Steve Melito: Hey everybody, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now, the podcast that’s powered by FuzeHub. I’m your host, Steve Melito. Today we’re talking to Josh Espinosa and Eric Ledet of the Scale Rensselaer Accelerator in Troy, new York. Josh is the Assistant VP for RPI Ventures and Eric is the Director of RPI’s Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship. Gentlemen, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now.

Eric Ledet: Thanks for having us.

Steve Melito: Thank you Fantastic. So, Eric, I’d like to ask you the first question, if I may, and it’s really a matter of a definition what is an accelerator and how does it differ from an incubator, a term a lot of us have heard before?

Eric Ledet: Right, excellent question, and I think these terms are used frequently and I think that sometimes the definition is ambiguous when we think of sort of the life cycle of a startup company, right, a startup, a new venture, starting from idea or inception and then going all the way through to developing the technology, the product, the business, ultimately scaling it up for commercialization, whatever that is. So there’s a continuum of that entire process and typically an incubator is focused on the earlier stages of that process of evaluating the business hypothesis, figuring out whether it is truly worth it, whether there’s really an opportunity, a need in the market to create a business so that that need can be met, ultimately making the decision do we create a venture? Do we actually start a business? Do we start a company or not? Do we go in a different direction? That’s typically what an incubator does is those early stage. It’s typically a program, sometimes a facility, sometimes funding, to help enable that most early stage steps in the process. Once a company is formed and they are then working towards commercialization, then an accelerator typically takes over and so that would be for already formed ventures to come in Again, oftentimes there’s a program, oftentimes there is space for the companies to come in and ultimately work towards scaling up, getting ready for commercialization. Sometimes that’s manufacturing. Getting ready for commercialization, sometimes that’s manufacturing, sometimes it’s developing intellectual property, building out a team, all kinds of different things to get ready to actually go to market or, if they’re already on the market, to scale up and grow their business to ultimately meet the needs. So again, it’s a continuum incubator, typically the first part, accelerator, typically the second part. That is great.

Steve Melito: Thank you for answering that. Those two terms are often used interchangeably and they should not be so. Josh and Eric, let’s talk about your respective roles in the scale run-seller accelerator. Josh, we’ll start with you. What do you do to sort of drive the ball down the field here?

Josh Espinosa: So maybe just to take a step back first, I just want to maybe explain sort of the genesis of what we call OSET, which is a major new portfolio at RPI that is sort of the driving force behind this. So we actually have a new president at RPI as of a couple of years ago. His name is Marty Schmidt. He was a provost at MIT for a long time and one of the things that sort of he was instrumental in was the creation of something called the engine in Cambridge, which is a world class tough tech accelerator, essentially assisting sort of world class cutting edge technologies and ventures and basically pushing them forward, getting them to commercialization but, more importantly, linking them up with world class experts, world class facilities at MIT and partner institutes.

So when he came to RPI he realized that if we can do all that we can to raise the region, we’re going to need to really sort of embed or link RPI with sort of the broader area. And so one of the ways that we can do that and sort of help get technologies out of the laboratory and into the marketplace is to sort of give a nurturing environment for those early stage startups, give them access to high tech facilities, high tech tools, a cohort of like minded people at a similar stage in development, and so my division, RPI Ventures, which is one half of what we call OSAT. My focus primarily is making sure that we’re getting these technologies out into the world and doing everything that we can to sort of help them along, and so there’s a nice little handoff to Eric, okay.

Steve Melito: Eric, what is your role in the scale run accelerator?

Eric Ledet: Yeah, so, as Josh indicated, the accelerators intended to be part of the larger startup ecosystem here in the Capital Region and the accelerator is one piece of a much bigger puzzle and RPI is trying, as Josh indicated, is trying to fill in and provide more pieces of that puzzle and so what I do at RPI as director of the Severino Center is focusing primarily on those earlier stage ventures. Severino Center is focusing primarily on those earlier stage ventures and really working closely with the campus community and with the alumni and, as Josh indicated, with our new president there’s also a mandate for supporting the region as well, even if there’s no direct RPI affiliation, and so, within the larger ecosystem, the accelerator will be a piece of that. When the accelerator is set up, we will be working very closely. So the Severino Center and the other resources at RPI will be working very closely with the leadership of the accelerator so that we have coordinated programs, coordinated efforts to support companies of all stages and, ultimately, if we have campus-based startups that sort of graduate, if you will if they mature enough, we will send them to the accelerator. And if there are companies that show up at the accelerator, maybe they’re not ready for that program yet in their earlier stage, they can come and utilize some of the other resources that RPI provides. So in my role, I’ll be working closely with the accelerator leadership, helping with setting up coordinating programs. And then, ultimately, two pieces of the puzzle some of the programs that RPI already runs, along with the new accelerator programs to try to coordinate, provide wraparound services for startups in the whole region.

