkingabout this.
Today, my CEO was down with acouple of our board members for
a tour and I was explaining tothem that listen, the $20,000
that we spent on new aluminumtombstones and then we gridded
them out and they're going tolive with that machine, the
advantages of standardizedworkholding.
(11:18):
And you got to break it downinto layman's terms for people
that don't understand.
I explained it like playingBattleship where A5 is always A
a5 and so if you grid out yourtombstones and you grid out your
work holding and yourprogrammers can now standardize
their programming of where a5 isand that's where everything
(11:39):
gets located.
It's not my idea.
I I didn't wouldn't even thinkof that as a logical step in the
way your machine should set up.
I'm not a machinist, but mymachinists thought about that
and my machinists told me thatwhy don't we have standardized
work holding?
Why are our machines not set upwith grid patterns?
(12:00):
I don't know.
You tell me.
Why aren't they?
Because nobody ever wanted totake the time, the money and the
effort to do it.
Okay, and it's not cheap.
Nobody ever wanted to take thetime, the money and the effort
to do it.
Okay.
So over the and it's not cheapand it you have to take the
machine down, but over thecourse of the last three years
we just finished gridding outour fifth machine.
This week we have 18 machines.
(12:23):
You know you have to find a time, you have to buy new right, but
all of that leads toimprovements that aren't my idea
.
Same with heat shrink and toolholders.
One of the machinists said weshould run heat shrink tool
holders.
We're using these old colletstyles or whatever and there's
(12:44):
inefficiencies associated withthat.
We can get better tool life, wecan get faster cutting,
whatever the benefits are.
So what I do is I help themlearn the business side of it
too.
So I tell them okay, you thinkheat shrink is valuable, call up
a heat shrink guy, whateverbrand you think is the right one
(13:06):
, have them come in, put thenumbers together, put the
numbers together, put the datatogether and present it to me.
Well, yeah, but I'm just amachinist.
No, it's your idea.
You think that there's value init.
Let me help you with my side,what I have to deal with, so
that you understand what goesinto it.
(13:27):
You help educate me about thebenefits of this implementation
on the shop floor.
I'll help educate you about thebusiness side of it and what
goes into it, and how we do anROI, how we show the $60,000
investment, how we show costreductions, how we show all of
this to justify the expenditure,so that it's like your kid.
(13:47):
You know your kid wants a newpair of tennis shoes.
Well, you beat those ones up.
You help me understand why Ineed to buy you a new pair of
shoes, right, whatever you gotto.
And so that's the exercise I dowith these guys.
You want pad jaws for all ofour lathes, because it takes
three hours to change out thefixtures and it's 50 pounds and
(14:08):
you've got to use the jib craneand we can switch out 6,000
bucks we can switch out to padjaws and we never have to change
out.
Another thing Perfect, show me,show me the money.
Ryan Nelson (14:20):
You know, I had a CPA friend of mine who was a
mentor to me while I was in thenonprofit space helping to build
teams and stuff like that, andhe said, Ryan, it doesn't matter
what business you're in, you'rein the people business and you
just really illustrated thatyou're in the people business.
It's not about getting stuffout of your people and making
them run the machine.
You actually expanded theirworldview and their business
(14:45):
acumen by having theseconversations and now they
understand that my actions hasdirect implications on our
organization's success orfailure.
And I have to think through whywe're making choices that we're
making.
Fred Stipkovits (15:01):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I get ideas all the time,right, and, as a result, those
ideas continue to flow, thoseideas.
I got machinists that walk inhere and say, hey, I'm looking
at this part, man, if Ireprocess this, if you allow me
to reprogram this or reprocessthis, I think I can shave X
amount of time off of it.
Go for it.
(15:22):
We have cost reductions inplace all the time.
Where folks come in and I agreeto split the, split the benefit
with them, you're going to savefive hours apart.
That results in X amount ofdollars, whatever.
That would be that we alreadyhave the job, we already bid it,
we already want it.
So anything above and beyond isgravy.
(15:42):
So I wasn't going to make it tobegin with.
I wasn't going to have thatmoney to begin with.
So if we're going to increasethat profitability, you should
benefit from that instead of thecompany.
We'll both benefit.
I'll give you some of it andwe'll keep the rest.
Ryan Nelson (16:01):
Let's talk about communication, because we tend
to think that communication isbeing eloquent in speech and
inspiring our people with here'swhat we're going to do and
we're going to accomplish thesenumbers and this, that and
everything.
You've so effectively listenedto your people that when you
speak, you know your audience.
(16:21):
I think a lot of leaders theyspeak eloquently to some level
but they don't even know theiraudience.
So what good is the fancy?
Fred Stipkovits (16:31):
speech.
So that's funny, you bring thatup.
So actually this was a birthdaygift.
So my welders, my welderswelded up a custom, a nice box
for me, okay, and in it I had anice mug.
I will warn everybody of thelanguage, okay.
So right, fucker in charge ofyou, fucking fucks.
(16:57):
My favorite word I'm not aboveEloquent speech is the $5 terms
and the nickel.
It's not my audience.
I talk to my team.
They're real people.
I'm not above them, I'm notbelow them.
(17:20):
I talk on the shop.
Some people disagree with that.
I've been criticized for thatand my comment all the time back
to that is you didn't hire me.
It's not criticized by my owner, by my CEO, but there's been
(17:43):
some others in our leadershipteam that have, and my comment
is you didn't hire me to educatethese people on how to use big
words that they need to look upin a dictionary.
In a dictionary, if I throw outsome big word that they don't
understand, that doesn't get mymessage across and that doesn't
(18:04):
put me in a position wherethey're not going to respect me.
Because I'm a polished eloquentpublic speaker, I all too often
accidentally drop the F-bomb inmeetings that I probably
shouldn't.
But I'm real and that'simportant to me.
(18:25):
I'm approachable, I'm real.
Anybody in my company, from thejanitor up to my director of
operations, has the sameopportunity to walk in my office
, talk to me about personalproblems, business problems,
concerns, just bullshit.
I got guys walk in my officeall the time and just want to
(18:47):
talk, talk knives, talk guns,talk cars.
Whatever I stop what I'm doingand I talk to them, my goal is
to not be above them, notbelittle them.
I joke at these.
Somebody once told me thatmachinists are the most
undereducated intelligent peopleyou'll ever meet and I thought
(19:09):
that that was a kind of a.
