With coffee fueling the shop floor, can it also fuel the future of manufacturing?
This week, Matt Kirchner is joined by ShopFloor Coffee Co-Founder Mike Franz as they explore the intersection of coffee, manufacturing, and workforce development. What started as a side project quickly became a nationwide movement to support technical education and career awareness in manufacturing—all through a product that shop workers already know and love.
From the early morning rituals of manufacturing professionals to the power of branding that truly speaks to the industry, Mike shares how ShopFloor Coffee is brewing up more than just bold blends. With 20% of proceeds going directly to workforce initiatives, this isn’t just about coffee—it’s about investing in the next generation of makers and doers.
Listen to learn:
- Why coffee is more than just a drink—it’s part of manufacturing culture
- How ShopFloor Coffee’s fundraising model outperforms traditional school fundraisers by putting more money back into technical education programs
- The branding strategy behind blends like “Red Shop Towel” and “First Shift” that instantly resonate with manufacturers
- Why Metallica is making a surprising impact on the future of technical education and workforce development (hint: it’s not just about the music)
- The surprising number of robotics teams in one U.S. state (hint: it beats high school hockey!)
3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:
1. Coffee culture runs deep in manufacturing.
Early mornings, long shifts, and breakroom conversations—coffee has always fueled the shop floor. That’s why ShopFloor Coffee uses it as a bridge to workforce development, helping manufacturers invest in the next generation while enjoying a better cup of coffee.
2. Workforce development has an awareness problem.
Despite countless initiatives, many students and employers don’t know about the programs designed to connect them. ShopFloor Coffee is directing funding to organizations like FIRST Robotics, FAME, and Metallica's All Within My Hands foundation to help close this gap—giving educators new opportunities to introduce students to careers in manufacturing.
3. Branding matters—speak the language of your audience.
When manufacturers hear Red Shop Towel or First Shift, they immediately recognize something familiar. ShopFloor Coffee’s approach proves that technical education programs can better engage students by framing opportunities in ways that resonate—whether that’s through pop culture, industry traditions, or hands-on experiences.
Resources in this Episode:To learn more about ShopFloor Coffee, visit:
Remember, 20% of all proceeds go toward workforce development!
Connect with ShopFloor Coffee Online:
LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
We want to hear from you! Send us a text.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Kirchner (00:00):
Matt, welcome into The TechEd Podcast. It is
(00:11):
Matt Kirchner. We are going totalk today about one of the
absolute most important rawmaterials in all of
manufacturing. That's right. Weare going to talk about coffee.
Coffee has a huge place, anddrinking coffee has a huge part
in the culture of manufacturing,starting the day early, enjoying
that cup of coffee, spendingtime in the break room. Coffee
(00:34):
is ubiquitous and fundamental inmany ways to manufacturing it.
So it was that I spent some timeat IMTS, and I walked by a booth
and it said shop floor coffee.
And I was like, I have to learnmore about shop floor coffee.
Today we are going to do that.
Mike Franz is the co founder andChief Innovation Officer of shop
(00:55):
floor coffee. Now I have to tellyou, this is a company that is
not just, quote, selling coffeeto manufacturers. This is a
company that has an incrediblyhuge mission attached to their
work, and that mission is to doeverything they can to help
educators, particularlytechnical educators, STEM
(01:17):
Educators, to deliver theabsolute best in STEM and
technical education to theirstudents, sharing a huge amount
of their benefits and proceedswith educators across America,
we're going to learn all aboutthat great mission and how
they're doing it through the useof coffee with Mike France.
Mike, it is such a pleasure tohave you joining us here on The
TechEd Podcast, and thank youfor taking the time to be with
(01:40):
us today.
Mike Franz (01:41):
Matt, couldn't be happier to join you today. Thank
you for the opportunity.
Matt Kirchner (01:44):
Looking forward to our conversation about shop
floor coffees. I mean, the firstquestion is the obvious
question, what is it? How did itcome about? Get us started.
Mike Franz (01:53):
Well, taking you back about a year and a half
ago, almost two years ago, andI'll keep it brief, there's a
consulting firm up here thatputs on an event every year
called the state ofmanufacturing. I've been going
to that for 15 years. Everyyear, it's virtually the same
thing where manufacturers cometogether and they talk about
(02:14):
issues that they're dealing withon a yearly basis. And every
year it's almost the same thing,broken record style, where
workforce development andfinding good folks for your shop
is ours in the top three issuesthat arise. So Amy and I kind of
looked at each other while wewere there and said, What in the
(02:36):
heck can we do about this? Wehear about the same thing every
year, over and over, and I'vebeen toying around with some
ideas about just doing a sideproject of a Coffee Company, a
drop ship Coffee Company, andthen as soon as we started
talking about the idea, it kindof clicked. And here we are,
shop floor coffee it started outas a drop ship Coffee Company,
(02:59):
and now it's grown to a pointwhere we're selling nationally
to help support workforcedevelopment. We actually give
20% of our proceeds back toworkforce development programs
here, locally, but nationally aswell. That's the gist of it. We
make great coffee and we giveback money to a great cause.
Matt Kirchner (03:17):
Yeah, I love that. Let's talk about the
culture of coffee in the worldof manufacturing. Now I'm going
to start with a number, and thatnumber is 508, and if people
don't know what that number is,and nobody probably does, that
was the time that my alarm wentoff every morning that I was in
manufacturing, and that wasassuming the phone didn't ring
at like, four in the morningbecause there was some kind of
(03:38):
problem going on at the plant orwhat have you. But you know,
manufacturing is an earlymorning business for a lot of
folks. A lot of people don'trecognize that. You know, you
have a first start. Typicallyfor first shift, I should say,
starts at 7am you know, seven tothree is a typical first shift
in manufacturing. But thatdoesn't mean that people are
showing up at work at seven.
That means that production forfirst shift is starting at
seven. That means that we've gotsupervisors and planners and
(04:00):
quality people and businessleaders that are in that shop,
usually by six o'clock at thelatest. So that was my morning.
My alarm would go off at 508, Iwould get up. My plant for a lot
of years was about 18 minutesfrom my house. I get up, I take
my quick shower, I put myclothes on, and I'd head off to
the manufacturing plant andspend, you know, a lot of long
days in manufacturing, super,super rewarding days in
(04:22):
manufacturing. But, you know,you roll into a manufacturing
plant at 830 in the morning, andthe day is kind of a third over.
It's an early morning business.
Talk about the relationshipbetween manufacturing and
coffee. I
Mike Franz (04:37):
mean, you kind of described it there, and
everybody needs kind of a boostright away in the morning. I
mean, I see you sipping onsomething there, and I'm indeed
assuming there's coffee inthere.
Matt Kirchner (04:47):
Yeah, that's actually, it's a Sumatra, by the
way, I just ran it on the Keurigbehind us. But next time around,
I promise it'll be shot beforecoffee. Go ahead. Thank
Mike Franz (04:54):
you. I'm gonna hold you to that. Okay. Anyway, the
relationship is there. I mean,I'm surprised you. Said that you
have an alarm. So I've beengetting up at 430 in the morning
without an alarm because I'vebeen so excited about the
business for a couple years now.
But yeah, awesome. Therelationship is there, Matt. I
mean, everybody knows you getup. We actually want to not to
plug it here. But hey, we'rehere. One of our coffees is
actually called first shift. Asyou can see, we tried to make a
(05:17):
little bit of a play on words tothat was relatable to shop
environment. So, I mean, therelationship is definitely
there. You get up, you wantsomething to wake you up. A lot
of people live for that morningcoffee, or couldn't get started
without it. And like you said,it's an early morning business.
You know, you're there at eighto'clock, you're you've missed
(05:37):
half the day. So and even atbreak time, it's a way to bond
with your fellow employees.
You're sitting by break room,you're having a cup of coffee,
you're talking about life, andthat's one of the things that
we're really focused on, too, isnot only getting the jump start
on the day, but also maybeproviding a little bit better
(05:58):
cup that's normally served in ashop environment, right? And
something to bond over, build abetter relationship with two
teammates, and really helpsupport that employee
satisfaction and making it morefamily environment, those types
of things. So we know that,especially in small, mid sized
shops, there's a lot of thatfamily atmosphere that's trying
(06:19):
to be brought into it, right?
Nothing helps a little bit morethan a nice cup of coffee to
have a chat about. No
Matt Kirchner (06:25):
doubt about it, coffee's come a long way. I
remember in my early days ofmanufacturing, having the, you
know, the big coffee machine,right, where you'd press all the
buttons and remember the cupwith the poker, the cup poker,
right? So you'd have a, you'dhave a card on the bottom, and
then you kind of figure out whowon the poker game at the coffee
table, but, but you're right,that whole gathering around
break time, so the bell goesoff, everybody steps up into the
(06:47):
break room. And it really is. Imean, that's a lot of time your
opportunity to engage with yourfriends, to maybe do the
crossword puzzle, to have a chatabout the football game that was
played the day before, what haveyou. I mean, everybody's doing
that in manufacturing around acup of coffee. You really, I
mean, you deserve a lot ofcredit for finding your way into
this, you know, this particularrelationship between
(07:07):
manufacturing your coffee andhaving just an incredible
tagline like strap floor coffee.
The one that grabbed my eye atIMTS is, you're gathering. I am
a coffee guy. I just, I love mycoffee. I love good coffee. I
can tell the difference between,you know, a great cup of coffee,
and what I call Lutheran churchbasement coffee, which is kind
of like that, that water down,yeah, brown water. There is a
difference in coffee, and nodoubt it's all about quality.
(07:29):
Talk a little bit about how
Mike Franz (07:31):
the production works. We are partnered with a
local roaster that the headroaster for that roastery had,
and was the lead roaster atcaribou for 25 years, and he
branched off with others tostart a company that was more
focused on mission driven coffeebrands like ourselves, they saw
(07:52):
the value in starting a companythat really gives an opportunity
to People who care about stuffin general, and want to use
coffee as the gateway to getinto the industries and to
support different causes. Sothey've been a huge help, a huge
asset to us, as far as helpingus navigate exactly the
(08:15):
processes and the business ofcoffee. It's like any other
business. It's like any othermanufacturing business that I've
been involved with over the past20 years, there's logistics,
there's getting materials in,there's the machinery, there's
maintenance, there's operations,there's all the different things
that go into that that are verysimilar to any other
manufacturing operations. Butyeah, we partnered up with them.
(08:38):
They have and are growing. We'renot the only ones that they help
support, but they know what theheck they're doing and make a
great cup of coffee, absolutely.
Matt Kirchner (08:46):
So they're doing all the roasting they're doing.
You're on the marketing, theawareness, the that side of
things. And obviously, you knowyou're responsible for
producing, or at least providinga really, really quality
product, but you manage tocreate a model where you're
leaning on somebody else to dothe to the to the actual
production of the coffee. That'sand that's a great model, and I
think it's a good lesson,actually, for our listeners,
that when we think about supplychain, and a lot of times,
(09:08):
people think that companies aremanaging their entire supply
chain, from sourcing rawmaterials and doing the R D to
delivering the product to thecustomer, and slicing out a
typical area of the supply chainwhere we can be the absolute
best in the world at theparticular area. That's a
really, really good but businessmodel is, we have a lot of
students that listen to thispodcast as they're thinking
about being young entrepreneursand understanding how they could
(09:30):
be successful in the world ofbusiness as certainly you have
been slicing out a specific areaof that supply chain can be
really, really important. Theother part that can be really
important is the whole brandingside of things. And I know
that's been really important toyou. Really important to you.
