Today’s podcast is part 2 of an interview we did with John Habe IV, President of Metal Seal Precision, a machining company based in Mentor, Ohio. Listen to the podcast on the player below. Over the last several years John has grown Metal Seal Precision both organically and through major acquisitions. According to John, growing through acquisitions can be financially rewarding but does not come easily. John discussed the difficulty in buying companies, which often have emotionally attached owners. He also talked about how he calculates the buy price of a company. He looks at cashflow, often called EBITDA in…
Author: Noah Graff
Today’s podcast is part 1 of a two part interview we did with John Habe IV of Metal Seal Corporation, a machining company based in Mentor, Ohio. Scroll down to listen to the podcast. John and his two brothers own Metal Seal and several other machining companies, along with some granite countertop firms. He told us that since they purchased their father’s machining business in 1999 they have built their enterprise into one doing over $100 million in sales per year. In the interview John discussed how Metal Seal dealt with a catastrophic fire in 2014, as well as his…
In Throwback Thursday fashion, Lloyd and Noah are out of town this week, so we’re sharing one of our favorite podcasts from the past. Be sure to listen in and weigh in on the new question below. In December, we interviewed John Saunders, founder of Saunders Machine Works and the creator of the NYC CNC YouTube channel. John is an innovative entrepreneur who lives and breathes CNC machining. When he was 24 he had an idea to sell an automatically resetting steel target for practicing firearms, but he had no engineering background, no CAD experience and no machining experience. After working on a prototype…
In today’s podcast I was interviewed about a book I am writing which documents a year in which I have met at least one new person every day. I started 364 days ago when I met a guy named Tommy, working the bar at a restaurant in Chicago called the Blue Door Farm Stand. Listen to the Podcast on the player below. Over this year I estimate I have met 450 to 500 strangers. I have met people on the street, a ton of Uber drivers, and folks from all over the world. I have even been forced to call…
On today’s podcast we interviewed Jay Sauder, owner of Sauder Machine in Plymouth, Ohio. One of Sauder’s specialties is making hydraulic wheel cylinders for Amish horse-drawn buggies using sophisticated CNC equipment. Sauder and his 10 employees are all members of the Mennonite church. Earlier in his life, Jay himself drove a horse and buggy, but today he chooses to drive a pickup truck. However, all of his employees ride bicycles to work. Jay told me that the company buys used equipment almost exclusively and seldom buys a machine for a specific job. He purchases equipment when he considers it a…
I think I can learn something from anybody. I think there is a lot to be learned from James Holzhauer who has won $1,691,000 on Jeopardy and is still going strong. I don’t watch the program, but I have seen it on occasion and remember Rosie Perez in the movie White Men Can’t Jump prep for the show like her life depended on it, hoping for her chance to make a big score. It is a quiz show competition with a betting component which is the perfect combination for James Holzhauer, a 35-year-old Chicagoan who is a trivia champion, math whiz,…
Have you ever asked yourself what your purpose is when you go to work in the morning? Sometimes I wonder if I’m spending enough time making an important impact on the world, or if I’m too wrapped up in the mechanics of making deals on machine tools. In this week’s podcast we interviewed Brent Robertson of Fathom. Brent is a business philosopher and consultant. His mission is help people discover what their purpose is, beyond just making money. He has found that if he can give people purpose in what they do, it inspires those they work with and their…
In today’s podcast I interviewed Ben York, an inventor and consultant for machining companies. I met him at the 2019 Precision Machining Technology Show where his company, Theory 168, was presenting his Perfect Zero Alignment system. The system uses a camera installed in a CNC machine to set work coordinates and align and set tooling (see demonstration video below). Ben said his mission is to “take the art out of machining.” He wants machining to be easy enough so people can do it even if they don’t know the “tricks of the trade.” In the podcast Ben talks about his…
In today’s podcast we interviewed Graeme Sinclair, owner of Parish Engineering, a prominent precision machining shop in Australia. Graeme has been in the machining business for 60 years, since he served his apprenticeship at age 14. In the interview Graeme discussed the challenges faced by machine shops in Australia verses the rest of the world, his eclectic taste in CNC machines, and his passion for the game of squash. Sinclair explained that one reason he has many different types of equipment is that automotive companies have shut down their operations in Australia, meaning a lot of high volume work has disappeared.…
On today’s podcast we interviewed Ed Crowley, owner of Crowley Tool Company, a company that specializes in making custom insert form tools and quick change tooling packages for the precision machining industry. Ed explained in detail how his company has developed modular tooling that an operator can change on the fly, which can reduce set up time from days to minutes. He admits that the marketshare for form tools is shrinking as the cam multi-spindles have lost favor, but he thinks that his products will stay relevant for the foreseeable future. Question: Are you replacing your form tools with quick…