S1E9: Lessons from a Life of Entrepreneurship | Rob Smith - Into The Storm Leaders

Episode Transcript
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Joe Jurec (00:00):
Folks.
We had a lot of fun with episodenine, and we think that you will too.
So grab some popcorn,maybe your drink of choice.
You're going to get tomeet Rob Smith today.
Rob is the executive chairmanof Acutec Precision Aerospace.
He lived in Spain when he was younger,moved back to Akron, spent some time
in Des Moines, Iowa, now resides inPennsylvania near Meadville, where he's

(00:22):
investing a lot back into that community.
Opening up a coffee shop, a yogastudio, a distillery, which we got to
be the beneficiaries of a bit today.
And we also brought in Ron Kaminsky,who's his EOS implementer and
the founder here at CultureShoc.
So for many, this may be the firsttime that you heard Rob's story
or the first time that he sharedit publicly, since this is the

(00:42):
first podcast he's ever been on.
Tune in.
Not only is there some entertainmentvalue in this one, but a lot of
wisdom and his four philosophiesare something that really hit home.
Probably resonate with leadersat all stages in their career.
Without further ado, meet Rob.
Welcome to into the storm leaders,the no BS podcast that ignites

(01:05):
leadership potential and sparksinnovation in the ever evolving
business landscape we all work in.
I'm Joe Jurec, your hostand catalyst for growth.
Joined by my co-host and CultureShocsenior coach Pete Hansberger.
Together we embark on a journey touncover the strategies, mindsets, and
actions that drive truly exceptionalleadership and winning culture.

(01:26):
Whether you're an emerging leaderlooking to level up in your career
or an accomplished executive seekingfresh perspectives, join us as
we uncover inspiring stories andthought provoking insights from.
And share practical takeawaysthat enable courageous leadership.
Get ready to charge into thestorm and become a catalyst
for better workplace culture.

(01:48):
So folks, welcome back to anotherepisode of into the storm leaders today.
I'm excited to sit downwith CultureShocs, founder.
Rob Smith.
And we're going to learn alot more about him as we go.
But Rob is the executive chairmanat air AcuTech precision aerospace.

(02:08):
It sits on quite a few boards.
You've got coffee shops, you'vegot distilleries, you've got
lots of exciting things going on.
In this podcast, we talk about leadership.
We talk about culture and we're pumpedto just sit down and have a conversation
with you and hear what you A little bitabout, uh, your journey and whatever
it is that you want to share with ourlisteners, whether it be members of
Acutec and, uh, your teams or someof our other listeners who happen to

(02:31):
be emerging leaders and executives.

Rob Smith (02:39):
Yeah.
This is my first time ever doinga podcast, so bear with me.
I love this.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I'm so excited for this.
Yeah.
I, I, but, but I've gotyou guys, so it's okay.
We're just sitting around talking.

Joe Jurec (02:48):
Sitting around talking.
Just having to

Rob Smith (02:50):
record it.
Good.
Good.
Good.
Good.
Good.
Good.
You can edit out all the four letterwords and the bad things I say.
I'm going to put

Joe Jurec (02:56):
those on repeat.
Those are our favorite part.

Rob Smith (03:00):
Oh,

Ron Kaminski (03:01):
I'm sorry.
So Rob.
If you could give us, uh, kind of the,the two to three minute history of
Acutec, like, where did this come from?

Rob Smith (03:12):
Uh, yeah.
Um.
Start us off.
Acutec is, is like a lot of things,uh, in life, uh, a combination of
accidents all put together and thenall of a sudden this thing happens.
And I had an old friend fromcollege who wanted to start a
machining company in Meadville.

(03:32):
Because he worked for one in Meadville andhe'd never left town after graduation from
Maligany and had bounced around differentjobs and he wanted to start this company.
And at that time, Bridgestone had justbought out Firestone and I had some,
I had a little money because of that.
So we agreed to invest, uh, to givehim the financial backing because
he needed some financial backingfor this whole thing to go or

(03:56):
for, you know, 30% of the company.
And, uh, we came up with thename of the company on a friend's
front porch down in Mount Lebanon.
And we were on the front porchand my wife said, why not Acutec
for Acutec Accurate Technology?
And we thought that sounds really cool.
So I have to give her credit.
She came up with the name.
Nice.
We called it Acutec Precision Machining.

(04:17):
Uh, cause he had come up with something.
And, um, we were actually living in.
Spain at the time when this wholehappened, we were back in the
States doing this whole thing.
And then we, then we went back to Spainand then Bridgestone transferred me back.
And then I took a long storyshort, I ended up in Des Moines,
Iowa and, um, agriculture tires.
I am, I know you want toknow truck tractor tires.

(04:39):
I can tell you anythingyou ever want to know.
Uh, you want to know a long bar,short bar, you want to go down to
Louisiana and sell rice and cane tires.
You want to sell the, uh, uh, tiresfor the vineyards in California.
I got you covered.
Great.
Even I can even tell you the bigtires you need for the big Palouse.
Uh, weed fields in Washington state.
Okay.
I, I, it's an expertisethat very few people have.

(05:00):
Thank God.
I know.
Yeah.
And it has absolutelynothing to do with agatech.
That's the really wild part.
Nothing to do with agatech at all.
So how did I go from, uh,being a tractor tire expert?
And then before that, Iwas a European tire expert.
And before that I wasa dish washing expert.
Uh, all those things,how did you end up in?

(05:22):
Are

European tires just built to drive on the left side of the road?
No,

Rob Smith (05:25):
no, no.
No, but uh, they're, they're builtamazingly just like American tires.
Okay.
And, and actually since most of theEuropean companies bought American
companies, you know, it's interesting.
No, they, they prettymuch go the same way.
Uh, and, and believe it or not, if youhit a curb with them, they will blow out.
I found that out a few times.
So.
Good to know.
Yeah, it's good to know.

(05:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um.
Anyway, uh, he started, hewas running the company.
We were in Iowa.
He had developed this, uh, thingcalled a chip blaster, which was
to high coolant delivery systemfor machining, breaking chips.
It was going to be the newgreatest product known to man.
And at the time I was working at, I'dleft, I'd left my previous company.

(06:09):
I was working for an LBO.
And you don't want to dothat if you don't own it.
I found that out very quickly becauseI was, uh, I had the grand title of,
uh, you know, Executive Vice Presidentof Sales and Marketing and basically
I was told, uh, with no money, raisethe prices, uh, do this, do that, and
somehow, out of magic, turn this intosomething that I can flip the company and

(06:29):
kick you to the curb once I've done it.
And that's pretty much what was happening.
So I realized this wasnot going anywhere there.
And I didn't like Iowa.
My wife didn't like Iowa and our parentswere back in Pennsylvania from Spain
to Iowa, too Yeah, well that was a thatwas different for we went from Madrid
to Des Moines But then we went from DesMoines to Meadville, so I mean we're

(06:52):
talking you know, it was interestingWe actually went we went Madrid to
Akron and then Akron to Des Moinesand then Des Moines back to Meadville.
Much better.
It was much better.
I just remember, uh, our youngestdaughter was four years old when
we moved to Akron from Madrid.
In Madrid, we had a house that had apool, a tennis court, a gardener, a maid.

(07:17):
The whole thing to a Ryan home in Akronthat, you know, she, she walked out
the door of the house, looked at thebackyard and said, mama, where's the pool?
And, and my wife, bless her heart, said,honey, it's all downhill from here.
And, and it was, so, uh, anyway, we endedup, uh, I went back to be, to market and

(07:40):
sell and help do the finance for this.
It's cause Acutec was then going toget into become a product company.
And basically found out within,within four months that we
weren't going to be there.
And I would, as I was selling theproduct, he was redesigning it constantly.
So I would, I would go to like newventure gear, which is a huge company
and out of Syracuse and go up there.

(08:01):
And I, I, I would put on my sales hatand I'm like, golly, I had 16 units sold.
I'm everything.
I'd go back and he goes,well, I redesigned it.
So you have to go back upthere and talk to them again.
I said, that's not how it works.
So we had a falling out, let's just saycomplete falling out, especially then
when I got into the finances and found outhe wasn't paying the right payroll taxes
and he wasn't doing, and it was like,okay, we're going to go to jail here.

(08:22):
Okay.
So this is not serious.
Yeah, this is serious stuff.
And we were not getting well.
So we had a long talk.
I was trying to, okay,I gotta get out of it.
I need to get out of thiscompany, but I told the kids
I'm never going to move again.
We're going to live in Meadville.
And they were at the age wherethey didn't want to move again.
And so I started looking around forjobs, and then I talked to the accountant

(08:43):
and realized that since I owned, owned30% of the company, if the company went
under, I was liable for all the debt.
So anything I ever had in mylife was going to disappear.
Well, that wasn't good.
Well, a couple of machinistscame to me and said, Rob, you
seem to know what you're doing.
How would you like to takeover the machining company?
And you could run, weknow you can run this.
It was amazing.
They had this faith in methat we know you can run this.