You already mentioned firstshift as being one of the blends
that you offer. I know there'ssome other ones, like red shop
towel. And for anybody that'sworked in manufacturing, that
(09:51):
immediately resonates. I knowexactly what you're talking
about there time and a halfwithout a doubt. So let's talk a
little bit about how these namescame about and what you're
hearing from. From peopleworking in manufacturing is you
create really, really relatablebranding for them.
Mike Franz (10:05):
Yeah, it's been it was just a quick story. So when
Amy and I came back from theevent that I mentioned earlier,
where the evolution of the ideastarted to take shape. One of
the most fun portions ofthinking about the business was
(10:26):
coming up the list of names thatwere relatable to manufacturing,
right? And there's some that youcan use correct, there's some
that you might want to stay awayfrom. But we had a blast coming
up with the names, and we had alist of about 130 names that we
came up with had to narrow itdown. That's one thing, Matt. We
wanted to make it relatable. Andthe people that we've shared the
(10:49):
names with, or have found ushowever they've come across it,
have all been very positiveabout the names. And, you know,
everybody comes up with theirown ideas and says, oh, you
should have named one this. Soyou should name one that we're
like, Okay, well, consider it.
Thank you, right? Yep, exactly.
I'll take that under advisement.
Just such great ideas, but it'sbeen a really fun. Portion of
how we've put this thingtogether is getting the feedback
(11:12):
from people are out in thefield, but the names definitely
resonate. Awesome,
Matt Kirchner (11:19):
super, super relatable. You know, red shop
towel. I mean, everybody in amanufacturing plant, just for
the folks that don't knowexactly what that is, you've
got, I don't even have them.
Know how big they are. They'reprobably somewhere like 10
inches by 10 inches. They'rethese little red shop towels
that you use for everything,right, for wiping down
equipment, for cleaning offproduction parts, for cleaning
up the coffee that you spill. Imean, that's, that's, they are
ubiquitous, and then they go ina bin, and a company will show
(11:41):
up and take them off and launderthose and bring them back. And
so that's somebody outside ofmanufacturing would be like,
What even is that? But, butinside of the world of
manufacturing, it's obvious thatexactly what that is. One
Mike Franz (11:53):
quick story about that, Matt too, is that so prior
to IMTS, we were ready to, youknow, that was kind of the the
unveiling of, yeah, you know,the brand, and being in a very
heavily manufacturing, populatedspot at the trade show was, was
a good thing, yeah? So Iactually took, my aunt helped me
(12:15):
out. It was a pretty big familyaffair for us to be at IMTS.
Amy's mom and brother helped usout the booth. And we're my aunt
actually made I took an oldsport coat, and she used red
shop towels to kind of dopatchwork over the top of it,
and turned it into a red shoptowel sport coat that I wore
around. And the compliments Igot on that at IMTS, I mean,
(12:36):
there's five or 10 people thatcame up and said, I want to
order one of those immediately.
I went to my aunt, and she's 90years old, and I said, you got
enough energy to whip out 10more of these things? And she
said, Nope, no chance. This onetook long enough, so I have a
one off version. Maybe we'llauction that off someday. Who
knows? Or what we
Matt Kirchner (12:56):
should do is find a textile company that's willing
to make 100 of those and thensell them for a bazillion
dollars. Let's
Mike Franz (13:02):
talk afterwards.
I've got some ideas around thattoo. Okay, absolutely,
absolutely perfect
Matt Kirchner (13:06):
story. You've mentioned Amy's name a couple
times. Tell us a little bit moreabout who she is and how you got
connected.
Mike Franz (13:10):
So Amy to it's no secret now, but her and I are
together, so we're a couple, andwe started this as a couple as
well, but she has a greatmanufacturing history as well.
So she worked for stratas I'msure you being up here, and
yeah, all over the country. Nostratasy 3d printing company,
you bet 3d printing companyadded in manufacturing. And
yeah, she's been in around thatfor many years. And so it was
(13:33):
just kind of a natural fit.
That's her background. The bestthing about our partnership in
this is she is so good at theorganizational and getting
things done, aspect of thebusiness where I'm more of the
loose cannon. She comes to ideasand Hey, we should try this. We
should try that type of thing,the kind of the EOS model, where
(13:56):
I'm the outside the box thinker,type person and the innovator,
and she's the one who gets stuffdone, so we both try to do our
best when it comes to gettingstuff done. But she's definitely
Matt Kirchner (14:09):
right. No, I know, and I don't I know the
feeling Melissa Martin, ourproducer, is smiling because she
knows that my wife and Iactually worked together in
several businesses as well, andwhen we did the personality
profiles a number of years ago,the person that was doing that
work said, Oh, I understand howthis relationship works. Matt
goes through life making a mess,and Renee cleans it up. And
that's I mean, so it sounds alittle bit reminiscent of the
(14:31):
relationship that you and Amyhave as well. So so glad to hear
that that is as successful asthe company is. That's terrific.
Let's talk about companysuccess, and then how you're
sharing the benefits of thatsuccess. Now, you mentioned
earlier in the podcast thatyou're taking 20% of proceeds
and putting that towardworkforce development. So talk
about that. You know, how areyou making an impact on the
manufacturing economy and themanufacturing community? And why
(14:53):
is this mission so important toyou? Well,
Mike Franz (14:56):
the mission is so important because there's a
critical need for. For people,people to do jobs in
manufacturing. I'll start withkind of that portion of it. But
the one thing over the course ofthe last year and a half since
we've been doing this, is thatI've noticed across the country
and talking with so manymanufacturers. I mean, Matt, you
(15:17):
talk to a million people, youknow, the same thing. But the
biggest challenge that I see,and I've tried to really narrow
this down so that we can talksmarter about it, is that when
it comes to workforcedevelopment, there's a huge
awareness problem, and there'sso many people that are trying
(15:38):
to do good things and bringawareness to the industry, but
it's very challenging, and it'skind of discombobulated, and
there's so many very segmented,very segmented, and people are
trying to do great stuff.
There's not like a centralizedthis is how we're going to get
young kids interested in it.
This is how we're going toupskill people through certain
programs. These are, these arejust like awareness issues
(16:01):
anyway, that's one issue thatwe're consistently hearing and
finding, and to that point is,over the course of 2024 one of
our main goals was to work withand kind of our go to market
strategy with donations and Thedistribution of those funds was
to initially, we thought itwould be a great idea to start
(16:24):
out with, working with AMT goingto IMTS, starting at the high
level national companies andorganizations to gain more
awareness, because manufacturersknow of those organizations,
right? Okay, then our goal overthe next few years is to really
push down that awareness down tomore the local level and the
(16:46):
state level, and be able todonate funds to where it's
really impacting, the small tomid sized manufacturing
companies. So we're starting todo that. So last year we were
working with the bigorganizations. There was five
that we particularly workedwith, and this year, we've
readjusted that to work withorganizations and associations
(17:07):
that we saw were pushing thatdown to the local and state
level. And as an example thatthis is a little bit of the cool
factor that I like about this isthat we we started working with
metallic is all within my hands,foundation as one of our
partners, and we saw real impactthey were making they worked
with as of yesterday, when Ichecked, there was 60 schools
(17:30):
across the country. So there's60 schools that they've
partnered up with and aredonating to those schools two
year and technical schools thatare making an impact in the
manufacturing industry. That'sone other organizations. We're
working with women inmanufacturing. We're working
with the Manufacturing Instituteand their fame program. We're
also very excited about workingwith robotics teams at the state
(17:52):
level. So first and the Vexprograms two, that's really
where I'm super excited aboutthe other ones are great also,
but getting the kids involved issomething that's really becoming
more of a passion. Get them on atour, get them to a facility,
show them that, hey, you know,there's robots in these shops.
(18:14):
There's so many cool things thathappen in these shops. And
getting them excited about that,maybe that'll click something in
their brain that says, hey, Ican choose this career path, and
that's what it's all about forus.
Matt Kirchner (18:26):
And we're huge fans of that our listeners know
as well, of Vex and FIRSTRobotics, and in fact, separate
from The TechEd Podcast, wesupport financially and doing
judging and those types ofthings, a number of those
programs across the Midwest andaround the United States. Super,
valuable. And I think, to yourpoint, it lights that spark,
right? It gets students excitedabout that technology. Mike
(18:46):
Chico, who's the president, CEOof FANUC America, I think, is
the all time leading scorer, aswe say, on appearances on The
TechEd Podcast at four. And Mikewill tell you his team will tell
you, Paul Aiello and others thatthese students get excited about
robotics and automation throughfirst robotics programs and vex
programs. And Vex programs, andthen they graduate into the
kinds of robots they're going tosee, whether that's a fan of
(19:07):
robot or somebody else's, youknow, industrial or
collaborative robot inmanufacturing. Really, really
important way to get youngpeople excited. So I'm glad that
you said that. And big fan ofthe work that the Metallica is
doing. We've actually gotschools in Southeast Wisconsin,
Gateway Technical College beingone of them that's been a huge
beneficiary of that program, inan open invitation, by the way,
to James Hadfield, to come onand talk about that anytime he
(19:28):
wants. And the let's see what wecan do. Yeah, exactly the
connection between rock and rolland metal and manufacturing is
there as well. So never knowwhere that goes. But really,
like the way that you'rethinking about, how do we get
directly to the students, in alot of ways, how do we get
directly to the people that wecan benefit the most? What
criteria do you look for, andwill you be looking for going
forward, in terms of the kindsof organizations that you
(19:50):
support?
Mike Franz (19:50):
That's a great question. And Matt, quite
honestly, we're figuring thatout. 2025 is going to be
significant for us from agrowth. Standpoint. So we're
going to really take a look atwhere the donation dollars are
really making the most impact.
So we can use, I guess, morethan just gut feeling Sure,
(20:11):
which we've kind of used to thispoint, yep, because not only do
we like the programs, but wealso love the people that are
involved with these programs andthe passion that they bring to
it, and that's really importantto us. And right now, I mean,
between Amy and I, we just havethe ability to kind of pick and
choose who we're working with,which is great. Who knows, maybe
(20:33):
someday when we're at theStarbucks level, things will
change a little bit, but we gota little ways to go before that
happens. But yeah, I mean, we'refortunate enough that we're when
we've reached out toorganizations, they tend to like
the model. It's a little bitunique in the fact that we're
(20:53):
very focused on manufacturingand the community. Those are two
things that we have going forus. Like I said, we've just been
fortunate to be able to kind ofpick and choose who we've worked
with
Matt Kirchner (21:06):
well. And I love it when somebody finds a
business that kind of creates aflywheel where it's just like
this circle, right? So we alllike to run businesses that are
financially successful. There'sbenefits to that. There's
nothing wrong with that. Youknow, capitalism, free
enterprise and the free marketis a key part of what drives
manufacturing and what drivestheir standard of living here in
the United States of America,and no apologies for that
whatsoever, right? But when youcan find a business that is also
(21:28):
doing incredibly good workbenefiting students, and then
you think about the reasonyou're able to do that is
because you're really solvingfor a problem in manufacturing
and then using a product thatmanufacturers use all the time,
which is coffee, to our earlierpoints, and you just kind of
create this circle of, okay,people in manufacturing are
going to drink coffee, they'regoing to buy coffee. Somebody's
(21:50):
going to have to make that andsell it and deliver it. And
that's you. And, oh, by the way,the biggest challenge in
manufacturing, and you'vementioned this a couple times,
is finding a quality workforceand finding the next generation
of workforce and manufacturing.