I didn't really like thatanalogy because the assumption
that they're uneducated Right,you know.
And I corrected them.
I said you know what?
What does education have to dowith any of it?
I've got people on my team withmasters.
I've got engineers, I've gotand I've got people that didn't
(19:31):
graduate high school mattershere, because I can't split
fractions of a thousandth of aninch like these machinists on
the shop floor can in their head.
So the eloquent words andthrowing around your master's
degree or throwing around yourIvy League education, none of
(19:52):
that.
We check all of that at thedoor at my shop.
Ryan Nelson (19:58):
You got to speak to your audience, you got to know
your audience and you've got tospeak to your audience
Absolutely.
So you talked about how thatfirst year that you were there,
50% turnover in your staff, noone was fired but you had a lot
of people leave because youraised the bar.
Man, it's one thing to moveinto an organization and raise
(20:23):
the bar.
What advice do you have for theguy who's running an
organization and he's createdthe dysfunction and he's
starting to recognize he's gotto raise the bar?
Fred Stipkovits (20:34):
So you can't lead by fear.
I've worked at places where Iwalked in every day wondering if
I was going to lose my job.
You can't lead by fear.
You can't manage by fear thebar.
You know.
I had shop supervisors thatweren't the best shop
(20:56):
supervisors.
That's now one of my topperformers that has he's my
senior estimator and the guy isphenomenal.
Um, he was under a lot ofstress on the shop floor.
He wasn't given the tools heneeded to to properly lead the
shop.
That resulted in in in um, whatI didn't like, what you know,
(21:17):
and he.
You have to look at theirstrengths If you need to raise
the bar.
I think raising the bar againstarts at the top.
I stand in front of my peopleall the time and I tell them you
may not like everything I do.
I will always explain to youwhy my decisions.
(21:42):
There are certain corporatedecisions that obviously people
can't be privy to, the behindthe scenes things, but for the
most part, I will explain almostevery one of my decisions and I
never make a decision in avacuum.
Every one of my leadership,everybody on my leadership team,
even folks on the shop floor,have the opportunity for input
(22:03):
on decisions that are going tobe impactful to the company.
Raising the bar isn't aboutyour ideas and what you think
the bar, where you think the barshould be.
I think raising the bar shouldbe looked at as what's best for
your team and your company, andthey're not always aligned, so
(22:24):
you have to find that middleground where it's the right
thing for the company but it'salso either communicated or laid
out or structured in a sensethat is the right thing for the
people that you're leading aswell.
Ryan Nelson (22:41):
Well, and that Jim Collins principle that you kind
of alluded to getting the rightthing for the people that you're
leading as well.
Well, in that Jim Collinsprinciple that you kind of
alluded to getting the rightpeople in the right seats on the
bus and you have shared in thepast that you had some guys that
weren't thriving, but you movedthem to the estimator role or
you moved them away from asupervisor role to a technician
role and all of a sudden theyare absolutely crushing it again
, because you brought alignmentwith who they were instead of
(23:04):
what you were asking of themwithin the organization.
So listening to what will getthem out of bed in the morning.
You're able to get a lot moreresults if you're aligning with
what they value.
Fred Stipkovits (23:17):
Yeah, the ones that are still here, that were
here when I got here.
There's a good you know 20, 30,30%.
Yeah, the ones that are stillhere that were here when I got
here.
There's a.
There's a good you know 20, 30,30 of the people that are still
here here.
They are all in different orelevated roles than when I got
here.
They're they're they're leadinglarger groups, larger.
(23:39):
They've been promoted tosupervisors.
They've been put in roles thathave been that they're thriving
in and have been extremelybeneficial to the company and
their knowledge.
And they're still here for areason they're my heavy hitters.
Ryan Nelson (23:56):
Yep, yep, hey, one more line of questioning and
then we'll do what I call therapid feed round and we'll wrap
things up here shortly.
But here's what I want to knowwhat's your structure of your
organization in terms of there'syour perhaps C-suite, and then
you have managers, thensupervisors, then techs, or is
there another layer in theresomewhere?
Fred Stipkovits (24:18):
So I've restructured that.
When I got here there weredirectors and then managers and
then supervisors.
I eliminated that kind of thatdirector role up until recently,
whenever I recognized that mylevel of expertise in
operational efficiencies I, I,just I, I was tapped out.
(24:44):
I didn't have the bandwidth andI also didn't have the level of
expertise that I, that I neededon that team to to serve the
company well.
So I brought on a director ofoperations.
Ryan Nelson (24:55):
So they come from within, or did you bring them?
Fred Stipkovits (24:58):
from?
No, we brought him from fromoutside.
Uh, we talked with a couplefrom within.
Or did you bring them fromoutside?
No, we brought him from outside, we talked with a couple from
within.
That you know.
I approached.
That said you know, hey, youneed somebody higher powered
than me.
So I have myself, I have adirector of operations.
Under that director ofoperations is my quality manager
and production manager.
And then I have a customer andoperation support manager that
(25:22):
reports direct to me, that'sover a customer support,
purchasing, estimating,engineering, kind of planning
and engineering.
My controller and financialstaff report direct to me and it
reports direct to me.
So it's it's really mostlymanagers.
And then I have a shopsupervisor, a warehouse
(25:46):
supervisor, and then I have aprogram manager supervisor.
So I have five managers, threesupervisors.
So me, one director, fivemanagers and then three
supervisors.
Ryan Nelson (26:01):
We're a company of 55.
Okay, so communication is aconstant problem in
manufacturing.
So many emails get sent with noresponses.
You don't know if anyone readit or not, or whatever.
What are some keys that youfigured out in communication to
create efficiency through yourorganization?
Or is that just a constantrefinement process?
Fred Stipkovits (26:22):
You know, I think it's a constant.
It's always going to beconstant refinement.
We have multiple layers of.
We have, you know, teamsmeetings, teams, groups where
we've got quality team, and allthese different groups, chat
groups that are kind of don'tneed to be meetings, don't need
to be emails.
You know, internally I'm a fan.
(26:46):
In my opinion, I'm a fan.
Email is a form ofdocumentation, not communication
.
Opinion, I'm a fan.
Email is a form ofdocumentation, not communication
.
And so we regularly havemanagement meetings or shop
meetings, or I have one-on-onemeetings that we discuss things,
we talk, we take notes and thena lot of times it's followed up
by hey, just to recap ourconversation, it was this is
(27:06):
what's going to happen.