(09:06):
Employees said this.
Employees said this.
Wow.
And I said, okay, uh, I don't knowanything about what I'm doing, but
on the other hand, if I'm going to godown, I'm going to go down fighting.
So took every penny we had,took the kids college money did.
I mean, we went all in it all went allin and I bought out my ex partner, bought

(09:28):
his 50% share, send him in the product.
They went into an incubator.
And so that's anotherstory for another time.
Um, But took over the company and inJune, June, July of 94, first thing
I did was go back to school at nightand took blueprint reading because I

(09:49):
didn't know how to read a blueprint.
I mean, I just takingover a machining company.
I didn't even know what I was looking at.
So I took blueprint reading at nightand then the first week, uh, our largest
customer at the time, which was LordCorporation, called me in and said, we're
going to fire you as a supplier becauseYou've been so inconsistent and your
quality hasn't been good and you haven'tbeen now that and all the rest of it.

(10:11):
So that was an interesting discussion.
So I, they were essentialfor a company at that time.
So I basically, uh, gotdown on my knees and prayed.
No, I didn't.
I just said to them, look, we will.
Change this.
You've, we have no ownership.
I'm taking over.
Here's my background.
Here's what we're going to do.
Here's what we're going to run this.

(10:31):
Let us make it right.
Let us make it right.
And, and, and we will, we will improvequality and we will improve delivery
and we will, we will make it happen.
And we were at the timethey were about it.
800, 000 customer of amillion dollar companies.
They were 80% of our business.
And today, Lord Parker, little LordParker is what now a 30 million.

(10:52):
customer of ours.
And I still, well, now Elizabethdoes, she'll still tell them, we
promise we will improve delivery.
We will improve quality.
And, and, and we just, I justjoked for 30 years, every year we
would tell them we would get betterand every year they would buy it.
It's like Lucy with a football.
And, and, and, and in return, give usmore business because evidently, even

(11:14):
though they complained, we evidentlywere doing better than anybody else.
So Fascinating.

So this So you're leading into something though,
that's pretty profound though.
You guys have a core targetin your business around this.
Yes.
Tell, tell, talk to us aboutwhat that is and why that is.

Rob Smith (11:34):
Oh, now what do you mean by the core target?
So most

respected?

Rob Smith (11:39):
Oh, well, that's very important.
Um, you, you find out reallyquickly in our business that, um.
You can, you can negotiate all youwant, and you can talk about pricing,
you can talk about this and all that,but your reputation is everything.
And, if you have a reputation as acompany that gives it 100%, that is

(12:04):
always looking to improve, that ishonest, uh, that doesn't cut corners,
that quality wise, you know, we screw up.
Oh boy, we've screwed up some bigones, we've had some big screw ups.
But you, you, you put on your bigboy pants and you say, we screwed
up and, and this is what we'regoing to do to get it better.

(12:26):
Now I know Elizabeth had the onecustomer say, you know, you are
absolutely amazing at fixing problems.
Is it because you've had so muchexperience at it, and yeah, we it.
Um, but that's, that's part ofit is just, uh, we, you know.
I remember the first thing I didwas, uh, I made sure that we, of

(12:49):
course, we paid all our taxes back.
We did all the right things.
Um, but we also then expect ourcustomers to act the way we do.
And if they don't, they're notgoing to be our customers for long.
Yeah.
Uh, first thing I did when I tookover Acutec was I fired three
quarters of our customer basebecause they weren't paying on time.

(13:10):
They were, they were, I'msorry, they were shady.
They just weren't what we wanted, right?
Um, and we've worked really hard onestablishing and getting customers
that are, they're blue chip, they'regood, they know what they're doing.
They may, you may occasionally runthrough issues with them over time
because All customers run through theissue of they keep hiring new people and

(13:33):
the people we have, they're really good.
They get promoted or theydo this, they do that.
And occasionally you run across somecharacters that generally don't belong
in those companies, but they're there.
Right.
And until they work that outinternally, we're stuck with them.
So we've run into that before.
I've had a couple of times where Ibasically told a buyer of customers,
you know, you can take it and, youknow, where, and, and everybody's

(13:57):
been aghast that I've done that.
And invariably within six months,that person's gone from that position.
The customer realized that's notwhat they want is their buyer or

whatever.
That takes a little bit ofguts to fire clients when.
You don't really have all that

Rob Smith (14:12):
many.
No.
No, but it was, it was, itwas, it was, we had to do it.
Sure.
Um, you had to run with what you had.
So

when we first started Culture Shack, if you had a pulse, we
would figure out a way to help you.
And now we're in the same boat.
We met about six, what,about six years ago.
And, uh, the reason why I was so excitedto have you on was because you guys
walk the talk, you want to be the mostrespected aerospace partner period.

(14:45):
Yep.
Right.
And, uh, and you certainly walk that talk.
So, so take us from, uh, buyingthe business to kind of, uh,
That point at which you startedtalking about, um, stepping back
and starting to place Elizabeth.

Rob Smith (15:06):
Well, it's, it's funny.
Uh, so I took over the business in94 by 98, four years later, we were,
we're, we'd already built a new plant.
We were really startingto make things happen.
Things were going in good, good.
Good space.
I could see growth on the horizon.

(15:27):
We were kept expanding.
We kept as fast as we could.
We were expanding.
'cause we were good.
Elizabeth was a junior in high schoolin high junior in high school, and
her sister was a, uh, a freshman.
And I said, okay, I already gotta startthinking about, okay, what's gonna happen?

(15:48):
20 years?
I, I hate to say this, butthat's how long I, I look ahead.
Sure.
And I said I, I've gotta figure outwhat we're gonna do and, alright.
Can it, can this be a family run companyor do I want to lead it another way?
Because.
Not everybody's kids wantto work in a company.
And of course we had two daughters and theolder one did and the younger one didn't.

(16:09):
And they're both veryhappy with their decisions.
Um, I mean, the younger one isnot in the business at all, has
a great career, does fantastic.
She's off in Australia right nowat the women's world cup, uh,
being on TV, being interviewed.
Being quoted in the NewYork Times, doing all that.
That's her career.
Yeah, she's doing great at it.
Elizabeth's your oldest.
The old.
The oldest, okay.
Yeah.
And um, she, her first internship jobin high school was, we were taking

(16:35):
all of our paper documents and we wereputting 'em all into the computer.
'cause we were then going online with allthis stuff and scanning it and we had to
literally scan four years worth of stuff.
So her job that summer was totake job folders and scan them.
Most boring, awful jobyou could ever ask, right?

(16:58):
And she did it and has ideason how to do this and do that.
And then she went offto college after 2000.
Sorry, don't bang there.
Um, and what are you going to major in?
Uh, mathematics.
So I kept bringing her back towhat do you think this or that?
And.
Of course, she immediately was verygood at PowerPoint and all this

(17:20):
stuff that I, I, I was not good at.
I mean, let's face it.
I went to college whenthey didn't have computers.
So I, you know, it's all new.
Um, so I would send her stuffand she would then make it
make the PowerPoint jump.
It's like, Hey, I got a presentation.
Can you spend?
an hour on and literally she wouldin an hour she'd come back and

(17:41):
be like, Whoa, that's fantastic.
So I kind of, in the back of mymind, I'm thinking, boy, that'd
be the one I want to have.
That'd be the one I want to have.
Well, 2001, I went on the boardat Allegheny and I met some
unbelievable people there.
One guy's guy's name was BillTillotson of Heffron Tillotson.
They're now sold.
But Bill was just an amazing, amazing guy.

(18:04):
And of course, his specialty wasinvestments in family companies
and things and how to do stuff.
So, uh, I quickly found that someof the best advice I ever got was
to sit down with these trustees withyears of experience more than I had
and just say, what would you do?
And let's have a drinkand what would you do?
And we would spend a lot ofevenings drinking and talking and.

(18:27):
Bill said, one thing you want to do isdefinitely, if you want, one of your kids
is interested in the business, bring themin, but don't bring them in right away.
Let them go out in the world, let themcut their teeth, let them make their own
way, let them do their own thing, let themget their head kicked in a few times, let
them find out that they're not perfect.

(18:47):
That, you know, he said, theproblem with small family
companies is that if your child.
comes right from school and, andliterally never is exposed to anything.
But in the company, they'll havebeen told their entire life that
they're perfect by all the employeesand they will not be challenged.
They will not, they willnot challenge themselves.

(19:08):
Yeah.
Uh, they'll be very, verynarrow in their focus.
It's a problem now.
He said Some peoplehave succeeded with it.
Don't get me wrong, he said, butin general, the more they get from
the outside exposure, the better.
But you always got to keep them close by.
So at some point you then canbring them back in and you got to
figure out what the best time is.