I sit on the board of directorsof the Wisconsin manufacturers
and commerce, which is our Ilive in Wisconsin, statewide
Chamber of Commerce and ourstatewide Manufacturing
(22:11):
Association, so just had a boardmeeting this week where our CEO,
Kurt Bauer, was presenting theresults of a survey that his
organization did of theWisconsin business landscape,
63% of employers in my homestate of Wisconsin. And this is
ubiquitous and pretty much thesame thing you'll see all over
the country, 63% so almost twothirds of them said their number
(22:32):
one problem was finding people,finding great people, and that's
actually down a little bit fromwhat it was a year or so ago,
but it's still two thirds ofcompanies, that's their biggest
problem. So here you come andsay, Look, you're already buying
this product. We make an amazingproduct. You're gonna love it
every bit as much, if not more,than what you're buying
someplace else, but we're gonnatake a significant part of the
proceeds from the business thatyou're doing with us and
(22:54):
reinvest it right back into thecommunity. I love that message.
I love that business model. It'sbrilliant. I've got to believe
that manufacturers think it'sbrilliant as well. As you go out
to manufacturing companies,whether it's a CEO, whether it's
a supervisor, a VP ofOperations, the people who
actually do the work, as I say,the people out on the floor that
are working in the factories andplants across America, building
(23:15):
the products that we're usingall over the globe. What are you
hearing from those folks aboutyour business model and
Mike Franz (23:22):
the work that you're doing, the idea, the concept,
the model that we have, this isgoing to sound maybe a little
bit cocky or whatever, buteverybody loves it, just for
example. And you mentioned asignificant amount of the
proceeds go towards it. Onething that we found with doing
the fundraising for the therobotics teams and the Lego
(23:43):
League teams, is that thepercentage that we're giving
back is significantly higherthan other fundraising
opportunities. So, you know,kids would go out and sell
pizzas and bags of popcorn andthat kind of thing, right? And
they get X amount from that togo back. But what we do is we,
we wanted to do it kind oftwofold, is that we give a
portion back to the actualteams, but then we remain
(24:08):
consistent and give anadditional portion back to the
actual first program, so thatthey both benefit from that. But
that's just one example. Butyeah. I mean, what we hear from
just about everybody is, Hey, welove that model. That's so
great, and partnerships havebeen such a big portion of the
model. My background is I workedfor Kimberly Clark for years,
(24:31):
and there was we sold throughdistribution, and I saw the
multiplier effect that could bedone with that through a sales
team in a sales organization,when you bring in distribution
to it. So we wanted to bringthat model to it, we've
partnered up with two, almostthree soon, hopefully knock on
some wood, okay, of the biggestdistributors across the country,
and that really allows us to getinto those facilities and have
(24:54):
to give them a real opportunityto provide a unique product
model, opportunity. Tomanufacturers across the
country. So I hope that answeredyour question there.
Matt Kirchner (25:03):
Yeah, no, for sure. So I mean, it sounds like
the feedback we're getting frommanufacturing is that we love
the model. What betteropportunity to give back to
whether it's an employee at amanufacturing company or
somebody drinking coffee athome, having a quality product?
It's such a key part of theAmerican of Americana and of our
culture here, I can seetremendous value from that
standpoint. And frankly, theseare the kinds of things where
(25:25):
manufacturers can be, in someways, putting their money where
their mouth is. And we talk alot about the importance of
manufacturing companiessupporting their local technical
education programs, supportingtheir local STEM programs, being
involved with their regionaltechnical or community colleges.
These are the people who areresponsible for creating the
next generation of themanufacturing workforce. And
(25:46):
this is just another way formanufacturing companies and for
any of us to reinvest in thefuture manufacturing making sure
that we have a free flow ofreally good talent into
manufacturing in the ensuingyear is really important
something
Mike Franz (25:58):
to that point. Matt is that and I talked about
awareness before, but a littleknown fact, and this always
surprises people here inMinnesota, that there are 200
plus robotics teams in the stateof Minnesota, and that's more
than Boys High School hockeyteams in the state of Minnesota,
(26:19):
which, if anybody knows aboutMinnesota, right? The state of
hockey, which is crazy to me. Sothere's, there's a shift in a
popularity that's growing andgrowing. It's a groundswell of
those types of programs that arecoming up. And there's also back
to manufacturers, is thatthey're not necessarily aware of
(26:39):
that and of the opportunitiesthat they have to maybe make an
impact on a kid's life, to helpthem maybe develop an idea
around being a manufacturersomeday. So, yeah, those are,
those are cool things. Awesome
Matt Kirchner (26:52):
statistic. I'm going to use that right. There
are more first robotics teams inthe state of Minnesota than
there are high school hockeyteams in the state of Minnesota,
Mike Franz (26:59):
and Boys High School hockey teams, okay? Because
women's hockey is gainingimmense popularity as well. So,
Matt Kirchner (27:05):
yeah, absolutely, it's a great statistic, and it
really just shows how this isgrowing. And to your point,
manufacturers have this awesomeopportunity to be engaged with
their local school districts andwith their educators in ways
that a lot of them aren't. A lotof them are, but a lot of them
aren't. And I get it right. Imean, I ran manufacturing
companies, and I'm worried aboutthe line going down. I'm worried
about getting my orders to mycustomers. I'm worried about
(27:27):
that corrective action requestthat came from the customer last
week that I have to get on, orsomebody's sick, or I have to
hire a new supervisor. The listgoes on and on and on.
Manufacturing folks have a tonto worry about. The partnerships
with education, important, noturgent. In other words, you
really have to have thatdiscipline and make it a point
to reach out and engage and in alot of ways, you're creating
(27:48):
that bridge between themanufacturers and the students.
Speaking of those students, Iasked you, what you're hearing
from manufacturers? What are youhearing from the students that
are benefiting from the workyou're
Mike Franz (27:58):
doing? One thing that is definitely interesting.
We mentioned the all within myhands metallics, all within my
hands Foundation. We were at anevent at the end of last year,
at end of 2024 where they had acouple students come up and talk
about the impact that it's beenhaving. The funding. Now,
there's multiple companies andorganizations that donate to
(28:19):
that foundation, so we're notthe only ones, but as a part of
it, hearing their reactions andsaying, there's steel toe boots
that are required to be part ofthis program, there's PPE,
there's training materials andthings that kids wouldn't
otherwise be able to afford toget into these or to be involved
with these programs, and to hearthem say that I didn't
(28:45):
necessarily have a path thatwas, you know, the standard path
for me to go get into a fouryear school. I didn't really
like school. It wasn't for me. Ican't concentrate all the things
that you hear. And then to metoo, Yeah, same. And to hear
them get up in front of a crowdof 150 people and say, I love
(29:06):
this, and this is now the pathI'm taking in life. And I don't
come out of college with$200,000 in debt. I have a job
that's great, and I can't waitto it's waiting for me as soon
as I graduate. Those are thetypes of things that are just
unbelievable. So hearing thatkind of stuff that's more vague
and just kind of out there, butthat's cool. One of the things
(29:28):
that when, like you mentionedthe first program, but there's
a, there's a manufacturer justup in Monticello, which is just
up the road from where I live,went up there, and they
Matt Kirchner (29:38):
hope you can plug the name if you want. Do you
want to say who? UMC, soawesome. UMC,
Mike Franz (29:43):
they have an unbelievable facility. They have
an unbelievable team that hascreated an environment and
culture that's top notch, andthey host and provide almost
like a practice facility for therobotics teams to come and
practice, which is a huge.
Challenge for these teams to do.
They don't have an arena, theydon't have a football stadium,
(30:06):
they don't have an ice arenathat they can practice at. So
anyway, UMC helps out with that.
When you see the students thatare involved with that program
and see the level of passionthat they have for it, it's very
gratifying. It's reallygratifying. It's like, there's
hope,
Matt Kirchner (30:27):
absolutely, there's hope for, I mean, that's
just to see one of the more,more interesting school board
meetings that I attended, and weget to our share of them, given
the kinds of work that we do,there was a student that got up
and it was, they were trying tofigure out how to how to spend
some budget dollars. And thestudent got up, and it was a
student who is super, superinvolved in STEM and first and
(30:48):
so on, first robotics. And theirline was this. They're like,
look, we built this hugefootball field for the football
team and the soccer team to playat. We have this amazing field
house for the basketball team toplay in. We have this awesome
aquatic center that we spent allthis money on for the swim teams
to practice in, the diving teamto practice in. And the student
(31:10):
was like, that's all great, buthe said his line was, what about
us? Yeah, you know, what aboutthis huge sea of kids that are
in in secondary education, inhigh schools and maybe, you
know, formal athletics isn'ttheir team. They're like, could
we invest some money in FIRSTRobotics, and could we invest
some money in our space as well?
I just thought that was areally, really telling moment. I
love sharing that story. I alsohave to tell you, we brought up
(31:33):
Metallica a few times now onthis episode of the podcast,
somewhere in your future, therehas to be some coffee tied to
fade to black, right? So, Imean, it's like some dark roast
coffee. Listen to you. Yeah,exactly. So we gotta, that's
just an idea. I'm a fan of allof all kinds of music, actually,
as our listeners know. So it'severything from y'all listen to
(31:53):
the newest hip hop, the classicold 1950s rock and roll and
everything in between. That's,that's kind of how I'm wired.
You'll be
Mike Franz (32:00):
jealous of this a little bit. So they hosted, in
the middle of December, theMetallica hosted a concert for
all within my hands. Yeah, itwas in LA, but it was at a very
small venue. I mean, there wasprobably 3000 people, three 5000
people in there. Sweet, and wesat 30 rows up, and we're very
close. So Sammy Hagar and otherwhat's his name, Michael and
(32:21):
Michael, Anthony from Van Halen,yep, and a couple other guys did
some old Van Halen stuff andsome Sammy Hagar stuff. Love it
opened up for him. And thenMetallica came on. They played
an acoustic set, and this wasthe funny part. So they played
an acoustic set after Sammy andVan Halen ish, right. Yep. Just
jammed out. Yeah, Metallicacomes on and plays this acoustic
(32:46):
set where it was phenomenal,yeah, but it wasn't quite energy
level. It kind of brought it waydown, and it was like, Oh, is
this what they're gonna do kindof thing? Yeah, then they took a
small break and they did somefoundation stuff, and then they
came back, Matt and justabsolutely rocked our socks off.