This is what's going to happen,this is the executable option.
Ryan Nelson (27:09):
So you document what was said yeah, but you're
always going to happen.
This is what's going to happen.
This is the executable option,so you document what was said.
Fred Stipkovits (27:12):
Yeah, but you're always going to have.
There's so many moving pieces.
I mean, I think right now wehave upwards of 1,200 open jobs
that are rolling through theshop right now, and so, between
purchasing and estimating andthe program managers and sales
and engineering and all of that,there's always going to be a
(27:33):
missed something.
Yep.
Ryan Nelson (27:39):
So you've got to give yourself some grace and
understand there's a lot ofmoving parts and you've got to
keep moving, figure out how tomove forward.
Fred Stipkovits (27:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
But you know, we've got apretty robust ERP system.
We've got a pretty robust ERPsystem.
We've got a pretty robust comms.
I think for the most part we dofairly well on comms.
Ryan Nelson (28:00):
That's great, that's great, all right, rapid
feed round.
Fred Stipkovits (28:03):
You ready for this?
Ryan Nelson (28:03):
Let's do it All right, just first reactions of
these.
You're a little bit at adisadvantage because we haven't
released the first podcast yet,so you've never heard any of
these questions.
So here's the first question.
If you could go to a Chiefsgame with any famous person, who
would you want to go hang outwith?
Fred Stipkovits (28:21):
Man, that's a tough one.
I'm not a real starstruckperson, sure.
Ryan Nelson (28:26):
And it doesn't have to be famous to everyone.
Maybe it's just important toyou to be famous to everyone.
Maybe it's just important toyou.
Fred Stipkovits (28:32):
Yeah, you know, to me going to a sporting event
isn't necessarily about thesporting event, because you miss
so much of it when you're inthe stands compared to what's on
TV.
So I look for the experience.
Christmas Day last year I tookmy at the time six-year-old to
the Chiefs Raiders game.
So you know, I'm going to gowith my little boy because he's
(28:57):
a diehard fan and it's a memoryand an experience that he just
soaks up.
Ryan Nelson (29:05):
That's a great answer.
Love it.
All right For those earlymornings in the shop.
What's your energy drink ofchoice?
Are you a coffee guy?
A energy drink, caffeine ofsome kind?
Fred Stipkovits (29:15):
I'm a straight up black coffee until 10.30 am.
I will down coffee until 10.30.
10.30 is my switch over and Iswitch over to water and I drink
water the rest of the day,unless I have some event after
work, where then I partake insome adult beverages.
Ryan Nelson (29:31):
Gotcha All right.
What's the greatest threat tomanufacturing right now?
Fred Stipkovits (29:42):
Understanding the cost-benefit analysis to
keeping it onshore.
You want a penny pinch and youwant to take it offshore.
You're going to get what youpay for.
It's always going to be able tobe done cheaper, but the
quality is going to suck.
That's why I'm an advocate andpreach so heavily at the NTMA
meetings about the benefit ofsharing of work.
Sharing amongst shops withinour community, so that we can
(30:04):
not only keep it onshore butkeep it within the Kansas City
network.
Ryan Nelson (30:09):
Yep.
And so by community you'reliterally saying Kansas City
region, not necessarily themanufacturing community.
Fred Stipkovits (30:15):
Yeah, if somebody doesn't have the
capabilities here, we'll branchout, but at the end of the day,
let's keep it close to home.
Ryan Nelson (30:23):
Love it.
What's one tool you couldn'tlive without in your leadership
role?
And by tool, it's just a skillset that you have role and by
tool.
Fred Stipkovits (30:36):
It's just a skill set that you have, man,
one tool I couldn't live without.
You know, this is gonna be it.
This is gonna be a off off theI think this is gonna be out in
left fieldand-left-field one I'mgoing to have to say, without a
doubt, my support network athome.
(30:57):
That's awesome.
I could not dedicate the timeor effort or any of that to what
I'm trying to do here and buildhere and take care of people
here and do what I try to do forour community without my wife
(31:17):
carrying substantial load withthe kids at home.
Ryan Nelson (31:22):
Yeah, man, I love that.
I really respect that, and Ithink more people need to
understand that their work lifehas a direct reflection on their
home life and their home lifehas a direct reflection on their
work life.
If either of those is out ofwhack and miserable, it's going
to show up in the other place mywife never gets on me about.
Fred Stipkovits (31:40):
She knows that.
You know I'm entrenched in allof these different organizations
and it's purposeful.
Everything I do is strategicand purposeful and she is behind
me all the time.
Ryan Nelson (31:58):
A similar question what's one skill if you could
master instantly?
You wish you could master foryour organization's benefit?
Fred Stipkovits (32:13):
um, you know, I could master for my
organization's benefits.
Uh, you know, I mean, honestly,if I could, if I could master a
skill and I had the time, umtime I would.
(32:39):
Again, I wasn't hired to be one, but I would really love to be
able to go out there on a shopfloor and run a machine, and
that's a skill that I don't have.
That, I think, would bring awhole different perspective and
I probably if I could walk outthere and they'd show me
anything.
But that's a skill that I don'thave, that I think I would love
to have.
(32:59):
That, I think, would bring awhole different perspective and
understanding Cool man.
Ryan Nelson (33:06):
Well, last question for you, and this is for your
benefit here what's a questionyou wish I would have asked that
we didn't get to today?
If there is one, what'ssomething you'd like to talk to
our community about?
Fred Stipkovits (33:25):
uh, I don't know, man, we covered a lot of
good stuff, right?
I think this was such a diversepodcast where we covered so
many different good things talkabout is again, I think, the
(33:55):
same.
Some of the threats that peoplehave are our sales techniques,
our, our customer portfolio andour employee retention.
Every everybody in thisindustry wants more work, wants
to retain people and hire better, better people.
I'm not saying the way that Ido it is right, it works for me,
uh, but I think if more peoplewould open up to what they do
and how they do things, we couldall learn from them and figure
(34:16):
out how to do things better andwe could all grow and become
stronger together.
But I don't know that there wasa question in particular that
you asked or didn't ask thatthat I felt should be.
I probably will come to me knowlater on and go the night
(34:36):
exactly right.
Ryan Nelson (34:37):
Um, hey, if people want to get in touch with you I
know you're super active onlinkedin.