(19:29):
So Elizabeth didn't know that,but that was my objective.
So I kind of kept steering hertoward, well, you're interested in
this, you're interested in that.
And she was really interested inlabor economics and she was a,
she was a combination math andeconomics major at Haverford.
And that's what, that was her thing.
Yet, and just suddenly enough,she decided, okay, the best thing

(19:53):
when I get out is I get a job.
I'm going to go get my master's sometime.
I don't know what I'm going to get it in.
Uh, meanwhile, dad keeps sending methis stuff and I keep working on it.
And I keep, you know, she's,you know, we talk about Acutec,
what's going on, how's it going?
We do all that.
And lo and behold, she got a jobwith, uh, Charles River Associates
as econometric firm doing all, youknow, they, they, their whole thing

(20:16):
is they grab these kids and they workthem 80 hours a and then send them
off to grad school after three years.
Well, lo and behold, she ends upwith the aerospace boutique for
Charles River Associates in DC.
Well, which happens to be close to thebusiness we're in and how convenient.
And she's spending all this timelearning how the business is.

(20:37):
She's Getting to know all of ourcustomers and this or that or whatever.
And her second year there, wewere at the Paris Air Show.
We had our booth at the Paris Air Show.
And she said, yeah, my bosses aretalking about, they may want to go
and just walk it because a lot oftheir clients are there and they
want to, you know, see this or that.
And I said, well, you know, why don't youhave them talk you into going with them?

(21:00):
And you could leave your stuff at ourbooth when you walk around and you
could have a, like a little anchor spotthere and be happy to have you do that.
And.
Well, behold, she talked to Boston.
So she came to the Paris Air Show andshe will say that's when she said,
that's the business I want to be in.
Uh, so that was kind of cool.
That's very, um, didn't tell me that.

(21:25):
No, she's not going to tell me that.
Except that.
Um, then when she decided to goto grad school, she went to the
university of Michigan and gother MBA, but in manufacturing.
I forget what it's called.
It was a combination like industrialengineering, manufacturing MBA.
It was some really theTauber school or whatever.
So she was in manufacturing.

(21:45):
She interned at, at helmet, uh, you know,uh, Ocoa's big, uh, aluminum casting
plant, which was doing aerospace castings.
Sure.
And she did this to that.
And lo and behold, when she graduated,she went to work for United technologies.
And spent six months at Sikorsky,six months at, at, well,
basically it's all aerospace.

(22:06):
Six months at, uh, Hamilton Sunstrandand six months at, uh, Pratt and Whitney.
And so she, she got out there andthen she ended up at, uh, Sikorsky
making Blackhawk helicopters.
Wow.
The whole time she's still helping mewith my PowerPoints, you know, and I
keep, we're doing this, we're doing that.

(22:26):
And we would talk business andwe would talk this and talk that.
Finally, uh, Oh God, it's10 years ago, 2012, 2013.
I think she started 2013.
I finally talked to her.
I said, okay, you'vebeen there long enough.
Maybe you want to, maybe it's time.
Are you interested?
Uh, I said, you realize that eventuallyyou're going to own the company.

(22:50):
So.

Joe Jurec (22:51):
Was that the first time that you told her

Rob Smith (22:54):
that we've implied that for a long time?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it was like, this could be a familycompany, wouldn't this really be cool?
And so I talked her into it andshe came back and what's my job?
And I said, I have no idea.
Uh, we're going to call you head ofstrategic projects or something like that.
I, you know, but we had just taken over.

(23:14):
The other section at the other at the, atour plant there on Dunham Road, the old
building, the renovated old building, andwe just take it over 40, 000 square feet.
And I had no idea what we're goingto put into it, but we took it and,
but we knew we needed the space.
So I said, okay, your first job isfigure out where what's going in there.
So she did, and she didthat for about a year.

(23:36):
And then she came to me and she said,okay, quality assurance is a mess.
And, um, it needs to be run correctly.
And I've been watching thisand so could I have that?
I said, yep, you're in charge.
Congratulations.
Good deal.
Good deal.
Well, then came, uh, 2016 and 2015, 2016.

(23:58):
And we've been working ontrying to figure out ways.
All right.
So you want to transfer wealth?
You want to transfer the companyover to your daughter and you want
to do it without paying the IRS?
I mean, that's a heck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Heck yeah.
You want to figure out how to do that?
Well, it turned out.
In 2016, there was a loophole inthe law that was going to expire.

(24:21):
It goes, 2015 is going to expire in 2016.
And it was that you could giftlike 15, 20 million tax free.
And then it was going to go away.
It was some special loophole,something like that.
And I, I looked at that and I, I,the accountants and everything else.
And I said, okay, we're just goingto give the company to Elizabeth.
And, but we're going to value the company.

(24:43):
In such a way that her percentagesare, there's, there's ways around
things and we already had, she alreadyhad percentages through a grant.
We'd already been doing all this stuff.
She and her sister had a little bit, thisor that, we figured out a way to do it.
And a lot of my friends said, okay,you realize when you transfer this
to her, she owns it and you don't,I still would own a percentage,

(25:07):
but she owns the majority share.
She could kick you outthe day she owns it.
Hmm.
And you have to have a lot of faith inher that she's not going to do that.
And I said, well, I saideither, either I have faith in
her or I don't, you know, so.

So this is the, this is one of the most fascinating things I think
about your story is that I met Elizabeth,I think it was back in 2016 and it was,
I spoke at an NTMA emerging leaders, uh,summit and she said, Hey, I want you to
come in and talk to our leadership team.

(25:46):
I think you can help us.
And my first exposure to you wasone of skepticism on your part.
Oh, yes.
Right.
Oh, yes.
So talk to.
Tell me about that.
Like, where was your head when she'slike, Hey, I think we need to bring in
these consultant guys at CultureShoc.

Rob Smith (26:03):
I hate consultants.
I absolutely, absolutelydetest consultants.
Um, I, when my old Firestone days andI was head of strategic planning for
Firestone, one of my interesting jobsand the CEO Firestone brought in.
Um, a Boston consulting group, thebig guys, they're gonna do all this

(26:25):
work and basically all they didwas go around and get the opinions.
Everybody that wasn't being listened toby top management and, and take their
stuff and spit it out, regurgitate itanother way, and put into really fancy
slides and get paid a ton of money thatmanagement could've obtained just by
listening to the people that work for 'em.

(26:47):
And that it was like really.
Really, you're going to come in here andbecause you're the boss and consulting
group, they're not going to listen to you.
Now they're not going to listen tome because I'm just a young kid.
What would I know?
Sure.
Even though I'd been to thecountry, it's a long story anyway.
And then in general consultants, Iremember at Allegheny, we had consults
for things as this or that, and I justfound them to pretty much just turn right

(27:11):
around and give you what you already knew.
And walk away.
In a lot of cases, you would see them.
Consultants would come in, make allthese recommendations, then they go away.
And whether it worked ornot, they didn't care.
They were gone.
Sure, sure.
They had nothing invested in the business.
They, I'm sorry.
You just wasted a whole lot of money.
Right.
I don't think you're the only

Joe Jurec (27:29):
one who's had that

Rob Smith (27:30):
experience.
No, no, no, no.
That was my take on it too.
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's, it's just a,uh, consultant for consultants.
And yet informally, when I thoughtabout it, I realized I'd been
using consultants for years.
I just wasn't paying for them.
So my evenings at the bar with allthese guys that had years of experience

(27:55):
that I didn't have my years at thebar at Allegheny, talking with these
guys about what do you do with this?
How do you account for that?
Uh, my accounting firm, uh, uh,was, uh, the head of the, now
the head of the whole thing, HBK.
He was a consultant to me.
Uh, I had a number of differentpeople that were, Bill

(28:16):
Williams was a consultant, WJW.
I mean, he was there.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
But he would, I, I had a lot of, Ipaid them sort of in for, for doing
other work, but then I would alsothen spend a lot of time with them.
Well, what do you do with this?
How do you do with that?
So I had consultants.
I just didn't call them

consultants.
So, so I'm fascinated becauseI've watched, by the way,
that camera's stuck on you.
I don't know if that's an issue.
I don't know.
Oh, okay.
So I'm watching, um, I'vewatched 70% of our clients are
still family owned businesses.
And I've watched the transferfrom generation to generation.

(28:53):
I've watched the good, bad and the ugly.
Right.
And I'm not saying it was withoutchallenge, but you have one of
the, the most, if, if not the mostfunctional transitions I've ever seen.
What do you

Rob Smith (29:11):
attribute that to?
Oh, I'll give that entirecredit to Elizabeth.
Um, well, it's like bringing you in, shesaid, I want, um, she did it in such a
way that it was, I want to bring Ron in.
I want to, I want you to get to knowhim once you see what's going on.
I'm going to do, you know, she didsome trial things and stuff like that.

(29:32):
And she didn't say, I'm going to do this.
And there it is.
And it had my way or the highway.
She said, give me your thoughts on this.
What do you think?
You know, and she would just slowly.
Bring me into where, okay, it's worth it.
Let's see what, let's see what happens.
And, and frankly, you delivered,so I'll give you credit for that.
And well done.
Good job.
And I can see the value in what you weredoing because you were not a, you were

(29:55):
not consulting where you were takingour stuff and doing, you were, you were.
What, I don't know how I would put it.
You're like part of the team and you'regetting everybody into how do we do this?
How do we do that?
How do we do that?
And you did, you had no, you hadno golden answer and walk away.
It was, it's your answerguys, . Sure, sure.