(33:06):
It was unbelievable. Yeah, itwas so cool, very, very cool.
Just a super impactful musicnight. But then also raised a
ton of money, and it was justfun. And now, you know, I don't
know if you saw it or not, butthey just gave half a million
dollars to the people in andaround LA that lost their homes
to fire. So just, I have a lotof respect for not only their
(33:26):
music, but for what they do. Soit's pretty cool.
Matt Kirchner (33:29):
That's a great story, and I am jealous that
would have been an incrediblevenue, by the way. This is my
second Van Halen conversationthis week. We were talking about
Eddie Van Halen the other day.
Yeah, obviously passed away. Iwould guess two or three years
ago, I could
Mike Franz (33:41):
talk about Eddie Van Halen for a long time. Yeah.
Another real quick funny thingabout that show is near and dear
friend of yours. I believe TonyNeary, yeah. So Tony, we kind of
knew that we were going to bethere, and we ended up running
into her and her husband outsideof the show. And then it turns
out we sat randomly had ourseats directly next to them in
(34:02):
the actual show. So it's greatcoincidence. Just small world
stuff. Yeah, absolutely
Matt Kirchner (34:06):
doing some great, great work with SMS, with Tony
at a grand opening for forFANUC, not too long ago. So,
yeah, all kinds of roads kind oflead back to the same center.
So, so now I have the challengeof segway from heavy metal into
you being a guinea pig forsomething. There's no good way
for us to segue. So love it. Ourlisteners know our last
question, or we'll get to thatone in a couple questions. Our
(34:28):
last question every week is, isto ask somebody what advice they
would have for their 15 year oldself. People literally hang on
to the end of the podcast justto hear that, because we've
gotten so many great, greatstories, and in response to so
many of our listeners, saying,Hey, we love all the content. We
love all the conversations, butthat standard question you ask
every time, we'd love to hearmore of that kind of discussion
(34:49):
as well. So we're experimentingwith a few more of those kind of
standard questions and buildingthat standard content. And just
because of the timing of thisepisode, recording it early in.
The year after we finish some ofour strategic planning for 25
you get to be one of the firstto hear these questions and to
give us your thoughts. And sowe're going to segue into that
Mike and give you an opportunityto share some thoughts with us.
(35:10):
And that first one that we'recurious about. So many of us had
an interesting educationjourney. I did. I was not a good
classroom learner. There'sprobably not an episode that
goes by that I don't mentionthat I, you know, I was, I would
love the interactive stuff. Ilove the hands on stuff. I hated
sitting in a classroom andlistening to a lecture. And not
everybody's like that. Somepeople, you know, some people
learn that way, and that's andthat's awesome. It was just
(35:31):
never for me. But first questionon these kind of, this new venue
of questions for The TechEdPodcast, what's one belief that
you have about education thatwould surprise other people.
Mike Franz (35:43):
I was trying to look at what's next and what's
gaining steam as far from Imean, this is The TechEd
Podcast. There's a lot of techthat is happening, no doubt.
Right now, we're in anunbelievable time period of tech
that's either been released, oris coming out, and there's
things on the horizon that arejust unbelievable. I think
(36:05):
that's going to be a gamechanger as far as how the
education system is going toevolve, and how kids are going
to learn, and what that new normis going to look like. Totally
I'm super excited about it. It'sso different of how I grew up.
You know, you go to school andyou're expected to do X, Y and Z
(36:26):
and like you, Matt, I sucked atschool. So one of my best
friends, okay, won't mention hisname, but he owns a
manufacturing facility, beenvery successful. Yeah, we always
joke about who is lower in ourclass ranking. As far as when we
graduated high school. I tell
Matt Kirchner (36:44):
people, I was in the half of the class that made
the top half possible,
Mike Franz (36:48):
good way to look at it, and we were definitely there
too. It just wasn't the way thatwe learned the best and right
hands on, like you said, handson, and doing things and use
doing it that way, and havingideas that are outside the box
and thinking of different waysto approach things. I just
didn't necessarily it was likesquare peg, round hole thing. We
(37:10):
turned out, okay, I guess,right, yeah, yeah, we'll let
others be the judge. But yeah,right. The other thing is that
that's one of the awarenessthings that I keep going back to
it. But the awareness portion isthat now, moving forward,
there's going to be so manyother options for parents to
talk to their kids about, yep,that are going to be impactful
(37:32):
for the kids to feel morecomfortable in their own skin
and be able to run around andtry different things, and that's
going to be more acceptable,absolutely.
Matt Kirchner (37:39):
And you know, it's, it's amazing to me, and
maybe it's just the space we'rein, or the kind of conversations
we have, how many people youknow join us on the podcast and
have that same story that I havein, that you had, which is just,
what were we doing? I mean, youknow, sitting in those
classrooms for all those yearswith somebody lecturing from a
chalkboard and I mean, that'snot what life is about, hands
on, interactive learning. And Iagree with you 100% that we've
(38:02):
got we've got some reallyexciting times ahead of us here
as we look to the future ofeducation, more hands on
interactive learning going to bea really, really exciting time.
Can I
Mike Franz (38:11):
turn that question to you? Because we sure? How
would you answer that question?
I'm
Matt Kirchner (38:15):
a believer that the traditional education model,
whether or not it was right forthe 1950s when we started making
the kinds of classrooms that wehave now. And we've had a lot of
guests on the podcast say, youknow, you look at the typical
American classroom, and itdoesn't look a whole lot
different than it did 50 yearsago. I toured my grade school a
few years back when they wereactually tearing it down and
(38:36):
building a new school,fortunately, but they brought a
bunch of the alumni back andsaid, Hey, take one last look at
the grade. So I hadn't been inmy school, in my grade school in
probably 40 years, and had anopportunity to go back and check
it out. It was a really, reallycool experience, I bet, but I
had this moment where I waslike, oh my goodness, my fifth
grade classroom hasn't changedsince I was in fifth grade, and
that was 40 years ago. Theyhadn't changed anything. So I'm
(38:58):
just a huge believer that thattraditional style of education,
thank goodness, is going to goaway and we are going to have
way more self paced learning. Weare going to have way more
opportunities for students toexplore different types of
Applied Learning in areas thatinterest them. Right? I can
learn the Cartesian coordinatesystem by looking at a bunch of
2d pictures in a textbook, andif that's the way somebody
(39:20):
learns, awesome. I can also goprogram a six axis industrial
robot, or I can go program a CNCmachine. Learn the same kind of
things in a really, reallyapplied way that's going to
resonate so that, to me is, youknow, you asked me a question
that, quite honestly, I couldspend two hours answering,
because we've got a lot ofthoughts around this, but, but
just looking at some of thethings that are happening in and
around high schools that arecreating self based learning
(39:41):
around emerging technologieslike artificial intelligence,
like machine learning, and doingit in a way that isn't just
programming, coding and tryingto understand algorithms and
generative AI, but like, super,super interactive. I mean, those
are the kinds of things that arethe future of education, in my
opinion, super, super excitingtimes. So you're really excited
for the future. Also, I've. Tworeally quick questions for you
(40:01):
related to the past, taking youback again to your education
journey. Mike, every one of us,I believe, has a specific
teacher. And in fact, I tellpeople, everybody can pick three
that changed their life in someways, right? You can look back
on your education journey,whatever it was, whether you,
you know, went direct toworkforce, out of high school,
whether you went on to TechnicalCommunity College, University,
(40:21):
whatever you can pick threeteachers, instructors,
professors that had a huge, hugeinfluence on your life. What is
one thing you learned from aspecific teacher that nobody
else might have learned from
Mike Franz (40:32):
them? Oh, boy. Okay, so as soon as you asked that
question, there was, there's onelady that popped into my head
immediately, fourth gradeteacher, Miss winter, possibly
forget her name, yeah, McKnight,elementary school in Wexford,
Pennsylvania, wow. Like Imentioned, I did not do very
well in school. In fourth grade,I was a nut case in the
(40:55):
classroom. Yeah, I don't know.
Couldn't sit still. I mean, Iwould, probably would have been
diagnosed with all the thingsthat they say these days, you
know, sounds familiar, yeah, so,but she, she was able to not
look at that as necessarily asuper negative. I mean, I got in
trouble and all that stuff, butshe kind of let me be me in the
(41:15):
classroom setting, which I don'tknow if that was good, bad or
whatever, but good, she atleast, kind of understood
before, like all the diagnosisof these things were out there
that was very impactful, as youcan tell. Never forget her name.
So she kind of left me, and Iwould imagine that she would
(41:38):
have been a person that kind ofconsidered my learning style.
Yep, if I were to you know, shewould have been there through
the whole educational system ofmy my time. She would have
helped guide me. Yeah,
Matt Kirchner (41:54):
absolutely so.
Hats off to Mrs. Winter. I thinkit ties directly to this whole
idea of technical education,hands on education, the future
of education, and how we'regoing to find really, really
creative ways to meet a muchbroader group of learners,
rather than just thosetraditional classroom learners,
which have their place in theworld as well. But there's a lot
of us that didn't fit into thatmold that are going to benefit
from this new way of looking atthings, thinking of ways of
(42:15):
looking at things. We want toask you again to go back and
look at your journey as a youngperson, maybe a little bit later
in fourth grade, when you wereprobably nine or 10, and maybe
turn the clock forward anotherfive or six years to you're a
sophomore, you're a highschooler, you're a young, 15
year old. Mike Franz probablyweren't thinking at that time
(42:36):
that sometimes, at some point,you'd be, you'd be a coffee
mogul. But here you are, ormaybe you were, I don't know,
but if you could give one, onepiece of advice to that young
man looking back on your life,Mike, what would that be?
Mike Franz (42:48):
There's so many things, Matt, that you could
tell a 15 year old firstversion, don't do this. Don't do
that. Don't get in trouble here.
Don't Do you know one
Matt Kirchner (42:57):
of our guests one time said, Don't go out with
Beth from senior year highschool.
Mike Franz (43:06):
Now, find something that you're passionate about.
There's a couple lessons that mydad has told me from day one
that I never it took me a whileto comprehend it, but it's older
people. The older I get, thesmarter, you know, my dad gets,
yeah, right,
Matt Kirchner (43:21):
exactly. It's amazing how much they learned in
those years between when you'rein but
Mike Franz (43:26):
he always says there's a couple things, getting
there five minutes early is fiveminutes late, so always be
earlier than five minutes
Matt Kirchner (43:33):
somebody. Time for us in Wisconsin. Go on.
Mike Franz (43:37):
Do what you say you're gonna do. Okay? I always
stick to that. I mean, these aregeneral things, but it's good
stuff. Financially speaking,always pay yourself, pay
yourself and don't forget tosave some money. Those are
things that have been stuck withme for a long time, but it took,
you know, if I was 15 and tooksome money and invested in
Google, that would have beenvery nice.
Matt Kirchner (43:58):
Yeah, absolutely.
Or even Nvidia three years agowould have been not such a bad
idea, but Hindsight is 2020.