Where can people learn moreabout you, your company and that
type of yeah, definitelylinkedin.
Fred Stipkovits (34:46):
I'm all over linkedin.
I try to support and supportand support my people and my
company on LinkedIn, ultra TechAerospace.
My last name doesn't get mixedup in the fold.
I'm not a Smith or a Jones, soyou can Google Fred Stepkiewicz.
You'll probably find my fatheron the East Coast and me, but
(35:09):
I'm the one with hair and notmuch of it anymore.
But yeah, you can always reachout at fstipkiewicz, at uterocom
email call.
I'm always happy to meet andhave a coffee and learn and make
(35:29):
a new contact and figure outhow we can we can grow together.
Ryan Nelson (35:34):
All right, man.
Hey, it has been an absolutepleasure.
Thanks for investing in thisconversation.
Fred Stipkovits (35:38):
I appreciate being the maiden voyage here too
, right, and I think this isgoing to be great and I look
forward to hearing more of yourpodcasts.
Ryan Nelson (35:50):
I have no doubt that that was worth your time,
and Fred just dropped some greatinsights into leadership and I
hope you just took them in.
I hope you are not onlythinking about them, but you are
applying them in your workcontext.
Thank you, fred, for being apart of this.
If you are listening on Spotifyor some of the other podcast
(36:15):
apps, would you please subscribeand would you rate us with a
five-star rating?
That helps us get moreattention, as you know.
And if you're watching onYouTube, please take a minute
just to leave a comment.
Share something that Fred shared, that you appreciated,
something that's challenging youor encouraging you.
Just take some time to expressyour appreciation to Fred for
his contribution.
I would love for that.
Keep growing in your leadership.
(36:37):
In our next podcast that we'regoing to drop, we're going to
have Brandon Herring from ZephyrProducts, and Brandon is going
to share some unique insightsfrom his perspective as a part
of a sales team in amanufacturing company.
So keep your eyes open for that.
Until next time, keep doingyour thing.
Keep growing as a leader.
All right, we are ready for part two of our
interview with Fred Stipkiewicz,and I think you probably really
enjoyed part one.
Part two he gets into more ofhis own journey at his company,
how he has shown up there, whathe's done.
We see a little bit of himtalking about the power of
listening and avoiding some ofthe traps that we get into in
the industry, and he also talksabout the importance of knowing
(00:23):
your audience in order to haveeffective communication and you
might need a pg-13 warning forthat in that moment, but Fred
does a great job justcommunicating how he
communicates.
And then he says a line in thisinterview that I just love.
He talks about how you can'tlead by fear, and I think that's
something that's just inspiringand I really appreciate him
(00:43):
boldly stating that.
And then he'll also talk aboutsome of the communication
challenges in the company andhow to avoid those.
So enjoy this part two of ourinterview with Fred Stipkiewicz.
But hey, let's talk more shop.
(01:07):
I want to.
You had an interesting journeyinto this role.
You interviewed twice for thisrole.
Can you talk to us about this,because I think there's a
critical nuance in this that weneed to understand about what
leadership is.
Fred Stipkovits (01:21):
Yeah.
So you know, as I mentionedback, I spent when I left the
military.
I got into the aviation fuelingindustry.
I worked for a couplemanufacturers in Kansas City
that built aircraft fuelingtrucks.
I was spending 120, 150 days ayear on the road all over the
globe, I mean all over the globeVenezuela, colombia, vietnam,
(01:43):
nigeria, afghanistan negotiatingequipment contracts with global
oil companies and had gottendivorced, had gotten remarried a
few years later was starting afamily, and it was time that I
was not getting anywhere from acareer standpoint, from a
(02:04):
financial standpoint, from agrowth standpoint.
It was again, as I mentioned,lessons in what not to do.
When you're afraid that yourpeople are going to leave,
that's because you're nottreating them correctly.
And so I left.
But I don't know what I wasgoing to do.
So I get on Indeed and I punchin aviation and up pops this
(02:28):
business development managerposition at Ultratech Aerospace.
I'm like, I think I could dothat.
Let's just throw my name in thehat Interviewed, got the call,
interviewed, interviewed with,you know, some of the holding
group, holding companies, folksInterviewed a number of times
(02:49):
and didn't get the job.
And I'm like, well damn, youknow, I was really looking
forward to that one.
I thought aerospace would befun to get into.
Everybody I met were phenomenalfolks that I interviewed with,
so I left.
I went off to anothermanufacturer phenomenal folks
that I interviewed with, so Ileft.
I went off to anothermanufacturer.
I started a, went off and didgovernment contract work with
(03:11):
another manufacturer growingtheir government contracts
division Was there three or ahandful of years, a couple of
years, and ended up leaving.
Got a call from an old fuelingaccount fueling customer of mine
to take over as a vicepresident of ground support
equipment operations.
So I oversaw all ground supportequipment maintenance at 60
(03:34):
airports, which was a disasterof a job.
It was back to traveling threeweeks a month all over the US.
I was there six months and thevice president of HR from our
holding company, from our parentcompany, called me up Random
phone call.
Hey, I know you just got thisVP position, but would you be
(03:57):
interested in talking with usagain?
I'm like I guess, sure, what doyou have?
Ryan Nelson (04:06):
I don't have any new stories to tell.
I'm still the same.
I guess.
Sure, what do you have?
Fred Stipkovits (04:09):
I don't have any new stories to tell I'm
still the same guy I was beforeyeah, same crazy guy I was then.
So overcomes the jobdescription and it's for the
president of the company.
And so I'm like, hey, I'mreally confused.
Didn't get the BD position.
You call me back a couple yearslater for the president
(04:32):
position.
What's up?
Well, you know we've had threepositions, three people in this
position since we've owned thecompany.
We didn't hire you for the BDposition because we didn't think
you would stick around longenough to you know it wasn't
going to work out for you.
We truly believe you have whatit takes to come in and lead our
(04:56):
company and help right the shipand get it going better and in
the right direction.
So, interviewed that was in Julyof 21,.
Interviewed July, august,september, got the call in
October, accepted and started inNovember and it's been, you
know, a lot of sleepless nightsand long days since, but it's
been unbelievable.
The ownership team is probablyone of the best ownership teams
(05:20):
I have ever worked with.
I have ever worked with.
I couldn't have turned thisplace around without their
support, their commitment, theirhands-off approach.
They let me do my thing.
I meet with them once a month.