(30:15):
And your old job was gettingus to come up with stuff and

you gotta be in healthy enough place for
that team to put those ideas

Rob Smith (30:21):
on the table and get the tool, get the tools.
Alright.
You were giving us the tools to be ableto do things that we had to do ourselves.
So she would do a lot of that.
Um, When she took over, I still had myoffice there and she, she didn't kick
me out of my office, you know, shejust had an office across the hall and
she would come in every day and shewould ask me, what do I do with this?

(30:45):
What do I do with that?
The first year was a lot of, okay,I've never encountered this before.
What do I do?
By the third year, it was, Oh,by the way, I'm doing this.
I just want to, you know,get your blessing on this.
Yeah.
I'll let you know, you know,here's what we're doing.
Here's how we're doing it.
She totally evolved that.

(31:06):
And she did that over time to wherethen suddenly I was the advisor.
And even to this day, now I'vemoved from being the advisor to,
you have some really good ideas.
I want to hear them.
Uh, give me your observationson this or that or whatever,
whether she took them or not.

(31:26):
Was up to her.
She made that very clear.
The actual decision is her decision,but she still kept me vested in the
business to where I felt like I wasstill valuable and I didn't have to be.
And I know that completely.
I know that she could just cutme off tomorrow and I have no.
But for example, just, justyesterday, she said, Hey, we're

(31:50):
going to have lunch in your office.
I'm bringing a bunch of people in andwe're going to talk about some stuff.
And I'd like to hear your views.
I love that.
And I can't ask foranything better than that.
So I, uh, she it's the way she did.
That was really good.
So

one of the most profound things I watched happen in this
transition was part of our process was.
Asking you guys to clarify your corevalues for the sake of your people,
for the sake of what you want toattract into the organization and, and
to increase accountability around howwe want people to show up at Acutec.

(32:28):
And, uh, you said, you know what?
These aren't core values.
These are my philosophies.
And you have four of them.
Would you share with us your fourphilosophies, because these are four of
my favorites out of all of my clients.

Rob Smith (32:45):
Oh, you're making me blush.
Oh, gee.
Wow.
We're not even drinking your gin.
I know we can start soon.
Yeah.
I was going to throwthat reminder in here.
Um, yeah, the four philosophies,that's interesting.
It's Elizabeth that actually pulled thoseout of me and to make them more of a code.

(33:08):
Like this, this is what we are.
She, she made it more.
It's who we are.
It's who we are.
I had them.
They're always there.
And she said.
Why don't you write these thingsdown and then let's, let's develop
what they are and everything else.
So it was a lot of push from her that didthat, uh, although he had some already.
And so basically the first oneand the most important one, and

(33:30):
it's, it's, it, it's a philosophythat not just apply to acutech.
It applies to every, I tell everybodyin every training class, every
introduction class, this firstphilosophy applies to your life and
it's very simply always be lucky.
So tell us what that is.
Always be lucky is basically you,there are three parts of luck.

(33:57):
You're lucky because youprepared to be lucky.
You're lucky because then you identifiedopportunity and you're lucky then
because you acted on that opportunity.
There are the three things and preparingto be lucky as you put yourself in
a position where you now have thetraining, you have the equipment, you
have the people, you have the process.

(34:19):
Same thing in your life.
You've, you've, you've doneall the work you've done.
All you've, you've done a lot ofhard work to get to a point where
you really know what you're doingso that when an opportunity shows
up in front of you, you can act,

Joe Jurec (34:31):
you position yourself by doing the right

Rob Smith (34:33):
thing.
Right.
And, and part of it was because yearsago, uh, at an NTMA meeting, local
one, one of the tool shop owners.
Uh, this was back when, oh man, thatthey were all hurting bad because
China was going in and taking all themold business and doing this or that.
And, and they were all complainingand they were all, you know,
it was a giant bitch session.

(34:54):
And I'd go into the meetings,they go, Oh yeah, I get you.
But I'm hiring right now.
If anybody has any money, like, Oh,uh, we're hiring and we're growing.
And they just look at melike, how's he doing this?
Oh, you got into that.
How did you get into that business?
You know, they would just, and hewould had about a whole bunch of
crown royals and he just slappedme on the back and he said, Rob,
you are one lucky son of a bitch.

(35:16):
Everything you do turns out to work.
How does you just are lucky.
You're always at the rightplace at the right time.
And I really gave it somethought and I said, you're right.
I am incredibly lucky.
There have been things that happenedthat just worked out to be lucky.

(35:36):
I mean, the fact that I, I, I hitched mywagon to Lord corporation very early on.
And within two years, they decidedto outsource a whole lot of business.
And then I went after itwith everything we had.
And I joke about the, my Lord storywas, um, I went up to this meeting
after we were about two years ahead ofcompany about 96 and, and I went up to

(35:59):
a meeting and they brought in all thesetool companies, all, all these machining
companies from all over the world.
They're in this meeting in this room.
And they, everybody introducedthemselves and they were all
20 times larger than we were.
I was amazed we were invited.
And then as they went around theroom, they were all from all over the
world, all over the United States.

(36:20):
And I said, Oh, we're just the architect.
We're just a little tiny company,you know, 25 miles down the road.
And I realized we're the onlyones 25 miles down the road.
Everybody else was a long way away.
And that's why we're asked to be there.
And they announced, Oh, we're going tobe outsourcing all of this business.
And so we want to let you allknow, and there's going to
be a lot of stuff going on.

(36:40):
So we aggressively went after a few parts.
We got, we got somemore business from them.
And then, uh, I made it apoint to actually drive the
delivery truck up the Lord.
And I would go to the dockand I would deliver the parts.
And I got to know all the people on thedock, but more than more importantly,
all their incoming inspectors were there.
So I got to meet allthe incoming inspectors.

(37:01):
We got to know them really well.
And occasionally they'dsay, we got an issue.
So I would just.
You know, as before cell phones, I, I,right from there, I can call the buyer.
He can keep it, come down to thedock cause they were right there.
And Byron and I would talk about thisor that, and he'd hand me a print.
I'd take it back.
And you know, there'd be times when Iwould go up there and there would be a
batch of parts with all with red tagson them and go, Oh, Ed, what's that?

(37:22):
What's the red, red tag meansthe part is not conforming.
It's not good.
They can't take the part in.
It means they can't use that inventory.
It's red tags are bad.
They, you don't want red tags onparts because they can't use them.
And they might need thatpart for an assembly.
And all of a sudden now they can't, nowthey can't make the assembly because
they've got these parts that came infrom North Carolina with red tags.

(37:45):
And I said, well, what's,what's wrong with these?
Oh, well, you know, these peoplestill don't understand a breakage.
They still don't understand.
Aerospace Lord, airs veryparticular on a lot of things.
You had to know what really,really worked for them.
And, and frankly, all aerospace companiesare you, you know, let's face it.
You, uh, aerospace part closes in good.

(38:06):
If you're 35, 000 feet in the air.
You want it to be exact.
There is no, it's 95%.
Okay.
No, no, that's good.
That's good enough.
No, no, you can't take the car to theside of the road, the plane to the
side of the road and fix the tire.
You know, it's like, no, it's going down.
So it has to be right.
And they say, well, they still understandwe're trying to get to, and I'd look at
the part and I go, Hey, you know what?

(38:29):
We can make that part.
And they go, you guys can make that part.
Oh, yeah, we could do that part.
No problem at all.
He said, you know, theguy goes, well, hang on.
Get the buyer.
Buyer would come down and go, yeah,we're looking for somebody to make
this because these guys don't.
And I said, fine.
Let me have the print.
I'll take it back.
We'll get you, I'll getyou a price by tomorrow.
Tell me what you think.
And if it's a little too high,let me know and we'll, we'll
try to get where you need to be.

(38:49):
I mean, I know how to negotiate.
Sure.
And I go back, go to the shop, go to myguys, and I pull the print out and I go.
Can we make this?
And, and, and they go,yeah, I think we can.
I said, good, good.
So what do you think it'sgoing to take and all that?
And we quoted and we got, andwe, our business went from 1

(39:12):
million to 5 million in a year.
And.
But that was being lucky.
We took it.
Nobody else could drive their truck.
The owner could not drive his truck,drive there and talk to everybody on
the, you know, we took advantage of that.
Love

Joe Jurec (39:26):
that.
And you wouldn't have been if youdidn't prepare yourself or put yourself

Rob Smith (39:29):
in position to.
And we had the people that could do thatand we bought the right equipment and we
did the right things and we put the rightsystems in place and all the rest of it.
But the whole big thing is, is that youget yourself in position at the other
thing is to recognize the opportunity.
Because there are a lot of times inour, where the, uh, a customer or
potential customer will come in and go,okay, we want this, this, this, this.