Your father's a wise man. That'ssome great advice, and really
appreciate you sharing that withus here, Mike, appreciate you
being with us on the podcast. Wecould go into any one of those
three pieces of advice, I think,for probably a good 10 or 15
minutes. But sadly, we'regetting toward the end of our
time together. It's been awonderful time together. I
(44:21):
learned so much. Love what youguys are doing at shop floor
coffee. Love the conversationswe had about education as well.
Worked in a little bit of musicand Metallica too. So any
conversation that can revolvearound those three things,
that's a good day. In my book.
Mike Franz, the co founder andChief Innovation Officer at shop
floor coffee, has been my guesthere on The TechEd Podcast. Want
to thank Mike for being with us.
(44:41):
It's been a wonderful time.
Thank our audience for joiningus as well. Be sure to check out
those show notes. They will beat TechEd podcast.com/friends
that's TechEd podcast.com/f R,A, N, Z. You know, we're all
over social, so check us out onsocial media and say hello and
don't miss next week's episode.
Episode as well every singleweek here on The TechEd Podcast,
(45:03):
bringing you the absolute bestcontent in technical education
and in STEM. Thank you for beingwith us, and we will see you
next week. You.
Matt, welcome into The TechEd Podcast. It is
(00:11):
Matt Kirchner. We are going totalk today about one of the
absolute most important rawmaterials in all of
manufacturing. That's right. Weare going to talk about coffee.
Coffee has a huge place, anddrinking coffee has a huge part
in the culture of manufacturing,starting the day early, enjoying
that cup of coffee, spendingtime in the break room. Coffee
(00:34):
is ubiquitous and fundamental inmany ways to manufacturing it.
So it was that I spent some timeat IMTS, and I walked by a booth
and it said shop floor coffee.
And I was like, I have to learnmore about shop floor coffee.
Today we are going to do that.
Mike Franz is the co founder andChief Innovation Officer of shop
(00:55):
floor coffee. Now I have to tellyou, this is a company that is
not just, quote, selling coffeeto manufacturers. This is a
company that has an incrediblyhuge mission attached to their
work, and that mission is to doeverything they can to help
educators, particularlytechnical educators, STEM
(01:17):
Educators, to deliver theabsolute best in STEM and
technical education to theirstudents, sharing a huge amount
of their benefits and proceedswith educators across America,
we're going to learn all aboutthat great mission and how
they're doing it through the useof coffee with Mike France.
Mike, it is such a pleasure tohave you joining us here on The
TechEd Podcast, and thank youfor taking the time to be with
(01:40):
us today.
Mike Franz (01:41):
Matt, couldn't be happier to join you today. Thank
you for the opportunity.
Matt Kirchner (01:44):
Looking forward to our conversation about shop
floor coffees. I mean, the firstquestion is the obvious
question, what is it? How did itcome about? Get us started.
Mike Franz (01:53):
Well, taking you back about a year and a half
ago, almost two years ago, andI'll keep it brief, there's a
consulting firm up here thatputs on an event every year
called the state ofmanufacturing. I've been going
to that for 15 years. Everyyear, it's virtually the same
thing where manufacturers cometogether and they talk about
(02:14):
issues that they're dealing withon a yearly basis. And every
year it's almost the same thing,broken record style, where
workforce development andfinding good folks for your shop
is ours in the top three issuesthat arise. So Amy and I kind of
looked at each other while wewere there and said, What in the
(02:36):
heck can we do about this? Wehear about the same thing every
year, over and over, and I'vebeen toying around with some
ideas about just doing a sideproject of a Coffee Company, a
drop ship Coffee Company, andthen as soon as we started
talking about the idea, it kindof clicked. And here we are,
shop floor coffee it started outas a drop ship Coffee Company,
(02:59):
and now it's grown to a pointwhere we're selling nationally
to help support workforcedevelopment. We actually give
20% of our proceeds back toworkforce development programs
here, locally, but nationally aswell. That's the gist of it. We
make great coffee and we giveback money to a great cause.
Matt Kirchner (03:17):
Yeah, I love that. Let's talk about the
culture of coffee in the worldof manufacturing. Now I'm going
to start with a number, and thatnumber is 508, and if people
don't know what that number is,and nobody probably does, that
was the time that my alarm wentoff every morning that I was in
manufacturing, and that wasassuming the phone didn't ring
at like, four in the morningbecause there was some kind of
(03:38):
problem going on at the plant orwhat have you. But you know,
manufacturing is an earlymorning business for a lot of
folks. A lot of people don'trecognize that. You know, you
have a first start. Typicallyfor first shift, I should say,
starts at 7am you know, seven tothree is a typical first shift
in manufacturing. But thatdoesn't mean that people are
showing up at work at seven.
That means that production forfirst shift is starting at
seven. That means that we've gotsupervisors and planners and
(04:00):
quality people and businessleaders that are in that shop,
usually by six o'clock at thelatest. So that was my morning.
My alarm would go off at 508, Iwould get up. My plant for a lot
of years was about 18 minutesfrom my house. I get up, I take
my quick shower, I put myclothes on, and I'd head off to
the manufacturing plant andspend, you know, a lot of long
days in manufacturing, super,super rewarding days in
(04:22):
manufacturing. But, you know,you roll into a manufacturing
plant at 830 in the morning, andthe day is kind of a third over.
It's an early morning business.
Talk about the relationshipbetween manufacturing and
coffee. I
Mike Franz (04:37):
mean, you kind of described it there, and
everybody needs kind of a boostright away in the morning. I
mean, I see you sipping onsomething there, and I'm indeed
assuming there's coffee inthere.
Matt Kirchner (04:47):
Yeah, that's actually, it's a Sumatra, by the
way, I just ran it on the Keurigbehind us. But next time around,
I promise it'll be shot beforecoffee. Go ahead. Thank
Mike Franz (04:54):
you. I'm gonna hold you to that. Okay. Anyway, the
relationship is there. I mean,I'm surprised you. Said that you
have an alarm. So I've beengetting up at 430 in the morning
without an alarm because I'vebeen so excited about the
business for a couple years now.
But yeah, awesome. Therelationship is there, Matt. I
mean, everybody knows you getup. We actually want to not to
plug it here. But hey, we'rehere. One of our coffees is
actually called first shift. Asyou can see, we tried to make a
(05:17):
little bit of a play on words tothat was relatable to shop
environment. So, I mean, therelationship is definitely
there. You get up, you wantsomething to wake you up. A lot
of people live for that morningcoffee, or couldn't get started
without it. And like you said,it's an early morning business.
You know, you're there at eighto'clock, you're you've missed
(05:37):
half the day. So and even atbreak time, it's a way to bond
with your fellow employees.
You're sitting by break room,you're having a cup of coffee,
you're talking about life, andthat's one of the things that
we're really focused on, too, isnot only getting the jump start
on the day, but also maybeproviding a little bit better
(05:58):
cup that's normally served in ashop environment, right? And
something to bond over, build abetter relationship with two
teammates, and really helpsupport that employee
satisfaction and making it morefamily environment, those types
of things. So we know that,especially in small, mid sized
shops, there's a lot of thatfamily atmosphere that's trying
(06:19):
to be brought into it, right?
Nothing helps a little bit morethan a nice cup of coffee to
have a chat about. No
Matt Kirchner (06:25):
doubt about it, coffee's come a long way. I
remember in my early days ofmanufacturing, having the, you
know, the big coffee machine,right, where you'd press all the
buttons and remember the cupwith the poker, the cup poker,
right? So you'd have a, you'dhave a card on the bottom, and
then you kind of figure out whowon the poker game at the coffee
table, but, but you're right,that whole gathering around
break time, so the bell goesoff, everybody steps up into the
(06:47):
break room. And it really is. Imean, that's a lot of time your
opportunity to engage with yourfriends, to maybe do the
crossword puzzle, to have a chatabout the football game that was
played the day before, what haveyou. I mean, everybody's doing
that in manufacturing around acup of coffee. You really, I
mean, you deserve a lot ofcredit for finding your way into
this, you know, this particularrelationship between
(07:07):
manufacturing your coffee andhaving just an incredible
tagline like strap floor coffee.
The one that grabbed my eye atIMTS is, you're gathering. I am
a coffee guy. I just, I love mycoffee. I love good coffee. I
can tell the difference between,you know, a great cup of coffee,
and what I call Lutheran churchbasement coffee, which is kind
of like that, that water down,yeah, brown water. There is a
difference in coffee, and nodoubt it's all about quality.
(07:29):
Talk a little bit about how
Mike Franz (07:31):
the production works. We are partnered with a
local roaster that the headroaster for that roastery had,
and was the lead roaster atcaribou for 25 years, and he
branched off with others tostart a company that was more
focused on mission driven coffeebrands like ourselves, they saw
(07:52):
the value in starting a companythat really gives an opportunity
to People who care about stuffin general, and want to use
coffee as the gateway to getinto the industries and to
support different causes. Sothey've been a huge help, a huge
asset to us, as far as helpingus navigate exactly the
(08:15):
processes and the business ofcoffee. It's like any other
business. It's like any othermanufacturing business that I've
been involved with over the past20 years, there's logistics,
there's getting materials in,there's the machinery, there's
maintenance, there's operations,there's all the different things
that go into that that are verysimilar to any other
manufacturing operations. Butyeah, we partnered up with them.
(08:38):
They have and are growing. We'renot the only ones that they help
support, but they know what theheck they're doing and make a
great cup of coffee, absolutely.
Matt Kirchner (08:46):
So they're doing all the roasting they're doing.
You're on the marketing, theawareness, the that side of
things. And obviously, you knowyou're responsible for
producing, or at least providinga really, really quality
product, but you manage tocreate a model where you're
leaning on somebody else to dothe to the to the actual
production of the coffee. That'sand that's a great model, and I
think it's a good lesson,actually, for our listeners,
that when we think about supplychain, and a lot of times,
(09:08):
people think that companies aremanaging their entire supply
chain, from sourcing rawmaterials and doing the R D to
delivering the product to thecustomer, and slicing out a
typical area of the supply chainwhere we can be the absolute
best in the world at theparticular area. That's a
really, really good but businessmodel is, we have a lot of
students that listen to thispodcast as they're thinking
about being young entrepreneursand understanding how they could
(09:30):
be successful in the world ofbusiness as certainly you have
been slicing out a specific areaof that supply chain can be
really, really important. Theother part that can be really
important is the whole brandingside of things. And I know
that's been really important toyou. Really important to you.
You already mentioned firstshift as being one of the blends
that you offer. I know there'ssome other ones, like red shop
towel. And for anybody that'sworked in manufacturing, that
(09:51):
immediately resonates. I knowexactly what you're talking
about there time and a halfwithout a doubt. So let's talk a
little bit about how these namescame about and what you're
hearing from. From peopleworking in manufacturing is you
create really, really relatablebranding for them.