Ryan Nelson (05:36):
I call when I need to call, otherwise they've
exhibited full trust in myabilities, which is hard to find
you know one thing I want toexplore a little bit with you,
because when you've talked aboutthis before, I've heard you
talk about how the fact that youdidn't have machining
experience was one of the thingsthat made them unnerved about
(05:57):
that.
I think our industry has aproblem that I call the
technical expert trap, that wethink to have someone in charge,
they have to know how to runall the machines and they have
to know how to do that.
But what we end up doing is wetake in.
I use it this way we take theguy.
We expect this machinist to runa hundred widgets an hour and
(06:19):
we got 140 widget guy and we hadan 85 widget guy, and when that
supervisor leaves, we naturallymove the 140 widget guy to
supervisor because he 85 widgetguy.
And when that supervisor leaves, we naturally move the 140
widget guy to supervisor becausehe knows how to do his job Well
, doing your job and managingpeople are two very different
skill sets and we end upcreating a lot of frustration
with our supervisors because theone thing that they were really
(06:40):
good at, which was machining,they're no longer doing and now
they're trying to get 85 widgetguy to move up and because
they're falling behind, they putpressure on the 100 widget guy.
Now everybody in the departmentis stressed out and miserable
because no one's doing whatthey're they're capable of doing
.
Talk to me a little bit abouthow shops need to get past this
(07:02):
technical expert trap andunderstand that leadership is
not about the machining,leadership is about the people.
Can you open that for me alittle bit?
Fred Stipkovits (07:11):
Yeah so you're right, ryan, I've never been in
a machine shop.
My father's cousin had a manualBridgeport milling machine in
his garage that I used to seehim messing around with years
ago when I was little.
But I wasn't hired to be amachinist.
I wasn't hired to make widgets.
I was hired to harness thepowers, the superpowers of those
(07:38):
that can make the widgets.
And in order to harness thosesuperpowers, you have to
understand what they do.
And the only way to understandwhat they do is if you listen to
what they do and if you ask anyone of these guys, if you give
them the opportunity to sit inyour office and just talk about
(07:58):
what they do, how they do it,why they do it, you'll learn
everything there is to knowabout machining parts.
I know I can't necessarily goout there and run a machine, but
I can tell you that I walk outon that shop floor and I have
enough technical knowledge onwhat goes on in my shop that I
(08:19):
can regularly look at a problemand provide them recommendations
that end up a result of fixinga problem.
And I learned all of thatthrough listening to every one
of these guys and girls that areon my shop floor.
Ryan Nelson (08:35):
I want to talk about that because your first
eight weeks you dedicated tolistening.
And I have this.
There's one of the things thatwe can do for companies where I
tell people and this isn'toriginal to me but you listen
from the bottom up and then youprioritize from the top down,
and what a lot of companies dois they you prioritize from the
(09:00):
bottom up and you implement fromthe top down.
I got that wrong at first andthe idea is, if we make
priorities at the top withoutunderstanding how the systems
work, we're actually hand tyingour machinists and our team from
achieving what they have thepotential to do.
And I like to come in and helpcompanies.
Just how do we listen from theshop floor all the way up
(09:23):
through supervisors, managers,to the leadership, and then we
prioritize our systems toimplement them?
So you listened for six to eightweeks.
You told your powers that be,listen.
Don't expect return on yourinvestment for these early
stages.
I am just going to be trying tounderstand what we have.
(09:46):
What were you listening for andtell the little bit of the
story about how you went aboutbusiness those first six or
eight weeks.
Fred Stipkovits (09:52):
Yeah.
So I ran every single personthat was here through my office
for an hour, two hours, threehours, however long.
They wanted to sit in here andtalk whatever they wanted to
talk about, how they gotinvolved in machining, what they
do on the outside, what theirfamily, their life do on the
(10:13):
outside, what their family,their life and, above all, out
of every shop you've been in.
Give me the good, the bad andthe ugly.
What did you love about otherplaces that you work that you
wish it would be implementedhere?
What do you hate?
I mean, look guys, I'm new.
I didn't implement any of thisstuff.
You're not going to hurt myfeelings, so what do you see?
What do we do wrong?
What do you think, as amachinist with 20, 10, 20, 30
(10:37):
years of experience, needs tohappen?
All you have to do is ask andthey'll tell you everything that
you want to know, and you juststart taking notes that you want
to know and you just starttaking notes.
Things like we didn't havethings like grid patterns on
machines.
(10:57):
Actually, I was just talkingabout this.
Today, my CEO was down with acouple of our board members for
a tour and I was explaining tothem that listen, the $20,000
that we spent on new aluminumtombstones and then we gridded
them out and they're going tolive with that machine, the
advantages of standardizedworkholding.
(11:18):
And you got to break it downinto layman's terms for people
that don't understand.
I explained it like playingBattleship where A5 is always A
a5 and so if you grid out yourtombstones and you grid out your
work holding and yourprogrammers can now standardize
their programming of where a5 isand that's where everything
(11:39):
gets located.
It's not my idea.
I I didn't wouldn't even thinkof that as a logical step in the
way your machine should set up.
I'm not a machinist, but mymachinists thought about that
and my machinists told me thatwhy don't we have standardized
work holding?
Why are our machines not set upwith grid patterns?
(12:00):
I don't know.
You tell me.
Why aren't they?
Because nobody ever wanted totake the time, the money and the
effort to do it.
Okay, and it's not cheap.
Nobody ever wanted to take thetime, the money and the effort
to do it.
Okay.
So over the and it's not cheapand it you have to take the
machine down, but over thecourse of the last three years
we just finished gridding outour fifth machine.
This week we have 18 machines.
(12:23):
You know you have to find a time, you have to buy new right, but
all of that leads toimprovements that aren't my idea
.
Same with heat shrink and toolholders.
One of the machinists said weshould run heat shrink tool
holders.
We're using these old colletstyles or whatever and there's
(12:44):
inefficiencies associated withthat.
We can get better tool life, wecan get faster cutting,
whatever the benefits are.
So what I do is I help themlearn the business side of it
too.
So I tell them okay, you thinkheat shrink is valuable, call up
a heat shrink guy, whateverbrand you think is the right one
(13:06):
, have them come in, put thenumbers together, put the
numbers together, put the datatogether and present it to me.
Well, yeah, but I'm just amachinist.
No, it's your idea.
You think that there's value init.