(39:52):
And it's a lot of work and it's like,oh, God, now we have to do this.
Now we have to do that.
I'm not sure we can do that.
It's going to take expense.
We're going to have toset this up, all of that.
And then you sit back and you go,boy, if we could do that, though,
We're going to get X amount morebusiness because, because they're
going to put this business to it.
So if we can do that, so yousay, Oh, that's not an op.

(40:16):
That's not a problem.
That's actually an opportunity.
And then you jump on it.
And we would always, and then wewould always tell our customers,
you know, uh, we will knock on yourdoor for 10 years if we have to.
And we have done that.
We'll knock on your door for10 years and you open the door.
I'm thinking old school, like, like theold, Uh, when vacuum cleaner salesman,
which most these kids today don't have noidea what a clue what I'm talking about.

(40:40):
And, and I would say, uh,okay, so you open that door.
We're going to put our foot in it andyou're not gonna be able to close it.
So then you're going to say, okay,you can come in the living room.
You let us in your living room.
We're living there forever.
We're not moving.
We're ever moving.
We're not moving out.
Sorry.
We're taking over your living room.
And that's how we alwaysviewed our customers.

Imagine if you thought you were above driving the truck.
Oh yeah.

Rob Smith (41:07):
The implications.
Well, but it was an opportunity toreally get to know the customer.
Sure.
And, you know, and, you know, wequickly realized, okay, Uh, the other,
the other that goes to their secondphilosophy, by the way, I'll jump
right into that great segue, Rob.
Yeah, I thought

like you're a pro.

Rob Smith (41:26):
Yes, a few times.
Um, and that is wake up paranoid everymorning, every morning, wake up paranoid.
And it's not my idea.
I stole it.
I know you just heard about that one.
I
, Ron Kaminski: I, I've, I'm fascinated.
I never knew where this one camefrom until recently, but go ahead.
Why don't you tell us.
Alright.
So Andy
Grove This's the first

Joe Jurec (41:46):
time I've heard all four of these,

Rob Smith (41:47):
so I'm loving about that.
Yeah.
And Andy Grove, who basically builtIntel, uh, wrote a book years and years
ago called, uh, always Be Paranoid.
I think that was what it was.
And I

think it was

Rob Smith (42:00):
only the paranoid survivor or something that
was, yeah, something like that.
Yes.
And.
And it was a really good book and Inever read it, but I read the book
review and I'd read the book reviewand I, and I, and they had quotes
from it and I went, Oh yeah, Oh, Ijust bought into it a hundred percent.

(42:22):
I totally knew what he was talkingabout immediately resonated with
me and I said, okay, we've gotto, we've got to adopt that.
I'm just going to steal it right now.
I just, you know, I'm just stealing it.
And, uh, so all credits to him,I'm still in the entire concept,
even though I never read the entirebook, but he didn't need to, you

know, Isn't this great.
It's like a visionary.
I give them the book traction.
They read the first three pages.
They're like, Hey, uh, yeah,we're going to do this.

Rob Smith (42:46):
Yeah, that was about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I skimmed it.
Yeah.
There are some good parts in it.
So what

does wake up paranoid

Rob Smith (42:52):
mean for you?
It means every day you have to getbetter at what you're doing every day.
Somebody else is.
I call it somebody wantsto steal your lunch money.
Every day, someone's goingto try to figure out how to
take your business from you.
You have a business with XYZ customer andyou're doing this or that or whatever,
and you think you're the best there is.
Somebody out there is trying tofigure out how to do it better.

(43:14):
They're trying to figureout a better process.
They're trying to figureout a better way to sell it.
They're trying to figureout a way to deliver it.
You name it.
They're trying to be better thanyou because they want your business.
And the minute you sit back andyou say, Hey, you know what?
Let's go golfing.
We got it made.
We don't have to do a thing anymore.
We're going to buy boats.
We're going to sit and relax.
We're set.

(43:34):
We're set forever.
We don't ever need to buy new equipment.
We don't need to do anything.
We're fine.
The minute you do that, you're losing.
Somebody's already gaining onyou while you're doing that.
They're, they're hungrier.
They want to go get it.
They're going to try to figureout a way to do it from you.
So every day you can still go golfingon occasion, but Every day, you've got

(43:57):
to figure out a way to do things better.
You've got to, no matter what it is,you've got to figure out a way to handle
your employees better, figure out away to do your shipping better, figure
out a way to buy better, figure out away to talk to your customer better.
There are nine million things thatyou can do that are better, and
you've always got to think about it.
And then the other part of it is, isyou've got to think about technology.

(44:19):
Okay.
I always, I always tell thestory of, imagine it's 1904.
And you own the buggy whip market.
You have a, you have a factory.
You make 80% of the buggywhips in the United States.
You own it.
You've got the best process,the best everything.
And by 1925, 1915, you're bankrupt.

(44:41):
Why?
Technology changed.
There are no buggies.
Buggy whips don't work on cars.
You didn't, you didn't change your factoryover to starting to make things for cars.
You just kept on buggy whipping.
And so you've always gotto think about technology.
Where's the technology going?
Where's the process going?
That's why, that's why AcuTechspends a lot of time on 3D printing.

(45:01):
Where is it?
What's going to happen with it?
How's it going to be?
Technology wise, what ischanging and how do we adapt?
And how do we, you know,do what we need to do?
Um, because you could be the best atwhat you do and if the technology changes
enough, all of a sudden you're gone.
And the world is litteredwith companies like that.
That just,

So always be lucky.
Yep.
Wake up paranoid every morning.
Give us number three.

Rob Smith (45:26):
Well, number three is, um, I guess I'll see what
I would use the old one first.
Okay.
There will be change.
Get used to it.
Now that was my original philosophy.
There will be change, get used to it.
And that's pretty obvious.
And, and Elizabeth has.
Made that a little, what's theword, optimistic, user friendly,

(45:47):
better for the under 30s.
Well, she was doing the PowerPoint.

Joe Jurec (45:49):
She put some polish on it.
She put some

Rob Smith (45:51):
polish on it!
Exactly!
And I, at first I was really upset aboutit, and then after a while I realized,
no, she's actually, it works out better.
It's embrace change.
Love it.
We embrace change.
Which is much more proactive than mine.
Mine was just telling the guys, hey, Iknow you're working on this machine, and

(46:11):
you're doing here, and you're over here.
Tomorrow you may be over here.
Yep.
Don't fight it.
It's okay.

Why is this so critical for your

Rob Smith (46:20):
business?
Uh, our business is a veryconservative business.
Um, you're makingaerospace parts by nature.
You have to be conservative inthe sense that you can't just
change and have the plane crash.
Any change you make has to be carefullythought out, carefully worked out,
carefully tested, carefully everything.
You make parts for a 737.

(46:42):
You may have making thissame part for 30 years.
It's not like the automotive industry.
You got a new model here.
That's it.
And they're not going tochange it because, Oh yeah.
Oh, that's you're going to use thatmaterial instead of this material.
That's great.
And then the plane crashes.
That's not great.
So then business is bynature, conservative.

(47:04):
Uh, but you have to also be awarethat there is going to be changed.
You has to be a better wayto do things all the time.
And.
Even though the business isconservative in other ways, it
can be very, very cutting edge.
They are always looking for betterways to do things and it take a little
more time to get there, but you've gotto be prepared to change with that.

(47:26):
And they're always looking at,we're in a supply chain where.
They're always going to change asto who they're going to have supply,
how they're going to have supply.
Are they going to want an assemblynow instead of just parts?
Or how are they going to want it done?
Who's going to do the special spray on it?
Well, we're going to change the spray.
And then, oh, well, we can't useChrome anymore because it's no
longer good for the environment.
Okay.
What are you going to do in place of it?
How are you going to do this?

(47:46):
How are you going to do that?
There is change every day.
And, and as a company, we even havemore change because Okay, we need to
improve our bottom line and the waywe're doing it right now is not working.
So what's a better way toreorganize ourselves so that
we can improve the bottom line?

(48:07):
So we're constantly doing that too.
And just be prepared for changeand embrace it when it comes up.
Love this.
And you, you've got to do it.
Uh, which leads to.
Philosophy number four.
Here we

go.

Rob Smith (48:19):
Let's hear it.
All right.
Life is unfair.
Learn while you're young.
Now, that is no longer acceptable.
But it was one that I, it was thelast one I added and it was actually
one that my wife would tell ourgirls when they were growing up.
They would come home from school andsomething would happen and they would

(48:40):
say this is just, this is unfair.
Oh, this, you know, you hearthat as a kid, it's not fair.
It's not fair.
So and so is not being fair.
And their mother would just look atthem and just say, life is unfair, kid.
Learn why you're young.
She meant it.
It's like, and basically it was, weneed to, as Elizabeth's turned it into,

(49:03):
we turn adversity into opportunity.
Yeah.
I like, I like that polish, which is a,it is a, I really much better Polish.
Much better polish.
Right.
I, I see.
This is the part, this is why itwas so easy to transition to company
because ultimately she was muchbetter at polishing than I was , and,
and, uh, I was kind of old school.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but it's the same thing.