Mike Franz (10:05):
Yeah, it's been it was just a quick story. So when
Amy and I came back from theevent that I mentioned earlier,
where the evolution of the ideastarted to take shape. One of
the most fun portions ofthinking about the business was
(10:26):
coming up the list of names thatwere relatable to manufacturing,
right? And there's some that youcan use correct, there's some
that you might want to stay awayfrom. But we had a blast coming
up with the names, and we had alist of about 130 names that we
came up with had to narrow itdown. That's one thing, Matt. We
wanted to make it relatable. Andthe people that we've shared the
(10:49):
names with, or have found ushowever they've come across it,
have all been very positiveabout the names. And, you know,
everybody comes up with theirown ideas and says, oh, you
should have named one this. Soyou should name one that we're
like, Okay, well, consider it.
Thank you, right? Yep, exactly.
I'll take that under advisement.
Just such great ideas, but it'sbeen a really fun. Portion of
how we've put this thingtogether is getting the feedback
(11:12):
from people are out in thefield, but the names definitely
resonate. Awesome,
Matt Kirchner (11:19):
super, super relatable. You know, red shop
towel. I mean, everybody in amanufacturing plant, just for
the folks that don't knowexactly what that is, you've
got, I don't even have them.
Know how big they are. They'reprobably somewhere like 10
inches by 10 inches. They'rethese little red shop towels
that you use for everything,right, for wiping down
equipment, for cleaning offproduction parts, for cleaning
up the coffee that you spill. Imean, that's, that's, they are
ubiquitous, and then they go ina bin, and a company will show
(11:41):
up and take them off and launderthose and bring them back. And
so that's somebody outside ofmanufacturing would be like,
What even is that? But, butinside of the world of
manufacturing, it's obvious thatexactly what that is. One
Mike Franz (11:53):
quick story about that, Matt too, is that so prior
to IMTS, we were ready to, youknow, that was kind of the the
unveiling of, yeah, you know,the brand, and being in a very
heavily manufacturing, populatedspot at the trade show was, was
a good thing, yeah? So Iactually took, my aunt helped me
(12:15):
out. It was a pretty big familyaffair for us to be at IMTS.
Amy's mom and brother helped usout the booth. And we're my aunt
actually made I took an oldsport coat, and she used red
shop towels to kind of dopatchwork over the top of it,
and turned it into a red shoptowel sport coat that I wore
around. And the compliments Igot on that at IMTS, I mean,
(12:36):
there's five or 10 people thatcame up and said, I want to
order one of those immediately.
I went to my aunt, and she's 90years old, and I said, you got
enough energy to whip out 10more of these things? And she
said, Nope, no chance. This onetook long enough, so I have a
one off version. Maybe we'llauction that off someday. Who
knows? Or what we
Matt Kirchner (12:56):
should do is find a textile company that's willing
to make 100 of those and thensell them for a bazillion
dollars. Let's
Mike Franz (13:02):
talk afterwards.
I've got some ideas around thattoo. Okay, absolutely,
absolutely perfect
Matt Kirchner (13:06):
story. You've mentioned Amy's name a couple
times. Tell us a little bit moreabout who she is and how you got
connected.
Mike Franz (13:10):
So Amy to it's no secret now, but her and I are
together, so we're a couple, andwe started this as a couple as
well, but she has a greatmanufacturing history as well.
So she worked for stratas I'msure you being up here, and
yeah, all over the country. Nostratasy 3d printing company,
you bet 3d printing companyadded in manufacturing. And
yeah, she's been in around thatfor many years. And so it was
(13:33):
just kind of a natural fit.
That's her background. The bestthing about our partnership in
this is she is so good at theorganizational and getting
things done, aspect of thebusiness where I'm more of the
loose cannon. She comes to ideasand Hey, we should try this. We
should try that type of thing,the kind of the EOS model, where
(13:56):
I'm the outside the box thinker,type person and the innovator,
and she's the one who gets stuffdone, so we both try to do our
best when it comes to gettingstuff done. But she's definitely
Matt Kirchner (14:09):
right. No, I know, and I don't I know the
feeling Melissa Martin, ourproducer, is smiling because she
knows that my wife and Iactually worked together in
several businesses as well, andwhen we did the personality
profiles a number of years ago,the person that was doing that
work said, Oh, I understand howthis relationship works. Matt
goes through life making a mess,and Renee cleans it up. And
that's I mean, so it sounds alittle bit reminiscent of the
(14:31):
relationship that you and Amyhave as well. So so glad to hear
that that is as successful asthe company is. That's terrific.
Let's talk about companysuccess, and then how you're
sharing the benefits of thatsuccess. Now, you mentioned
earlier in the podcast thatyou're taking 20% of proceeds
and putting that towardworkforce development. So talk
about that. You know, how areyou making an impact on the
manufacturing economy and themanufacturing community? And why
(14:53):
is this mission so important toyou? Well,
Mike Franz (14:56):
the mission is so important because there's a
critical need for. For people,people to do jobs in
manufacturing. I'll start withkind of that portion of it. But
the one thing over the course ofthe last year and a half since
we've been doing this, is thatI've noticed across the country
and talking with so manymanufacturers. I mean, Matt, you
(15:17):
talk to a million people, youknow, the same thing. But the
biggest challenge that I see,and I've tried to really narrow
this down so that we can talksmarter about it, is that when
it comes to workforcedevelopment, there's a huge
awareness problem, and there'sso many people that are trying
(15:38):
to do good things and bringawareness to the industry, but
it's very challenging, and it'skind of discombobulated, and
there's so many very segmented,very segmented, and people are
trying to do great stuff.
There's not like a centralizedthis is how we're going to get
young kids interested in it.
This is how we're going toupskill people through certain
programs. These are, these arejust like awareness issues
(16:01):
anyway, that's one issue thatwe're consistently hearing and
finding, and to that point is,over the course of 2024 one of
our main goals was to work withand kind of our go to market
strategy with donations and Thedistribution of those funds was
to initially, we thought itwould be a great idea to start
(16:24):
out with, working with AMT goingto IMTS, starting at the high
level national companies andorganizations to gain more
awareness, because manufacturersknow of those organizations,
right? Okay, then our goal overthe next few years is to really
push down that awareness down tomore the local level and the
(16:46):
state level, and be able todonate funds to where it's
really impacting, the small tomid sized manufacturing
companies. So we're starting todo that. So last year we were
working with the bigorganizations. There was five
that we particularly workedwith, and this year, we've
readjusted that to work withorganizations and associations
(17:07):
that we saw were pushing thatdown to the local and state
level. And as an example thatthis is a little bit of the cool
factor that I like about this isthat we we started working with
metallic is all within my hands,foundation as one of our
partners, and we saw real impactthey were making they worked
with as of yesterday, when Ichecked, there was 60 schools
(17:30):
across the country. So there's60 schools that they've
partnered up with and aredonating to those schools two
year and technical schools thatare making an impact in the
manufacturing industry. That'sone other organizations. We're
working with women inmanufacturing. We're working
with the Manufacturing Instituteand their fame program. We're
also very excited about workingwith robotics teams at the state
(17:52):
level. So first and the Vexprograms two, that's really
where I'm super excited aboutthe other ones are great also,
but getting the kids involved issomething that's really becoming
more of a passion. Get them on atour, get them to a facility,
show them that, hey, you know,there's robots in these shops.
(18:14):
There's so many cool things thathappen in these shops. And
getting them excited about that,maybe that'll click something in
their brain that says, hey, Ican choose this career path, and
that's what it's all about forus.
Matt Kirchner (18:26):
And we're huge fans of that our listeners know
as well, of Vex and FIRSTRobotics, and in fact, separate
from The TechEd Podcast, wesupport financially and doing
judging and those types ofthings, a number of those
programs across the Midwest andaround the United States. Super,
valuable. And I think, to yourpoint, it lights that spark,
right? It gets students excitedabout that technology. Mike
(18:46):
Chico, who's the president, CEOof FANUC America, I think, is
the all time leading scorer, aswe say, on appearances on The
TechEd Podcast at four. And Mikewill tell you his team will tell
you, Paul Aiello and others thatthese students get excited about
robotics and automation throughfirst robotics programs and vex
programs. And Vex programs, andthen they graduate into the
kinds of robots they're going tosee, whether that's a fan of
(19:07):
robot or somebody else's, youknow, industrial or
collaborative robot inmanufacturing. Really, really
important way to get youngpeople excited. So I'm glad that
you said that. And big fan ofthe work that the Metallica is
doing. We've actually gotschools in Southeast Wisconsin,
Gateway Technical College beingone of them that's been a huge
beneficiary of that program, inan open invitation, by the way,
to James Hadfield, to come onand talk about that anytime he
(19:28):
wants. And the let's see what wecan do. Yeah, exactly the
connection between rock and rolland metal and manufacturing is
there as well. So never knowwhere that goes. But really,
like the way that you'rethinking about, how do we get
directly to the students, in alot of ways, how do we get
directly to the people that wecan benefit the most? What
criteria do you look for, andwill you be looking for going
forward, in terms of the kindsof organizations that you
(19:50):
support?
Mike Franz (19:50):
That's a great question. And Matt, quite
honestly, we're figuring thatout. 2025 is going to be
significant for us from agrowth. Standpoint. So we're
going to really take a look atwhere the donation dollars are
really making the most impact.
So we can use, I guess, morethan just gut feeling Sure,
(20:11):
which we've kind of used to thispoint, yep, because not only do
we like the programs, but wealso love the people that are
involved with these programs andthe passion that they bring to
it, and that's really importantto us. And right now, I mean,
between Amy and I, we just havethe ability to kind of pick and
choose who we're working with,which is great. Who knows, maybe
(20:33):
someday when we're at theStarbucks level, things will
change a little bit, but we gota little ways to go before that
happens. But yeah, I mean, we'refortunate enough that we're when
we've reached out toorganizations, they tend to like
the model. It's a little bitunique in the fact that we're
(20:53):
very focused on manufacturingand the community. Those are two
things that we have going forus. Like I said, we've just been
fortunate to be able to kind ofpick and choose who we've worked
with
Matt Kirchner (21:06):
well. And I love it when somebody finds a
business that kind of creates aflywheel where it's just like
this circle, right? So we alllike to run businesses that are
financially successful. There'sbenefits to that. There's
nothing wrong with that. Youknow, capitalism, free
enterprise and the free marketis a key part of what drives
manufacturing and what drivestheir standard of living here in
the United States of America,and no apologies for that
whatsoever, right? But when youcan find a business that is also
(21:28):
doing incredibly good workbenefiting students, and then
you think about the reasonyou're able to do that is
because you're really solvingfor a problem in manufacturing
and then using a product thatmanufacturers use all the time,
which is coffee, to our earlierpoints, and you just kind of
create this circle of, okay,people in manufacturing are
going to drink coffee, they'regoing to buy coffee. Somebody's
(21:50):
going to have to make that andsell it and deliver it. And
that's you. And, oh, by the way,the biggest challenge in
manufacturing, and you'vementioned this a couple times,
is finding a quality workforceand finding the next generation
of workforce and manufacturing.