Let me help you with my side,what I have to deal with, so
that you understand what goesinto it.
(13:27):
You help educate me about thebenefits of this implementation
on the shop floor.
I'll help educate you about thebusiness side of it and what
goes into it, and how we do anROI, how we show the $60,000
investment, how we show costreductions, how we show all of
this to justify the expenditure,so that it's like your kid.
(13:47):
You know your kid wants a newpair of tennis shoes.
Well, you beat those ones up.
You help me understand why Ineed to buy you a new pair of
shoes, right, whatever you gotto.
And so that's the exercise I dowith these guys.
You want pad jaws for all ofour lathes, because it takes
three hours to change out thefixtures and it's 50 pounds and
(14:08):
you've got to use the jib craneand we can switch out 6,000
bucks we can switch out to padjaws and we never have to change
out.
Another thing Perfect, show me,show me the money.
Ryan Nelson (14:20):
You know, I had a CPA friend of mine who was a
mentor to me while I was in thenonprofit space helping to build
teams and stuff like that, andhe said, Ryan, it doesn't matter
what business you're in, you'rein the people business and you
just really illustrated thatyou're in the people business.
It's not about getting stuffout of your people and making
them run the machine.
You actually expanded theirworldview and their business
(14:45):
acumen by having theseconversations and now they
understand that my actions hasdirect implications on our
organization's success orfailure.
And I have to think through whywe're making choices that we're
making.
Fred Stipkovits (15:01):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I get ideas all the time,right, and, as a result, those
ideas continue to flow, thoseideas.
I got machinists that walk inhere and say, hey, I'm looking
at this part, man, if Ireprocess this, if you allow me
to reprogram this or reprocessthis, I think I can shave X
amount of time off of it.
Go for it.
(15:22):
We have cost reductions inplace all the time.
Where folks come in and I agreeto split the, split the benefit
with them, you're going to savefive hours apart.
That results in X amount ofdollars, whatever.
That would be that we alreadyhave the job, we already bid it,
we already want it.
So anything above and beyond isgravy.
(15:42):
So I wasn't going to make it tobegin with.
I wasn't going to have thatmoney to begin with.
So if we're going to increasethat profitability, you should
benefit from that instead of thecompany.
We'll both benefit.
I'll give you some of it andwe'll keep the rest.
Ryan Nelson (16:01):
Let's talk about communication, because we tend
to think that communication isbeing eloquent in speech and
inspiring our people with here'swhat we're going to do and
we're going to accomplish thesenumbers and this, that and
everything.
You've so effectively listenedto your people that when you
speak, you know your audience.
(16:21):
I think a lot of leaders theyspeak eloquently to some level
but they don't even know theiraudience.
So what good is the fancy?
Fred Stipkovits (16:31):
speech.
So that's funny, you bring thatup.
So actually this was a birthdaygift.
So my welders, my welderswelded up a custom, a nice box
for me, okay, and in it I had anice mug.
I will warn everybody of thelanguage, okay.
So right, fucker in charge ofyou, fucking fucks.
(16:57):
My favorite word I'm not aboveEloquent speech is the $5 terms
and the nickel.
It's not my audience.
I talk to my team.
They're real people.
I'm not above them, I'm notbelow them.
(17:20):
I talk on the shop.
Some people disagree with that.
I've been criticized for thatand my comment all the time back
to that is you didn't hire me.
It's not criticized by my owner, by my CEO, but there's been
(17:43):
some others in our leadershipteam that have, and my comment
is you didn't hire me to educatethese people on how to use big
words that they need to look upin a dictionary.
In a dictionary, if I throw outsome big word that they don't
understand, that doesn't get mymessage across and that doesn't
(18:04):
put me in a position wherethey're not going to respect me.
Because I'm a polished eloquentpublic speaker, I all too often
accidentally drop the F-bomb inmeetings that I probably
shouldn't.
But I'm real and that'simportant to me.
(18:25):
I'm approachable, I'm real.
Anybody in my company, from thejanitor up to my director of
operations, has the sameopportunity to walk in my office
, talk to me about personalproblems, business problems,
concerns, just bullshit.
I got guys walk in my officeall the time and just want to
(18:47):
talk, talk knives, talk guns,talk cars.
Whatever I stop what I'm doingand I talk to them, my goal is
to not be above them, notbelittle them.
I joke at these.
Somebody once told me thatmachinists are the most
undereducated intelligent peopleyou'll ever meet and I thought
(19:09):
that that was a kind of a.
I didn't really like thatanalogy because the assumption
that they're uneducated Right,you know.
And I corrected them.
I said you know what?
What does education have to dowith any of it?
I've got people on my team withmasters.
I've got engineers, I've gotand I've got people that didn't
(19:31):
graduate high school mattershere, because I can't split
fractions of a thousandth of aninch like these machinists on
the shop floor can in their head.
So the eloquent words andthrowing around your master's
degree or throwing around yourIvy League education, none of
(19:52):
that.
We check all of that at thedoor at my shop.
Ryan Nelson (19:58):
You got to speak to your audience, you got to know
your audience and you've got tospeak to your audience
Absolutely.
So you talked about how thatfirst year that you were there,
50% turnover in your staff, noone was fired but you had a lot
of people leave because youraised the bar.
Man, it's one thing to moveinto an organization and raise
(20:23):
the bar.
What advice do you have for theguy who's running an
organization and he's createdthe dysfunction and he's
starting to recognize he's gotto raise the bar?
Fred Stipkovits (20:34):
So you can't lead by fear.
I've worked at places where Iwalked in every day wondering if
I was going to lose my job.
You can't lead by fear.
You can't manage by fear thebar.
You know.
I had shop supervisors thatweren't the best shop
(20:56):
supervisors.
That's now one of my topperformers that has he's my
senior estimator and the guy isphenomenal.
Um, he was under a lot ofstress on the shop floor.
He wasn't given the tools heneeded to to properly lead the
shop.
That resulted in in in um, whatI didn't like, what you know,
(21:17):
and he.
You have to look at theirstrengths If you need to raise
the bar.
I think raising the bar againstarts at the top.
I stand in front of my peopleall the time and I tell them you
may not like everything I do.
I will always explain to youwhy my decisions.
(21:42):
There are certain corporatedecisions that obviously people
can't be privy to, the behindthe scenes things, but for the
most part, I will explain almostevery one of my decisions and I
never make a decision in avacuum.