(49:25):
And it, it's basically you're gonnaget a lot of crap thrown at you.
It's what you do with it is,is what makes you successful.
Can you turn that into a lucky situation?
Oh, now we want to have, they wantus to do this, this, this, and this.
Well, I, there was a, um, therewas a quality technique and I, I

(49:47):
am not up to speed on the latestones that we started doing.
About five years ago, because a coupleof our customers asked us, told us we
had to do it, and it was required, andblah, blah, blah, and we had to do it,
and, uh, we yelled and screamed andwhatever, but we finally decided doing it
and found out that it actually was prettygood the way it worked out, this system.
So, we just started doing it forall of our customers, for all of

(50:10):
our parts, we did this system.
Well.
Our biggest customer came to us thatthey had never used this system and they
said, okay, we've got bad news for you.
We're going to ask you to go to thisquality system thing then, and, uh, we're
getting a lot of pushback and you're ourbiggest customer, our biggest supplier.
And we don't want too much pushback.

(50:31):
And Elizabeth just said, Oh,we already do it for you.
I've been doing it foryou for three years.
And they went, what?
And she goes, yeah, we just haven't sentit to you because you haven't asked for
it, but we've already been doing it.
We're already, and they went, oh, well.
That was good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
And you want more business?
You want more business?
Yeah, exactly.
Because whoever bitches a lot, sure.
We'll just take their business.
Sure.

(50:51):
There's no problem.
Opportunity.
Exactly.

Love this.
Yeah.
This is why I was soexcited to have this guy on.
So we

Joe Jurec (50:57):
normally talk about storms and stuff, but you've, you've listed
out like five or 10, we always talkabout as leaders, we charge into.
The storm like that's synonymouswith courageous leadership and such
a centerpiece to strong culture andfrom firing clients or moving on
from clients that don't fit yourvalues to getting the guy out of

(51:17):
your business to embracing change.
It's like, I think all of those arestorms where you're like, I could take
this more comfortable path, but instead,

Rob Smith (51:25):
well, I'm going to run towards it.
I was doing it rightnow and it's, it's big.
Again, and I remember Ron, we talkedthis in one of the, this is where a
lot of these things come out in theseAOS meetings because they, they.
It gives us an opportunity to get awayand bring them up, really, really go
on it, work on it instead of in it.
And one of the big ones is, okay, weneed to automate, we need to automate.

(51:47):
We need to get out of what we're doing.
We need to get it to where we,however you want to call automation.
But basically it's unattendedproduction or one person running
six machines or whatever.
So we've got to do that now.
We need to do it in the worst way.
And why do we need to do that?
Because there aren't any employees.
And they're not going to be employees.

(52:10):
The number of kids graduatingfrom high school is what?
20% less than it was 10 years ago.
Yeah.
Uh, it's not a question of, gee, youknow, that was one of the things is,
well, these kids don't want to work.
These kids don't want to work.
That's a problem.
We just, kids don't work.
No, there aren't any kids.
It's not a question.
They don't want to work.
They're all working.

(52:30):
Uh, now a lot of them aren'tworking where we'd like them to
work, but they're all working.
And, uh, so we have tofigure out a way to.
Get more out of who we havefigure out how to pay them.
Well, we want to pay them more.
We want to get them upgraded.
Let's say, and all theirskills and everything else.
And we've got to figure out a wayto take the entire company and

(52:50):
technologically leapfrog where we were.
And you talk about going intothe storm, that is a big battle.
And that is one that is going to be goingon for years to get where we want to go.
So,

so talk to, talk a little bit about.
The idea of the people side ofthis, the, the need to continue to
attract and retain great talent.
And so what sets Acutec apart from either,uh, in your region or in your industry?

Rob Smith (53:25):
Well, number one is, um, we want to be the most respected supplier.
What that does is it tells the employeesthat, you know, we're, you know, you
want to work for a first class company.
That's going to treat you first class.
It has an ESOP that has, has systems inplace where you're going to be doing stuff
cutting edge other people are not doing.

(53:48):
That's one of the reasonswe can attract people.

So you just brushed over something pretty significant.
You guys just spun up an ESOP.
Yeah, Elizabeth did

Rob Smith (53:57):
that.
Tell us what that is.
Employee Stock Ownership Plan.
And, uh...
So

why, why, why go that route?

Rob Smith (54:05):
We've always wanted to make sure that our employees felt
like they had skin in the game.
So we would do a lot of year endbonus things, things like that.
Um, and that wasn't reallycutting it as much as we thought.
It was not having the impactthat we wanted to have.
And...

(54:26):
Elizabeth did a lot of researchinto ESOPs and how they work.
And basically now it's giving theemployees ownership in the company.
And it's something that it's going to takeprobably three or four years more for them
to really recognize what that value is.
Sure.
Cause this is a long term thing.

(54:46):
Right.
Um, but as they do, it gets themto understand that, all right,
we're making a decision or we'redoing something on the shop floor.
That ultimately is goingto make them richer.
That's the idea.
Yeah.
And that, that it's the big, it's thebig picture that we want them to take.

(55:06):
The whole idea of an ESOP is, is thatyou're not just working in your area
and you're trying to make your littlearea better, but there are times in
companies where as your company getslarger, you can make your area better
to the detriment of other areas.
You're not all working in thesame direction because That's not
how you're getting being paid.

(55:27):
Whereas an ESOP is as the companydoes well, we all do well.
There is no, Oh, you'rein this department.
You're in that department.
And my department is doing really well.
And I'm going to getpaid more than you will.
As the company does well,everybody does well.
And it keeps everybody then looking atthe bigger picture as they do their jobs.
At least that's the idea.

(55:49):
It it's going to love it.
It's not something thatis an overnight thing.
This is something that is, you know,it's like I, I, I had a 20 year
plan for Elizabeth to run a company.
Well, I think she's got a 20year plan for how the employees
are vested in the company.
A good way of putting it.
That's gotta be exciting for them.
Yeah, it is.
I it.
But once they understand, once theyunderstand, fully understand, it's gonna

(56:11):
take time for them to understand it.
And, and you're really gonna start seeingthe impact maybe in four or five years
where they're starting to go, Hey, yeah,this is a, this is a really cool thing.

So what are you.
What are you most proudof in regards to Acutec?

Rob Smith (56:26):
It has a foothold in the aerospace industry.
It is well respected.
Uh, it's probably one of thelargest privately held, uh,
aerospace machine, parts machiningcompany in the United States.
Uh, it's, it's, it's, it'sgot a reputation that's good.

(56:49):
And.
You know, it, it didn't exist 30years ago, so that's kind of cool.

I mean, that doesn't suck.

Rob Smith (56:58):
Yeah.
No.
And, and, and it's the largest or nextto the largest manufacturing employer
in Crawford County, Pennsylvania.
So, I mean, it's got a big position inthe, in the jobs in the community is
very, very important to the community now.
Yeah.

So you've had, you've kind of handed the reins
off to Elizabeth here and.
You're on to rob 2.
0.
Yeah, right.
So, so what's rob doing

Rob Smith (57:29):
these?
Well, what happened was, uh, Elizabethfinally kicked me out of my office.
I have a, as you know, it was, Ihad a nice office and I read it.
It was time for me to go.
Cause I was not in the dayto day and it is time and she
needed space for other people.
So I got kicked out.
Well, yeah.
At the same time, my wife said,you're not going to be at home.

(57:53):
No way, baby.
Are you going to, am Igoing to see you around?
You're going somewhere.
Well, I had started buyingsome older buildings in
downtown Meadville to kind of.
I mean, Meadville gave us a lot.
We built Meadville.
It's time to start investingback in the community.
Earned the money there, invested there.

(58:13):
And, uh, we'd gottenthe coffee shop going.
We'd gotten a building.
Uh, I'd already, that was my first one.
We've renovated a, an old, uh,turn of the century building into
the coffee, French Greek coffee.
It was doing really well.
Um, and there was anotherold building just down the
street that, uh, was for sale.
And, I realized that the upperfloor would make a really cool

(58:36):
office and renovate the down floor.
So I bought this, this buildingand we renovated that and we have a
computer store in one half of it andthen a yoga studio in the other half.
The younger studio is really cool.
It's got these beautiful 10 ceilingsand we restored all of 10 ceilings.
Any building we buy the has10 ceilings, we restore them.
And um, the upstairs had been aloan shark's office for years and

(59:01):
he'd go up these stairs and it wasit hadn't been used for 50 years.
And so I.
And it literally had charred,charred parts of the roof that
we had, we, we rebuilt the wholething and I made it my office.
I don't mind you.
It's a, not a bad office.
It's got, it's great.
It's got it.
Yeah.
You've seen it.
Yeah.
Dining room, living room.