I sit on the board of directorsof the Wisconsin manufacturers
and commerce, which is our Ilive in Wisconsin, statewide
Chamber of Commerce and ourstatewide Manufacturing
(22:11):
Association, so just had a boardmeeting this week where our CEO,
Kurt Bauer, was presenting theresults of a survey that his
organization did of theWisconsin business landscape,
63% of employers in my homestate of Wisconsin. And this is
ubiquitous and pretty much thesame thing you'll see all over
the country, 63% so almost twothirds of them said their number
(22:32):
one problem was finding people,finding great people, and that's
actually down a little bit fromwhat it was a year or so ago,
but it's still two thirds ofcompanies, that's their biggest
problem. So here you come andsay, Look, you're already buying
this product. We make an amazingproduct. You're gonna love it
every bit as much, if not more,than what you're buying
someplace else, but we're gonnatake a significant part of the
proceeds from the business thatyou're doing with us and
(22:54):
reinvest it right back into thecommunity. I love that message.
I love that business model. It'sbrilliant. I've got to believe
that manufacturers think it'sbrilliant as well. As you go out
to manufacturing companies,whether it's a CEO, whether it's
a supervisor, a VP ofOperations, the people who
actually do the work, as I say,the people out on the floor that
are working in the factories andplants across America, building
(23:15):
the products that we're usingall over the globe. What are you
hearing from those folks aboutyour business model and
Mike Franz (23:22):
the work that you're doing, the idea, the concept,
the model that we have, this isgoing to sound maybe a little
bit cocky or whatever, buteverybody loves it, just for
example. And you mentioned asignificant amount of the
proceeds go towards it. Onething that we found with doing
the fundraising for the therobotics teams and the Lego
(23:43):
League teams, is that thepercentage that we're giving
back is significantly higherthan other fundraising
opportunities. So, you know,kids would go out and sell
pizzas and bags of popcorn andthat kind of thing, right? And
they get X amount from that togo back. But what we do is we,
we wanted to do it kind oftwofold, is that we give a
portion back to the actualteams, but then we remain
(24:08):
consistent and give anadditional portion back to the
actual first program, so thatthey both benefit from that. But
that's just one example. Butyeah. I mean, what we hear from
just about everybody is, Hey, welove that model. That's so
great, and partnerships havebeen such a big portion of the
model. My background is I workedfor Kimberly Clark for years,
(24:31):
and there was we sold throughdistribution, and I saw the
multiplier effect that could bedone with that through a sales
team in a sales organization,when you bring in distribution
to it. So we wanted to bringthat model to it, we've
partnered up with two, almostthree soon, hopefully knock on
some wood, okay, of the biggestdistributors across the country,
and that really allows us to getinto those facilities and have
(24:54):
to give them a real opportunityto provide a unique product
model, opportunity. Tomanufacturers across the
country. So I hope that answeredyour question there.
Matt Kirchner (25:03):
Yeah, no, for sure. So I mean, it sounds like
the feedback we're getting frommanufacturing is that we love
the model. What betteropportunity to give back to
whether it's an employee at amanufacturing company or
somebody drinking coffee athome, having a quality product?
It's such a key part of theAmerican of Americana and of our
culture here, I can seetremendous value from that
standpoint. And frankly, theseare the kinds of things where
(25:25):
manufacturers can be, in someways, putting their money where
their mouth is. And we talk alot about the importance of
manufacturing companiessupporting their local technical
education programs, supportingtheir local STEM programs, being
involved with their regionaltechnical or community colleges.
These are the people who areresponsible for creating the
next generation of themanufacturing workforce. And
(25:46):
this is just another way formanufacturing companies and for
any of us to reinvest in thefuture manufacturing making sure
that we have a free flow ofreally good talent into
manufacturing in the ensuingyear is really important
something
Mike Franz (25:58):
to that point. Matt is that and I talked about
awareness before, but a littleknown fact, and this always
surprises people here inMinnesota, that there are 200
plus robotics teams in the stateof Minnesota, and that's more
than Boys High School hockeyteams in the state of Minnesota,
(26:19):
which, if anybody knows aboutMinnesota, right? The state of
hockey, which is crazy to me. Sothere's, there's a shift in a
popularity that's growing andgrowing. It's a groundswell of
those types of programs that arecoming up. And there's also back
to manufacturers, is thatthey're not necessarily aware of
(26:39):
that and of the opportunitiesthat they have to maybe make an
impact on a kid's life, to helpthem maybe develop an idea
around being a manufacturersomeday. So, yeah, those are,
those are cool things. Awesome
Matt Kirchner (26:52):
statistic. I'm going to use that right. There
are more first robotics teams inthe state of Minnesota than
there are high school hockeyteams in the state of Minnesota,
Mike Franz (26:59):
and Boys High School hockey teams, okay? Because
women's hockey is gainingimmense popularity as well. So,
Matt Kirchner (27:05):
yeah, absolutely, it's a great statistic, and it
really just shows how this isgrowing. And to your point,
manufacturers have this awesomeopportunity to be engaged with
their local school districts andwith their educators in ways
that a lot of them aren't. A lotof them are, but a lot of them
aren't. And I get it right. Imean, I ran manufacturing
companies, and I'm worried aboutthe line going down. I'm worried
about getting my orders to mycustomers. I'm worried about
(27:27):
that corrective action requestthat came from the customer last
week that I have to get on, orsomebody's sick, or I have to
hire a new supervisor. The listgoes on and on and on.
Manufacturing folks have a tonto worry about. The partnerships
with education, important, noturgent. In other words, you
really have to have thatdiscipline and make it a point
to reach out and engage and in alot of ways, you're creating
(27:48):
that bridge between themanufacturers and the students.
Speaking of those students, Iasked you, what you're hearing
from manufacturers? What are youhearing from the students that
are benefiting from the workyou're
Mike Franz (27:58):
doing? One thing that is definitely interesting.
We mentioned the all within myhands metallics, all within my
hands Foundation. We were at anevent at the end of last year,
at end of 2024 where they had acouple students come up and talk
about the impact that it's beenhaving. The funding. Now,
there's multiple companies andorganizations that donate to
(28:19):
that foundation, so we're notthe only ones, but as a part of
it, hearing their reactions andsaying, there's steel toe boots
that are required to be part ofthis program, there's PPE,
there's training materials andthings that kids wouldn't
otherwise be able to afford toget into these or to be involved
with these programs, and to hearthem say that I didn't
(28:45):
necessarily have a path thatwas, you know, the standard path
for me to go get into a fouryear school. I didn't really
like school. It wasn't for me. Ican't concentrate all the things
that you hear. And then to metoo, Yeah, same. And to hear
them get up in front of a crowdof 150 people and say, I love
(29:06):
this, and this is now the pathI'm taking in life. And I don't
come out of college with$200,000 in debt. I have a job
that's great, and I can't waitto it's waiting for me as soon
as I graduate. Those are thetypes of things that are just
unbelievable. So hearing thatkind of stuff that's more vague
and just kind of out there, butthat's cool. One of the things
(29:28):
that when, like you mentionedthe first program, but there's
a, there's a manufacturer justup in Monticello, which is just
up the road from where I live,went up there, and they
Matt Kirchner (29:38):
hope you can plug the name if you want. Do you
want to say who? UMC, soawesome. UMC,
Mike Franz (29:43):
they have an unbelievable facility. They have
an unbelievable team that hascreated an environment and
culture that's top notch, andthey host and provide almost
like a practice facility for therobotics teams to come and
practice, which is a huge.
Challenge for these teams to do.
They don't have an arena, theydon't have a football stadium,
(30:06):
they don't have an ice arenathat they can practice at. So
anyway, UMC helps out with that.
When you see the students thatare involved with that program
and see the level of passionthat they have for it, it's very
gratifying. It's reallygratifying. It's like, there's
hope,
Matt Kirchner (30:27):
absolutely, there's hope for, I mean, that's
just to see one of the more,more interesting school board
meetings that I attended, and weget to our share of them, given
the kinds of work that we do,there was a student that got up
and it was, they were trying tofigure out how to how to spend
some budget dollars. And thestudent got up, and it was a
student who is super, superinvolved in STEM and first and
(30:48):
so on, first robotics. And theirline was this. They're like,
look, we built this hugefootball field for the football
team and the soccer team to playat. We have this amazing field
house for the basketball team toplay in. We have this awesome
aquatic center that we spent allthis money on for the swim teams
to practice in, the diving teamto practice in. And the student
(31:10):
was like, that's all great, buthe said his line was, what about
us? Yeah, you know, what aboutthis huge sea of kids that are
in in secondary education, inhigh schools and maybe, you
know, formal athletics isn'ttheir team. They're like, could
we invest some money in FIRSTRobotics, and could we invest
some money in our space as well?
I just thought that was areally, really telling moment. I
love sharing that story. I alsohave to tell you, we brought up
(31:33):
Metallica a few times now onthis episode of the podcast,
somewhere in your future, therehas to be some coffee tied to
fade to black, right? So, Imean, it's like some dark roast
coffee. Listen to you. Yeah,exactly. So we gotta, that's
just an idea. I'm a fan of allof all kinds of music, actually,
as our listeners know. So it'severything from y'all listen to
(31:53):
the newest hip hop, the classicold 1950s rock and roll and
everything in between. That's,that's kind of how I'm wired.
You'll be
Mike Franz (32:00):
jealous of this a little bit. So they hosted, in
the middle of December, theMetallica hosted a concert for
all within my hands. Yeah, itwas in LA, but it was at a very
small venue. I mean, there wasprobably 3000 people, three 5000
people in there. Sweet, and wesat 30 rows up, and we're very
close. So Sammy Hagar and otherwhat's his name, Michael and
(32:21):
Michael, Anthony from Van Halen,yep, and a couple other guys did
some old Van Halen stuff andsome Sammy Hagar stuff. Love it
opened up for him. And thenMetallica came on. They played
an acoustic set, and this wasthe funny part. So they played
an acoustic set after Sammy andVan Halen ish, right. Yep. Just
jammed out. Yeah, Metallicacomes on and plays this acoustic
(32:46):
set where it was phenomenal,yeah, but it wasn't quite energy
level. It kind of brought it waydown, and it was like, Oh, is
this what they're gonna do kindof thing? Yeah, then they took a
small break and they did somefoundation stuff, and then they
came back, Matt and justabsolutely rocked our socks off.
(33:06):
It was unbelievable. Yeah, itwas so cool, very, very cool.
Just a super impactful musicnight. But then also raised a
ton of money, and it was justfun. And now, you know, I don't
know if you saw it or not, butthey just gave half a million
dollars to the people in andaround LA that lost their homes
to fire. So just, I have a lotof respect for not only their
(33:26):
music, but for what they do. Soit's pretty cool.
Matt Kirchner (33:29):
That's a great story, and I am jealous that
would have been an incrediblevenue, by the way. This is my
second Van Halen conversationthis week. We were talking about
Eddie Van Halen the other day.
Yeah, obviously passed away. Iwould guess two or three years
ago, I could
Mike Franz (33:41):
talk about Eddie Van Halen for a long time. Yeah.
Another real quick funny thingabout that show is near and dear
friend of yours. I believe TonyNeary, yeah. So Tony, we kind of
knew that we were going to bethere, and we ended up running
into her and her husband outsideof the show. And then it turns
out we sat randomly had ourseats directly next to them in
(34:02):
the actual show. So it's greatcoincidence. Just small world
stuff. Yeah, absolutely
Matt Kirchner (34:06):
doing some great, great work with SMS, with Tony
at a grand opening for forFANUC, not too long ago. So,
yeah, all kinds of roads kind oflead back to the same center.
