The concept of an ESOP to me has always seemed extraordinary yet at the same time a little hard to grasp. E-S-O-P is an acronym for Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Basically it means an employee owned company.
Our used machinery business, Graff-Pinkert, is in the process of moving its headquarters down the street this week. Right now, I am sitting outside our warehouse with Noah, looking at my beloved 35-year-old apple tree, remembering the stories of the history of Graff-Pinkert.
It all began with my grandfather Louis Graff who I never met. I just packed up his portrait photo, which we never got around to hanging on our office wall, into the back seat of my car.
Using savings to buy a 20-year-old Swiss machine that’s been sitting idle for year is a gamble. Buying one to start a machining company without any customers yet or a place to put the machine means really going ALL IN.
Today’s podcast is Part II of my interview with Dulio Arellano, founder of Premier Swiss in Addison, Illinois.
My guest on today’s show immigrated to the United States from Mexico at 18 years old, went to tech school, worked his way up in job shops, became one of the top technicians at Tornos, and then founded his own successful job shop.
Dulio Arellano is the founder of Premier Swiss, a Tornos Swiss screw machine shop in Addison, Illinois.
This week on Swarfcast, we’re sharing an interview we originally did back in 2020 with Paul Van Metre, Co-Founder of ProShop ERP.
During our discussion, Paul shares a lot of valuable and timeless information that can help your shop run more efficiently. Since we did the interview, he has also started his own podcast, called Machine Shop Mastery: https://machineshopmastery.com/about/. We invite you to give it a listen!
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On today’s show we’re talking about how to set up machine tools efficiently.
Do you ever wonder how I make a living buying and selling old iron?
Sometimes Graff-Pinkert’s used machinery business boggles our own minds too. But we have some tricks of the trade that make it possible for me to pay my mortgage, and on today’s podcast I’m going to share a few of them with you.
We’re running an episode from the Job Shop Show podcast, where I was interviewed last year.
It’s been a miserable month for electric cars. Tesla fired everybody in its charger department, Ford told us that it is losing $100,000 on every electric vehicle it sells, and Donald Trump announced he will stop the construction of new wind generators off the East Coast because he wants to save the whales.
Working in the machining industry I hear the term “lean manufacturing” mentioned a lot. But what does the word “lean” really mean in this context? And how do you implement it in your company?
To help me clarify these questions, I interviewed Matthew Rassi, founder of Twenty Helping Hands. He’s a lean manufacturing consultant who has been working in the manufacturing industry for over two decades.
I’m dealing with a customer right now who seems interested in some CNC machines Graff-Pinkert has for sale. They told me they needed this type of machine ASAP! And these machines are RARE!
They even said they had a big job for the machines already and they are on the “verge of pulling the trigger any day now.”
But then they stopped returning my phone calls. They’re ghosting me, and my crock brain is getting the best of me.
Our guest on today’s show, Howard Sheldon, grew up working in his family’s third generation precision turning company. He planned to eventually take over the business from his father, but unfortunately succession didn’t happen the way he had hoped.
Howard left his family company in his mid-30s, and 10 years ago started his own Swiss turning company, Sheldon Precision Engineering Ltd.
Howard turned out to be a natural entrepreneur, and he has built a thriving business that gives him the lifestyle he wants.