Every one of my leadership,everybody on my leadership team,
even folks on the shop floor,have the opportunity for input
(22:03):
on decisions that are going tobe impactful to the company.
Raising the bar isn't aboutyour ideas and what you think
the bar, where you think the barshould be.
I think raising the bar shouldbe looked at as what's best for
your team and your company, andthey're not always aligned, so
(22:24):
you have to find that middleground where it's the right
thing for the company but it'salso either communicated or laid
out or structured in a sensethat is the right thing for the
people that you're leading aswell.
Ryan Nelson (22:41):
Well, and that Jim Collins principle that you kind
of alluded to getting the rightthing for the people that you're
leading as well.
Well, in that Jim Collinsprinciple that you kind of
alluded to getting the rightpeople in the right seats on the
bus and you have shared in thepast that you had some guys that
weren't thriving, but you movedthem to the estimator role or
you moved them away from asupervisor role to a technician
role and all of a sudden theyare absolutely crushing it again
, because you brought alignmentwith who they were instead of
(23:04):
what you were asking of themwithin the organization.
So listening to what will getthem out of bed in the morning.
You're able to get a lot moreresults if you're aligning with
what they value.
Fred Stipkovits (23:17):
Yeah, the ones that are still here, that were
here when I got here.
There's a good you know 20, 30,30%.
Yeah, the ones that are stillhere that were here when I got
here.
There's a.
There's a good you know 20, 30,30 of the people that are still
here here.
They are all in different orelevated roles than when I got
here.
They're they're they're leadinglarger groups, larger.
(23:39):
They've been promoted tosupervisors.
They've been put in roles thathave been that they're thriving
in and have been extremelybeneficial to the company and
their knowledge.
And they're still here for areason they're my heavy hitters.
Ryan Nelson (23:56):
Yep, yep, hey, one more line of questioning and
then we'll do what I call therapid feed round and we'll wrap
things up here shortly.
But here's what I want to knowwhat's your structure of your
organization in terms of there'syour perhaps C-suite, and then
you have managers, thensupervisors, then techs, or is
there another layer in theresomewhere?
Fred Stipkovits (24:18):
So I've restructured that.
When I got here there weredirectors and then managers and
then supervisors.
I eliminated that kind of thatdirector role up until recently,
whenever I recognized that mylevel of expertise in
operational efficiencies I, I,just I, I was tapped out.
(24:44):
I didn't have the bandwidth andI also didn't have the level of
expertise that I, that I neededon that team to to serve the
company well.
So I brought on a director ofoperations.
Ryan Nelson (24:55):
So they come from within, or did you bring them?
Fred Stipkovits (24:58):
from?
No, we brought him from fromoutside.
Uh, we talked with a couplefrom within.
Or did you bring them fromoutside?
No, we brought him from outside, we talked with a couple from
within.
That you know.
I approached.
That said you know, hey, youneed somebody higher powered
than me.
So I have myself, I have adirector of operations.
Under that director ofoperations is my quality manager
and production manager.
And then I have a customer andoperation support manager that
(25:22):
reports direct to me, that'sover a customer support,
purchasing, estimating,engineering, kind of planning
and engineering.
My controller and financialstaff report direct to me and it
reports direct to me.
So it's it's really mostlymanagers.
And then I have a shopsupervisor, a warehouse
(25:46):
supervisor, and then I have aprogram manager supervisor.
So I have five managers, threesupervisors.
So me, one director, fivemanagers and then three
supervisors.
Ryan Nelson (26:01):
We're a company of 55.
Okay, so communication is aconstant problem in
manufacturing.
So many emails get sent with noresponses.
You don't know if anyone readit or not, or whatever.
What are some keys that youfigured out in communication to
create efficiency through yourorganization?
Or is that just a constantrefinement process?
Fred Stipkovits (26:22):
You know, I think it's a constant.
It's always going to beconstant refinement.
We have multiple layers of.
We have, you know, teamsmeetings, teams, groups where
we've got quality team, and allthese different groups, chat
groups that are kind of don'tneed to be meetings, don't need
to be emails.
You know, internally I'm a fan.
(26:46):
In my opinion, I'm a fan.
Email is a form ofdocumentation, not communication
.
Opinion, I'm a fan.
Email is a form ofdocumentation, not communication
.
And so we regularly havemanagement meetings or shop
meetings, or I have one-on-onemeetings that we discuss things,
we talk, we take notes and thena lot of times it's followed up
by hey, just to recap ourconversation, it was this is
(27:06):
what's going to happen.
This is what's going to happen,this is the executable option.
Ryan Nelson (27:09):
So you document what was said yeah, but you're
always going to happen.
This is what's going to happen.
This is the executable option,so you document what was said.
Fred Stipkovits (27:12):
Yeah, but you're always going to have.
There's so many moving pieces.
I mean, I think right now wehave upwards of 1,200 open jobs
that are rolling through theshop right now, and so, between
purchasing and estimating andthe program managers and sales
and engineering and all of that,there's always going to be a
(27:33):
missed something.
Yep.
Ryan Nelson (27:39):
So you've got to give yourself some grace and
understand there's a lot ofmoving parts and you've got to
keep moving, figure out how tomove forward.
Fred Stipkovits (27:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
But you know, we've got apretty robust ERP system.
We've got a pretty robust ERPsystem.
We've got a pretty robust comms.
I think for the most part we dofairly well on comms.
Ryan Nelson (28:00):
That's great, that's great, all right, rapid
feed round.
Fred Stipkovits (28:03):
You ready for this?
Ryan Nelson (28:03):
Let's do it All right, just first reactions of
these.
You're a little bit at adisadvantage because we haven't
released the first podcast yet,so you've never heard any of
these questions.
So here's the first question.
If you could go to a Chiefsgame with any famous person, who
would you want to go hang outwith?
Fred Stipkovits (28:21):
Man, that's a tough one.
I'm not a real starstruckperson, sure.
Ryan Nelson (28:26):
And it doesn't have to be famous to everyone.
Maybe it's just important toyou to be famous to everyone.
Maybe it's just important toyou.
Fred Stipkovits (28:32):
Yeah, you know, to me going to a sporting event
isn't necessarily about thesporting event, because you miss
so much of it when you're inthe stands compared to what's on
TV.
So I look for the experience.
Christmas Day last year I tookmy at the time six-year-old to
the Chiefs Raiders game.