So, so now I have the challengeof segway from heavy metal into
you being a guinea pig forsomething. There's no good way
for us to segue. So love it. Ourlisteners know our last
question, or we'll get to thatone in a couple questions. Our
(34:28):
last question every week is, isto ask somebody what advice they
would have for their 15 year oldself. People literally hang on
to the end of the podcast justto hear that, because we've
gotten so many great, greatstories, and in response to so
many of our listeners, saying,Hey, we love all the content. We
love all the conversations, butthat standard question you ask
every time, we'd love to hearmore of that kind of discussion
(34:49):
as well. So we're experimentingwith a few more of those kind of
standard questions and buildingthat standard content. And just
because of the timing of thisepisode, recording it early in.
The year after we finish some ofour strategic planning for 25
you get to be one of the firstto hear these questions and to
give us your thoughts. And sowe're going to segue into that
Mike and give you an opportunityto share some thoughts with us.
(35:10):
And that first one that we'recurious about. So many of us had
an interesting educationjourney. I did. I was not a good
classroom learner. There'sprobably not an episode that
goes by that I don't mentionthat I, you know, I was, I would
love the interactive stuff. Ilove the hands on stuff. I hated
sitting in a classroom andlistening to a lecture. And not
everybody's like that. Somepeople, you know, some people
learn that way, and that's andthat's awesome. It was just
(35:31):
never for me. But first questionon these kind of, this new venue
of questions for The TechEdPodcast, what's one belief that
you have about education thatwould surprise other people.
Mike Franz (35:43):
I was trying to look at what's next and what's
gaining steam as far from Imean, this is The TechEd
Podcast. There's a lot of techthat is happening, no doubt.
Right now, we're in anunbelievable time period of tech
that's either been released, oris coming out, and there's
things on the horizon that arejust unbelievable. I think
(36:05):
that's going to be a gamechanger as far as how the
education system is going toevolve, and how kids are going
to learn, and what that new normis going to look like. Totally
I'm super excited about it. It'sso different of how I grew up.
You know, you go to school andyou're expected to do X, Y and Z
(36:26):
and like you, Matt, I sucked atschool. So one of my best
friends, okay, won't mention hisname, but he owns a
manufacturing facility, beenvery successful. Yeah, we always
joke about who is lower in ourclass ranking. As far as when we
graduated high school. I tell
Matt Kirchner (36:44):
people, I was in the half of the class that made
the top half possible,
Mike Franz (36:48):
good way to look at it, and we were definitely there
too. It just wasn't the way thatwe learned the best and right
hands on, like you said, handson, and doing things and use
doing it that way, and havingideas that are outside the box
and thinking of different waysto approach things. I just
didn't necessarily it was likesquare peg, round hole thing. We
(37:10):
turned out, okay, I guess,right, yeah, yeah, we'll let
others be the judge. But yeah,right. The other thing is that
that's one of the awarenessthings that I keep going back to
it. But the awareness portion isthat now, moving forward,
there's going to be so manyother options for parents to
talk to their kids about, yep,that are going to be impactful
(37:32):
for the kids to feel morecomfortable in their own skin
and be able to run around andtry different things, and that's
going to be more acceptable,absolutely.
Matt Kirchner (37:39):
And you know, it's, it's amazing to me, and
maybe it's just the space we'rein, or the kind of conversations
we have, how many people youknow join us on the podcast and
have that same story that I havein, that you had, which is just,
what were we doing? I mean, youknow, sitting in those
classrooms for all those yearswith somebody lecturing from a
chalkboard and I mean, that'snot what life is about, hands
on, interactive learning. And Iagree with you 100% that we've
(38:02):
got we've got some reallyexciting times ahead of us here
as we look to the future ofeducation, more hands on
interactive learning going to bea really, really exciting time.
Can I
Mike Franz (38:11):
turn that question to you? Because we sure? How
would you answer that question?
I'm
Matt Kirchner (38:15):
a believer that the traditional education model,
whether or not it was right forthe 1950s when we started making
the kinds of classrooms that wehave now. And we've had a lot of
guests on the podcast say, youknow, you look at the typical
American classroom, and itdoesn't look a whole lot
different than it did 50 yearsago. I toured my grade school a
few years back when they wereactually tearing it down and
(38:36):
building a new school,fortunately, but they brought a
bunch of the alumni back andsaid, Hey, take one last look at
the grade. So I hadn't been inmy school, in my grade school in
probably 40 years, and had anopportunity to go back and check
it out. It was a really, reallycool experience, I bet, but I
had this moment where I waslike, oh my goodness, my fifth
grade classroom hasn't changedsince I was in fifth grade, and
that was 40 years ago. Theyhadn't changed anything. So I'm
(38:58):
just a huge believer that thattraditional style of education,
thank goodness, is going to goaway and we are going to have
way more self paced learning. Weare going to have way more
opportunities for students toexplore different types of
Applied Learning in areas thatinterest them. Right? I can
learn the Cartesian coordinatesystem by looking at a bunch of
2d pictures in a textbook, andif that's the way somebody
(39:20):
learns, awesome. I can also goprogram a six axis industrial
robot, or I can go program a CNCmachine. Learn the same kind of
things in a really, reallyapplied way that's going to
resonate so that, to me is, youknow, you asked me a question
that, quite honestly, I couldspend two hours answering,
because we've got a lot ofthoughts around this, but, but
just looking at some of thethings that are happening in and
around high schools that arecreating self based learning
(39:41):
around emerging technologieslike artificial intelligence,
like machine learning, and doingit in a way that isn't just
programming, coding and tryingto understand algorithms and
generative AI, but like, super,super interactive. I mean, those
are the kinds of things that arethe future of education, in my
opinion, super, super excitingtimes. So you're really excited
for the future. Also, I've. Tworeally quick questions for you
(40:01):
related to the past, taking youback again to your education
journey. Mike, every one of us,I believe, has a specific
teacher. And in fact, I tellpeople, everybody can pick three
that changed their life in someways, right? You can look back
on your education journey,whatever it was, whether you,
you know, went direct toworkforce, out of high school,
whether you went on to TechnicalCommunity College, University,
(40:21):
whatever you can pick threeteachers, instructors,
professors that had a huge, hugeinfluence on your life. What is
one thing you learned from aspecific teacher that nobody
else might have learned from
Mike Franz (40:32):
them? Oh, boy. Okay, so as soon as you asked that
question, there was, there's onelady that popped into my head
immediately, fourth gradeteacher, Miss winter, possibly
forget her name, yeah, McKnight,elementary school in Wexford,
Pennsylvania, wow. Like Imentioned, I did not do very
well in school. In fourth grade,I was a nut case in the
(40:55):
classroom. Yeah, I don't know.
Couldn't sit still. I mean, Iwould, probably would have been
diagnosed with all the thingsthat they say these days, you
know, sounds familiar, yeah, so,but she, she was able to not
look at that as necessarily asuper negative. I mean, I got in
trouble and all that stuff, butshe kind of let me be me in the
(41:15):
classroom setting, which I don'tknow if that was good, bad or
whatever, but good, she atleast, kind of understood
before, like all the diagnosisof these things were out there
that was very impactful, as youcan tell. Never forget her name.
So she kind of left me, and Iwould imagine that she would
(41:38):
have been a person that kind ofconsidered my learning style.
Yep, if I were to you know, shewould have been there through
the whole educational system ofmy my time. She would have
helped guide me. Yeah,
Matt Kirchner (41:54):
absolutely so.
Hats off to Mrs. Winter. I thinkit ties directly to this whole
idea of technical education,hands on education, the future
of education, and how we'regoing to find really, really
creative ways to meet a muchbroader group of learners,
rather than just thosetraditional classroom learners,
which have their place in theworld as well. But there's a lot
of us that didn't fit into thatmold that are going to benefit
from this new way of looking atthings, thinking of ways of
(42:15):
looking at things. We want toask you again to go back and
look at your journey as a youngperson, maybe a little bit later
in fourth grade, when you wereprobably nine or 10, and maybe
turn the clock forward anotherfive or six years to you're a
sophomore, you're a highschooler, you're a young, 15
year old. Mike Franz probablyweren't thinking at that time
(42:36):
that sometimes, at some point,you'd be, you'd be a coffee
mogul. But here you are, ormaybe you were, I don't know,
but if you could give one, onepiece of advice to that young
man looking back on your life,Mike, what would that be?
Mike Franz (42:48):
There's so many things, Matt, that you could
tell a 15 year old firstversion, don't do this. Don't do
that. Don't get in trouble here.
Don't Do you know one
Matt Kirchner (42:57):
of our guests one time said, Don't go out with
Beth from senior year highschool.
Mike Franz (43:06):
Now, find something that you're passionate about.
There's a couple lessons that mydad has told me from day one
that I never it took me a whileto comprehend it, but it's older
people. The older I get, thesmarter, you know, my dad gets,
yeah, right,
Matt Kirchner (43:21):
exactly. It's amazing how much they learned in
those years between when you'rein but
Mike Franz (43:26):
he always says there's a couple things, getting
there five minutes early is fiveminutes late, so always be
earlier than five minutes
Matt Kirchner (43:33):
somebody. Time for us in Wisconsin. Go on.
Mike Franz (43:37):
Do what you say you're gonna do. Okay? I always
stick to that. I mean, these aregeneral things, but it's good
stuff. Financially speaking,always pay yourself, pay
yourself and don't forget tosave some money. Those are
things that have been stuck withme for a long time, but it took,
you know, if I was 15 and tooksome money and invested in
Google, that would have beenvery nice.
Matt Kirchner (43:58):
Yeah, absolutely.
Or even Nvidia three years agowould have been not such a bad
idea, but Hindsight is 2020.
Your father's a wise man. That'ssome great advice, and really
appreciate you sharing that withus here, Mike, appreciate you
being with us on the podcast. Wecould go into any one of those
three pieces of advice, I think,for probably a good 10 or 15
minutes. But sadly, we'regetting toward the end of our
time together. It's been awonderful time together. I
(44:21):
learned so much. Love what youguys are doing at shop floor
coffee. Love the conversationswe had about education as well.
Worked in a little bit of musicand Metallica too. So any
conversation that can revolvearound those three things,
that's a good day. In my book.
Mike Franz, the co founder andChief Innovation Officer at shop
floor coffee, has been my guesthere on The TechEd Podcast. Want
to thank Mike for being with us.
(44:41):
It's been a wonderful time.
Thank our audience for joiningus as well. Be sure to check out
those show notes. They will beat TechEd podcast.com/friends
that's TechEd podcast.com/f R,A, N, Z. You know, we're all
over social, so check us out onsocial media and say hello and
don't miss next week's episode.
Episode as well every singleweek here on The TechEd Podcast,
(45:03):
bringing you the absolute bestcontent in technical education
and in STEM. Thank you for beingwith us, and we will see you
next week. You.
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