Josh Hacko is a fourth generation watchmaker. He says he was born into his vocation, but in reality his work is truly his own.
Josh is Technical Director of two sister companies, NH Micro and Nicholas Hacko Watchmaker, which manufactures high-end wrist watches in Sydney, Australia, that can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
This podcast has been going for five years now, and those people who listen to it frequently might be tired of the Graff-Pinkert ad at the beginning of the show. I was tired of it, so I finally created a new ad.
For people who are listening to this show for the first time, I’m a used machine tool dealer with a family business called Graff-Pinkert. We specialize in selling equipment for the precision machining industry.
Editor’s Note: This podcast was recorded in Spring of 2022. Tyler has now been retired for over 2 years, and Noah is the proud father of a 1 year old.
In early 2022, Tyler Jarosz sent me an email to ask if Graff-Pinkert would be interested in a used little parts washer he no longer needed in his machine shop. He found out about Graff-Pinkert from listening to Swarfcast, which I’m proud to say is the only podcast he has ever listened to.
Seems like right now every podcast is doing an interview centered around artificial intelligence.
But I waited until I found the right story, one that was truly relevant to our audience in the machining world.
Today’s guest on the podcast, George Konidaris, is the cofounder of the startup, Realtime Robotics. He is also a professor of Computer Science and the director of the Intelligent Robot Lab at Brown University.
Last week, I heard a story about an old customer of Graff-Pinkert who lost three key machinists because a shop down the street was paying more. It led me to make a post on Linkedin, asking if machinists and setup people were paid enough to attract young people to the machining field. On the whole, commenters vented that they were not compensated what they felt they deserved working in the machining industry. The post has 53 comments so far (I’m usually lucky to get one).
Today’s guest on the podcast is Jayme Rahz, CEO of Midway Swiss Turn, a small precision machining job shop in Wooster, Ohio.
In November of 2015, our used machine tool company, Graff-Pinkert, bought a Schütte S32PC, mfd. 2002, in Cologne, Germany, from a dealer we didn’t know. It was a nice looking machine. A big 32mm CNC Multi-Spindle, painted red and cream because it came out of a Mercedes factory. We were excited to bring the machine to the US until the seller allowed it to get wet when he put it outside in a rainstorm.
Please visit www.bcbsil.com to access machine-readable files that are made available in response to the federal Transparency in Coverage Rule and includes negotiated service rates and out-of-network allowed amounts between health plans and healthcare providers. The machine-readable files are formatted to allow researchers, regulators, and application developers to more easily access and analyze data.