(59:21):
Yeah.
Kitchen, cigar lounge, man deck.
Well, man, a man cave man cave.
Yeah, it definitely.
And it's, it's nice.
It's it's.
I.
So I have a place to go every day.
Okay.
So I started working on that.
And then another thing came upand, uh, then I took another
building, renovated that.
And we now have a, uh, FrenchCreek framing and fine arts.

(59:42):
Uh, and that worked out really,that's worked out really well.
Two, two guys run that andthey're doing a great job.
And the yoga studio is doing well.
And then meanwhile, uh, Michael Reed,who runs a coffee shop and his wife and.
One day he and I were talkingabout, you know, be really cool to
distill something, or I was talkingabout it, and he just looked at me
like, you want to start distilling?

(01:00:03):
I said, yeah, and he went, I know alittle bit about that, and I went, really?
He said, yeah, you know, next thing Iknow, there's a still in the back of the
coffee shop, and we have a license, wehave this, we have that, it turns out
that I hope he doesn't get in trouble.
He's been distilling since he was 17 andout in the woods in Crawford County and
his grandfather learned the real way.
His grandfather was a distiller outin the woods in Crawford County and he

(01:00:25):
had all these old recipes and thingslike that makes a fantastic gin.
Really good.
Yes.
I've had it.

Ron Kaminski (01:00:31):
In fact, let's show this off

Rob Smith (01:00:33):
here.
Yeah.
The riffle dry gin.
We now have it.
We have a better label now.
This was the original, thiswas like a temporary label.
One of one.
Yeah.

Yeah.
So, yeah.
So what's the name ofthe, what's the brand?
So

Rob Smith (01:00:43):
we can.
The brand is Cussewago Creek Distillery.
Okay.
And you notice we've created, butthere's Cussewago Creek, which is,
runs by Acutec by the way, and,and Cussewago Creek Distillery.
And so then we, it gotto be so successful.
We decided we couldn't do it out ofthe back of the coffee shop anymore.
So I bought another old building,uh, on Water Street next to the
post office that would have beenabandoned in the turn of the century.

(01:01:06):
And we gutted that and that turned out,I think I'm really pleased with that.
That was probably my favoritein terms of how we ended up
developing that whole thing.
And he has three craft stills inthere and we've actually got a
tasting room in the back now wherewe have our, our, our barrels.
Uh, And it's doing quite well.
Um, he's making some unbelievablegin, some unbelievable vodka.

(01:01:29):
He does a maple rum.
He does a heritage rum, whichhe's, you know, ages for, for six
months and oak barrels, and it'sjust really, really good stuff.
Uh, so I'm really pleased with that.
So that's worked out well.
And then, oh yeah, by the way.
And then we just this yearintroduced, you'll have to try this.
We have to try this.
What's this?

(01:01:50):
This is Rob's rye.
This is our rye whiskey and we saidwhat kind of name do we want and of
course it's a play on the Rob Rob Roy.
Sure.
And so we came up with Rob's rye.
I Don't want to overdo thisbecause I know you have a lot
of hard stuff to do yet, but

Joe Jurec (01:02:09):
So you start the day with coffee get some yoga

Rob Smith (01:02:13):
Yeah, because we have the rest of this for the golf course

Man, that is smooth.

Rob Smith (01:02:22):
Isn't that nice?
Wow.
Isn't that nice?

Joe Jurec (01:02:24):
Yeah, we'd tell you otherwise.
It's not just because we're on camera.
No, no,

Rob Smith (01:02:27):
no, no, no.
It's big.
It wouldn't put my name on anything.
It didn't.
So are

we, are we distilling this out of the same location

Rob Smith (01:02:35):
as the gym?
Uh, no, no.
It's out of the same location.
Okay.
But what we're going to donow is, is my next project.
So I, well, delicious.
I had all the other buildings done.
I was done.
And we.
We now want to start distilling a ryewhiskey and a wheat whiskey and some,
and eventually get to a bourbon, whichrequires more space, barrel storage space.

(01:02:56):
Uh, we've got to get a new still for thewhiskey, you know, all this kind of stuff.
And there was the old, they calledthe race street lumber buildings,
uh, not too far from where Acutecis, uh, it was actually off
spring street and it's a six acre.
Four and a half acres are usable andhave, and interestingly enough, it's

(01:03:19):
where the old Beanville distillery was,and four of the old brick buildings
are still there built in 1870s.
Uh, it had been abandoned for 30 years.
It had another set of metalbuildings, which some of
them are still in good shape.
Some of them need to be torn down.
So I bought it from the historicalsociety who had bought it at sheriff

(01:03:40):
sale and they weren't going to do it.
They didn't have the capacityto do anything with it.
And I talked to them.
I know them all really well.
And I said, I will restore this.
You sell it to me at what you paidfor it and I'll buy it and I'll spend.
It's going to be a lot of money and it'sgoing to be a lot of money, uh, and we
will turn this into a destination place.

(01:04:00):
It's right at the end of wherethe, they're expanding the trails.
They have a beautiful biketrail called the Ernst Trail,
which comes into Meadville.
They're going to run the trail throughMeadville and back out again across
an old abandoned railway bridge.
And it's going to actuallyrun out to where Acutec is.
And it's going to be a beautifulbike trail and over the over French
Creek and Kosovo Creek and thewhole thing and really really slick.

(01:04:23):
And believe it or not, it's right at oneof the ends of it or right along there.
Yeah.
And it actually still has the oldrail line in the middle of the
property that extends to where theabandoned rail line was and the
rails are still there and it's yeah.
It's basically built like a square.
You have a beautiful brick building inthe middle, brick building on the left,

(01:04:44):
brick building on the right, and theright building over here, and then a
nice metal building, you know, around.
So it's basically a nice square around it.
Nice.
And it's got room forparking along the sides.
It's got room for pavilions,got room for, you name it.
And so the objective is, is to takethe square portion and that's going to
be pedestrian and we'll paving, pavingbricks and the whole thing around it.

(01:05:06):
Uh, 1 building would have largebathrooms for the whole area.
The area would have room forthe middle community theater in
the French community theater.
Both are going to take over 1 ofthe brick buildings and they're
going to use that as a theater andthey've got a big metal building,
which we'll be doing, which will.
And where they can make their sets andwhere they can do, you know, because

(01:05:27):
theaters, you have a space, then youneed a whole lot of space for all the
stuff you're going to put in the theater.
Sure.
And so have that.
And then one of the brick buildings,uh, we're just totally gutting and the
inside and it's going to be beautiful.
Nice ceilings.
Uh, you saw the ceilings are distillery.
We'll have the ceiling, someone like that.
Um, and that would be, hopefully wehave an artist co op interested in

(01:05:48):
running that and making that a, We'regoing to put a big artist using space
and then retail along there, thenanother brick, big brick building, which
a big high brick thing in the back.
We're going to put the distillery,our second distillery into there.
And that's where we're goingto do all of our brown.
Wiskeys and things like that, andgot a whole, we got a whole plan.

(01:06:08):
And

then one, you're like the Medici family of Florence, Italy.
I

Rob Smith (01:06:12):
wish.

Investing in artists, all of it, but

Rob Smith (01:06:18):
this is, but this is one of the, one of the metal buildings
is right along where the trail is.
And ideally we would, and it'sactually, it's funny, it looks like
this ram shack, it's falling apart, butthe, the, the bones are really good.
All it needs is a new metal skinand we're going to clean all that
up and ideally that would thenbecome like an outfitter's place.

(01:06:39):
You could rent bikes there, you couldget bikes repaired, you could rent
kayaks, you could do all the stuff,the outdoor stuff, and maybe it would
only be open um, you know, April 1to October 31st, that type of thing.
It would be a seasonal place laid out.
Uh, but the idea is, is that, that some ofthe buildings would have small bathrooms
for the people working in it, but thebig, Let's call it the public bathrooms.

(01:07:00):
If we, if we do concerts, I couldsee concerts being done there
and we've got the space for it.
Outdoor patios, the whole thing,you would have then like a whole
bathroom set for the whole complex.
And, uh, I've been to a couple of placesin Europe that have that, where you
basically have these old buildings aroundand then here's the bathrooms over here.
Sure.
And it works out really, really well.

You're really focused on the bathrooms.

Rob Smith (01:07:24):
Well, I am, I am because we actually don't know where, where
the sewage lines are right now.
So we're trying to,but it's kind of funny.
You, it's amazing.
You build enough of these, renovateenough of these buildings that
becomes like the focal point of whereis it, where the bathroom is going
to be and how do they have to be?
And you have to decode,you have to do this.
You have, it becomes like.

Well, you know, you have all your case in point, once
a visionary, always a visionarywell, and we're going to call it or

Rob Smith (01:07:50):
outside the organization, we're going to call it Cussewago square.
I love that.
Yeah, we were originally going to call it.
It was funny.
You talk about input from people.
When it was a couple of our good friendsthat we go sailing with, and we're talking
about, I'm talking about my vision.
And I said, I was thinking of calling,you know, it's the old distillery.
I was going to call it distillery square.
She said, ah, you know, you'regoing to put a theater in there.