So you know, I'm going to gowith my little boy because he's
(28:57):
a diehard fan and it's a memoryand an experience that he just
soaks up.
Ryan Nelson (29:05):
That's a great answer.
Love it.
All right For those earlymornings in the shop.
What's your energy drink ofchoice?
Are you a coffee guy?
A energy drink, caffeine ofsome kind?
Fred Stipkovits (29:15):
I'm a straight up black coffee until 10.30 am.
I will down coffee until 10.30.
10.30 is my switch over and Iswitch over to water and I drink
water the rest of the day,unless I have some event after
work, where then I partake insome adult beverages.
Ryan Nelson (29:31):
Gotcha All right.
What's the greatest threat tomanufacturing right now?
Fred Stipkovits (29:42):
Understanding the cost-benefit analysis to
keeping it onshore.
You want a penny pinch and youwant to take it offshore.
You're going to get what youpay for.
It's always going to be able tobe done cheaper, but the
quality is going to suck.
That's why I'm an advocate andpreach so heavily at the NTMA
meetings about the benefit ofsharing of work.
Sharing amongst shops withinour community, so that we can
(30:04):
not only keep it onshore butkeep it within the Kansas City
network.
Ryan Nelson (30:09):
Yep.
And so by community you'reliterally saying Kansas City
region, not necessarily themanufacturing community.
Fred Stipkovits (30:15):
Yeah, if somebody doesn't have the
capabilities here, we'll branchout, but at the end of the day,
let's keep it close to home.
Ryan Nelson (30:23):
Love it.
What's one tool you couldn'tlive without in your leadership
role?
And by tool, it's just a skillset that you have role and by
tool.
Fred Stipkovits (30:36):
It's just a skill set that you have, man,
one tool I couldn't live without.
You know, this is gonna be it.
This is gonna be a off off theI think this is gonna be out in
left fieldand-left-field one I'mgoing to have to say, without a
doubt, my support network athome.
(30:57):
That's awesome.
I could not dedicate the timeor effort or any of that to what
I'm trying to do here and buildhere and take care of people
here and do what I try to do forour community without my wife
(31:17):
carrying substantial load withthe kids at home.
Ryan Nelson (31:22):
Yeah, man, I love that.
I really respect that, and Ithink more people need to
understand that their work lifehas a direct reflection on their
home life and their home lifehas a direct reflection on their
work life.
If either of those is out ofwhack and miserable, it's going
to show up in the other place mywife never gets on me about.
Fred Stipkovits (31:40):
She knows that.
You know I'm entrenched in allof these different organizations
and it's purposeful.
Everything I do is strategicand purposeful and she is behind
me all the time.
Ryan Nelson (31:58):
A similar question what's one skill if you could
master instantly?
You wish you could master foryour organization's benefit?
Fred Stipkovits (32:13):
um, you know, I could master for my
organization's benefits.
Uh, you know, I mean, honestly,if I could, if I could master a
skill and I had the time, umtime I would.
(32:39):
Again, I wasn't hired to be one, but I would really love to be
able to go out there on a shopfloor and run a machine, and
that's a skill that I don't have.
That, I think, would bring awhole different perspective and
I probably if I could walk outthere and they'd show me
anything.
But that's a skill that I don'thave, that I think I would love
to have.
(32:59):
That, I think, would bring awhole different perspective and
understanding Cool man.
Ryan Nelson (33:06):
Well, last question for you, and this is for your
benefit here what's a questionyou wish I would have asked that
we didn't get to today?
If there is one, what'ssomething you'd like to talk to
our community about?
Fred Stipkovits (33:25):
uh, I don't know, man, we covered a lot of
good stuff, right?
I think this was such a diversepodcast where we covered so
many different good things talkabout is again, I think, the
(33:55):
same.
Some of the threats that peoplehave are our sales techniques,
our, our customer portfolio andour employee retention.
Every everybody in thisindustry wants more work, wants
to retain people and hire better, better people.
I'm not saying the way that Ido it is right, it works for me,
uh, but I think if more peoplewould open up to what they do
and how they do things, we couldall learn from them and figure
(34:16):
out how to do things better andwe could all grow and become
stronger together.
But I don't know that there wasa question in particular that
you asked or didn't ask thatthat I felt should be.
I probably will come to me knowlater on and go the night
(34:36):
exactly right.
Ryan Nelson (34:37):
Um, hey, if people want to get in touch with you I
know you're super active onlinkedin.
Where can people learn moreabout you, your company and that
type of yeah, definitelylinkedin.
Fred Stipkovits (34:46):
I'm all over linkedin.
I try to support and supportand support my people and my
company on LinkedIn, ultra TechAerospace.
My last name doesn't get mixedup in the fold.
I'm not a Smith or a Jones, soyou can Google Fred Stepkiewicz.
You'll probably find my fatheron the East Coast and me, but
(35:09):
I'm the one with hair and notmuch of it anymore.
But yeah, you can always reachout at fstipkiewicz, at uterocom
email call.
I'm always happy to meet andhave a coffee and learn and make
(35:29):
a new contact and figure outhow we can we can grow together.
Ryan Nelson (35:34):
All right, man.
Hey, it has been an absolutepleasure.
Thanks for investing in thisconversation.
Fred Stipkovits (35:38):
I appreciate being the maiden voyage here too
, right, and I think this isgoing to be great and I look
forward to hearing more of yourpodcasts.
Ryan Nelson (35:50):
I have no doubt that that was worth your time,
and Fred just dropped some greatinsights into leadership and I
hope you just took them in.
I hope you are not onlythinking about them, but you are
applying them in your workcontext.
Thank you, fred, for being apart of this.
If you are listening on Spotifyor some of the other podcast
(36:15):
apps, would you please subscribeand would you rate us with a
five-star rating?
That helps us get moreattention, as you know.
And if you're watching onYouTube, please take a minute
just to leave a comment.
Share something that Fred shared, that you appreciated,
something that's challenging youor encouraging you.
Just take some time to expressyour appreciation to Fred for
his contribution.
I would love for that.
Keep growing in your leadership.
(36:37):
In our next podcast that we'regoing to drop, we're going to
have Brandon Herring from ZephyrProducts, and Brandon is going
to share some unique insightsfrom his perspective as a part
of a sales team in amanufacturing company.
So keep your eyes open for that.
Until next time, keep doingyour thing.
Keep growing as a leader.
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