I’ve seen a lot of change in my lifetime. Cubs winning the World Series. The Berlin Wall falling. The Internet altering work and pleasure. And on my birthday this year, I read the announcement that the Jackson Park Golf Course and the old South Shore Country Club in Chicago are going to be turned into the Pebble Beach of the Midwest, and huge national golf tournaments will be played on it. Tiger Woods, at the urging of President Barack Obama, is going to design the course, which will be adjacent to the Obama Library. If Tiger does his job well…
Author: Lloyd Graff
As a headhunter who recruits in the fields of engineering and manufacturing, I can often judge in a matter of seconds whether a candidate could be a good fit for a particular position. When a resume fails to include a sentence identifying or describing the candidate’s current or former employer, he risks being eliminated for a position for which he could be eminently qualified. If the candidate has worked for a manufacturer of hula-hoops while I’m searching for a Quality Engineer with experience in the rocket launching industry it is not important for me to know about his previous employers.…
I’ve been talking to a lot of smart people and reading some well-researched material so I can pretend I know stuff that you don’t already know. One thing I really wanted to get my brain around is whether well-paying manufacturing jobs will be “coming back” to the United States. My conclusion – old jobs are not coming back, but millions of new jobs will be created. Some will pay well, others will not. People will be rewarded for being industrious, flexible, creative and well-prepared for being able to add value in the cracks where automation and artificial intelligence have not…
In the fall of 2015 Michelle and Matt Hertel gave birth to a baby girl and a 5-axis CNC milling machine in Montana. Their baby girl, Ruby, is flourishing and so is their other baby, the Pocket NC 5-axis mill, which sells for $4,000 naked, out of their small factory in Bozeman, Montana. Before they moved back to Big Sky Country where they grew up, Michelle and Matt lived in the Seattle area. Michelle was a mechanical engineer at Boeing, and Matt was a night shift machinist at Electroimpact Corporation, which makes enormous automation equipment for the aerospace industry. He…
Those Russian thieves! First they steal back Crimea, then they steal our election (maybe?), and now they are poaching our talented labor force. They are bribing our good ol’ American cowboys to help them build their latest empire—Beef! In 2010 Russia passed the Food Security Doctrine, which set a goal for the country to become self-sufficient in its food production. The country has never had a domestic beef industry, with most of its beef having to be imported. Rich Russians want easier access to a great ribeye and there is a huge opportunity to export beef to China and the…
Last week, on November 21, it was the Fortieth Anniversary of the release of Sylvester Stallone’s opus, Rocky. The news brought on a discussion between my dad and me whether Rocky is the best “sports movie” ever. After reflecting on my short list of favorite sports movies—Rocky, Major League, Rudi, and Karate Kid to name a few—I’ve come to the conclusion that indeed Rocky is my favorite. My dad argues for Bull Durham, which I’ll admit is a well-done comedy and romance that celebrates the game of baseball, but I’ve concluded that film does not follow my criteria for what…
As we head into Thanksgiving, I am using the blog to express a few of the many many things and people I am thankful for today. I am thankful for breath. Every day I thank God for the ability to breathe deeply. As someone who spent 13 straight days on a ventilator in a hospital, I take note of my ability to breathe each day. A deep breath is also my way of taking pause amidst turmoil to get my bearings. It is a way to find some peace and prepare for sleep. ****** I am thankful for my family.…
The musings of a wandering used machinery dealer. Donald Trump, real estate mogul, is killing the housing market in his first week as president-elect. Mortgage rates have bounced up to over 4%. The refi market is nauseous and near vomiting. People are dithering whether to rush in now to buy, refi or wait for the unexpected knee jerk reaction to jerk back. Fortunately, November and December are not big home buying months, but if the Fed raises interest rates in December everybody will be paying more for money, including the car sellers and buyers. ****** Interest rates may be rising…
A person can be blessed with immense natural talents, but achieving greatness takes both stubbornness and faith. I just finished reading QB, the new biography of Steve Young, the Hall Of Fame quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers during the ‘80s and ‘90s. Young’s story is inspirational because he had to struggle for so many years of his football career trapped as a backup quarterback while believing he had the talent to be a star if he could just get the opportunity to have the starting job. In his senior year of high school Steve Young had straight A’s, was…
I have been a baseball and political junkie for the last six months, reading all the statistics and scuttlebutt I could digest. I found a common thread between the two. All the stats and inside baseball were interesting and portrayed a fairly accurate picture about what was going on, but in baseball and politics there was another crucial ingredient that had to be assessed to really get what was happening. Who had the “energy,” the passion, the enduring enthusiasm? When I was watching all the “smart” people on TV and reading the erudite compilations of polling data as the election…