(01:08:11):
You're going to have art in there.
You're going to have a lot of other stuff.
She said.
How about Cussewago square?
Cause it's right on the Cussewago Creek.
And I went, Oh yeah, that's much better.
It's a much more all encompassing.

So it sounds like the females around you help you name.

Rob Smith (01:08:26):
Yes.
All these s Oh, yes.
Well, they're all really goodat, um, oh, what did you call it?
The Elizabeth does with my things.
Oh, Polish.
Polish.
They're really good at Polish.
Yeah.
Polish the right words higher.
I need polished on everything.
. It's, it's a Polish.
Polish is, I have a visionand somebody else polishes

it.
Well, I don't know if that,that rye needs to be polished.
It's delicious.

Joe Jurec (01:08:47):
Yeah.
Chef's kiss.
Good.
I'm a fan.
I can't wait to get out and see it

Rob Smith (01:08:53):
there.
It's there for sale.
I got Michael's developed.
He's drunk.
It's got some really cool labels thathe's designed and put on there too.
Or

we're definitely going to have to do a part two of this thing.
And

Joe Jurec (01:09:04):
for, uh, I feel like you've probably got some more that you can
share with us, but you, you covered so

much.
I also want to hearElizabeth's side of this story.
Um,

Rob Smith (01:09:13):
it may be very different.
She may say.
I had to put up with theold man for fricking years.
I, God, he got into everything.
I, you know, she could, yeah.

All joking aside, you're, you're truly an inspiration.
Really enjoyed our relationship.
It's been amazing.
So, well, thank you.
So you better play well today.
It's all God.
That's,

Rob Smith (01:09:33):
that's, I'm going to let you down a lot today.
Lower expectations.
One thing that has suffered withall of my vision is my golf game.

We're just going to have fun today.
We're going to drink more.
Ron's really been

Joe Jurec (01:09:45):
working on his.
So this has been a good year for him.
Good.
Rob, thank you.
You're the man.
This is awesome.
I love getting to hear your story andlearn more about you and just have this

Rob Smith (01:09:56):
conversation.
I hope you have a really good editor.
We've got a pretty good

Joe Jurec (01:10:01):
team.
You're looking at most of them, butno, we, we, we have some ways to do it.
I love the authenticity though, right?
Of just telling your story.
It's, it's you.
And while yes, you, you've got some,some incredible people around you
to help polish even the, just likeraw form of, uh, your, your four
philosophies and things like that.

(01:10:21):
That's going to resonate with people, man.
So,

Rob Smith (01:10:23):
well, it all goes back to, and it is, is my
entire life has been this way.
I have been incredibly blessed and lucky.
I mean, luck is everything.
I mean, I think of the times.
When I took over the company, onewrong step, it would have been gone.
I think of the number of times,different times, one wrong step, one

(01:10:47):
way or another, it would have been gone.
Uh, the times I would come homefrom work and say to Nancy,
just put a pillow over my head.
Just, just, just end it now.
I mean, and, and something would happen.
That would allow things to keep going.
I mean, and then that'salways my whole life.

(01:11:09):
It's been that way.
Uh, so it's, it's all about, I'vejust been incredibly lucky and blessed

Joe Jurec (01:11:16):
to close this out.
I want to ask you one or two morequick things, any Rob isms or
catchphrases that you find yourself.
Using often with your

Rob Smith (01:11:25):
teams.
All right.
One big one that I'm nolonger allowed to use.
Um, because it shows my age and thatwas when I would describe parts and
people would say, okay, well, whatkind of envelope are we looking
at for the type of parts you say?
And I'd say, well, pretty much we don'tbuild anything bigger than a breadbox.
And I started doing, I did that afew years back and they all looked

(01:11:47):
at me like, what's a breadbox.
And you know, so I'vegot a couple of those.
It's just like.
God, are you showing your age?
Yes, we still got a bread box

Joe Jurec (01:11:57):
at home, so

Rob Smith (01:11:59):
yeah, yeah.
No, no, no.
It's actually this whole

Joe Jurec (01:12:04):
conversation where like my father in law we're talking about it this
past holiday, like, can we still get oneof these things to keep our breath fresh?

Rob Smith (01:12:12):
Elizabeth upgraded it.
Now it's it's, she'll say a microwave.
Yeah.
There we

Joe Jurec (01:12:17):
go.
Yeah.
Last thing being for any ofthe emerging leaders or folks.
Uh, let's say like early career,uh, maybe not yet at a director
level, first time managers.
I think that there's, this was chockfull of some wisdom and things that
they can action, but any kind of closingwords or words of advice, words of
wisdom that you just want to share forsomebody who's at that stage in their

Rob Smith (01:12:40):
career, um, work your ass off.
Okay.
Don't be afraid to work past five.
Don't be afraid that when someone needsyou on a weekend to figure out how to
do it, you can bitch and moan about it.
But.
Do it.
Um, do that.
Take that extra step.
And the other one is, don't wait forsomebody to tell you to do something.

(01:13:03):
You see it needs to be done.
Do it.
It, all of a sudden people around yougo, Hey, this person's taking initiative.
They're, they're doingwhat needed to be done.
Now they're on occasions whereyou're going to make a mistake.
That's okay.
You're allowed to make a mistake.
And you will make mistakes.
If you don't make, what is it?
Famous phrase.
If you don't make mistakes,you weren't doing anything.

(01:13:25):
And there's something along that line.
I'm paraphrasing the whole thing.
I know that pretty big time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Pretty big time back cover of the book.
But yeah, it's exactly,but, but that that's okay.
And then, uh, I did have one other one.
See, this is, I'm getting old,so I'm starting to losing that.
But yes, something about mistakesand, uh, oh, promote yourself.

(01:13:48):
If you want to be somewhereand you want to get into
something, let everybody know it.
Don't, don't hide under,you know, what is it?
Don't, don't hide your whateverit is, but, um, promote yourself.
I always, I always tell thestory on my old Firestone days.
And I was hired forinternational research.
That was my background.

(01:14:08):
I had my master's in it.
That's what I wanted to do.
And they hired me in.
And the first thing they did is theyput me in advertising research cause
I'd worked for an ad company and theyneeded me right there, right away.
I made sure that in my little cubicle.
Everything in my cubicle wasrelated to international research.
I let them know that was my background.
That was my interest.

(01:14:28):
That's what I wanted to do.
And I promoted the heck out of it.
Within a year I was ininternational research.
I mean, you've got to promote yourself.
Don't, don't be shy about that.
You can do it in a nice way, but.
Promote yourself.
Don't hesitate.
Love that.

I've got one more.
What's your hope for your currentand future AcuTech team members?

Rob Smith (01:14:57):
I want them to really succeed.
I want them to...
Uh, build a nice, solid, uh,and I, I don't want them to
be a billion dollar company.
I don't think that's really the objective.
And the objective is to be a reallygood, solid mid tier that they all
will gain value with and that theyall enjoy doing what they're doing.
They like to problem solve and theyenjoy problem solving and they work

(01:15:20):
as a team and they enjoy workingwith each other and have a good
quality of life because of that.
Uh, it's not always going to be, I don'tknow, roses, they're, they're going to
be times when things are going to be,there's going to be a challenge, but
they're going to take it in the rightway that, okay, this is a challenge.
Let's figure out what we have to dowith it and work as a team to do it.

(01:15:40):
I think that's a big thing.
I want them to feel comfortable with eachother and be willing to solve problems
and address things together as a team.

Love it.
Yeah.

Joe Jurec (01:15:52):
Thanks Rob.
With that, we'll, uh, make sure to link.
A lot of the things that you mentionedtoday from some of the books to Correct
me one more time on the pronunciation.
Cussewago, Cussewago, Cussewago

Rob Smith (01:16:04):
Creek distillery, Cussewago Creek distillery in the

Joe Jurec (01:16:07):
future,

Rob Smith (01:16:07):
Cussewago Square, Cussewago Square, French and French
Creek, coffee, coffee, and French

Joe Jurec (01:16:13):
Creek framing.
And if you're an aerospace and you'renot familiar with Acutec, get hip

Rob Smith (01:16:18):
judge and I and I, and I can't forget Yoga Spot Meadville.
I mean, you know, if you'reinto yoga, come to Meadville.
They got a great yoga studio.
You quarterly do a lot of that.
I . Well,

Joe Jurec (01:16:28):
quarterly.
You're the guest instructor, right?
You pop down.

Rob Smith (01:16:32):
No, they.
They, they just post pictures ofme and this is what you look like.
If you don't do yoga

bartender.

Rob Smith (01:16:40):
Now

Joe Jurec (01:16:40):
we're talking, you've been a good sport.
You got a great story andyou're an awesome human.
Thank you very much for coming

Rob Smith (01:16:45):
in today.
Thank you for inviting me.
Yeah.
All right.
That's great folks.

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S1E9: Lessons from a Life of Entrepreneurship | Rob Smith

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S1E9: Lessons from a Life of Entrepreneurship | Rob Smith