Josh Espinosa: And just two quick supplementary points just that we should probably address early. One thing that we should make clear is this accelerator will be open to the community. This is not purely a landing spot for RPI companies. We expect that a large number of the companies resident in this incubator will not be RPI grads. There’ll be, you know, people working on world-class sort of cutting-edge problems that find value in the resources that we’re going to provide. And then the other thing is that this isn’t run sort of purely out of RPI. We actually formed a separate nonprofit to run the accelerator, and so you know, just to sort of wrap up the question, so I’m a director sort of on that nonprofit and we’ll actually begin searching for the sort of proper day-to-day director very shortly.

Steve Melito: Good, Josh, I’m glad you made that point, because I wanted to ask why did RPI start an accelerator when there are so many technology accelerators in New York State already? Especially if it’s not just for RPI graduates?

Josh Espinosa: Yeah, it’s a great question. There should be a lot of different accelerators across New York State. You know it’s a large state but, more importantly, we have lots of different technologies across the state. We have lots of different types of accelerators that serve different purposes. In terms of why we decided to start one and why we’re choosing to start this type of accelerator, the answer is because we are uniquely positioned geographically and technologically to push forward companies that are working on cutting edge technologies that require access to a network of facilities and tools that they actually really need to push those technologies forward. And we’re able to do that at a place that, compared to, say, boston or New York City, is much more affordable to sort of incubate and accelerate a company here, especially given some of the sort of high capital requirements of some of these tougher tech ventures. So for us to not only be able to give an exciting, powerful landing spot for our own ventures that spin out into this accelerator, but also to really sort of nurture the ecosystem beyond RPI to give a platform to exciting, high potential startups in the region that just need access to those tools and sort of in that expertise, the more people that we can get to build their companies here, to accelerate their companies here. It’s going to benefit everyone, including RPI and all of our partners.

Steve Melito: Okay, good, and let’s talk about those partners. This is not just an RPI effort. You’ve got some other entities involved. Who are some of the other players?

Josh Espinosa: That’s right. So HBCC, Hudson Valley Community College, is sort of our earliest major partner in this, but we expect that there’s going to be a variety of additional partners, both on the academic side but also on the industry side and government as well. We frankly heard from a lot of some of the major players in the region about how excited they are that we’re doing this, about sort of how valuable of a role it will serve in the area, and we actually even got support from some major industry players when we were having our initial discussions with the county, where they expressed their own interest in sort of making sure that there was a landing spot for the startups that come out of them. Because you know, even the major corporations that exist here, a lot of them have major R&D presences here as well and you know, in some cases the technology doesn’t fit neatly in the business but they do want to see it go somewhere, and so this will be a terrific landing spot for those types of spinouts.

Steve Melito: Well, that’s interesting because, just to sort of frame my next question, at FuzeHub we often talk to startups and sometimes they want introduction to large players and sometimes the large players aren’t always that receptive to talking to a startup. It sounds like the folks that you’re working with are interested in having these conversations. How does it help them? Don’t they already have all the R&D assets they need in-house?

Josh Espinosa: I think the issue is in some cases, continuing to develop the technology in-house just doesn’t make strategic or financial sense for them. In some cases it’s because they don’t think that it serves the core business. You know, in many cases they’re going to be better off scaling outside. Maybe they need external sources of capital to drive the idea forward. The company itself may not want to invest, the major corporation may not want to invest too much in this, but they’re happy to take an equity stake in that venture and see where it goes. So I think it’s purely in cases where the technology is a little bit peripheral to the originating corporation but they still would like to see it go somewhere and I think from their perspective they like the idea of their alumni continuing to sort of stay engaged locally, continue to drive technologies forward and you know it’s good for them to bolster their own network Excellent.

Steve Melito: Eric, anything that you’d like to add?

Eric Ledet: Yeah, for sure, you know. I think when we talk about non-RPI players being involved in this, you know, to me that means both the startups that we would try to attract from the entire region. And then it also means that what you’re just talking about now, that sort of the large strategic companies and the interest that they might have here. And I think to Josh’s point, you know, the large strategics I mean almost all of these companies are always looking for new technologies. They have entire divisions and teams that are in mergers and acquisitions and, again, our region having a vibrant ecosystem for technology-based startups and then us continuing to foster that. We want to make this a hub and a home and an easy place for big companies to come and just pluck those technologies or contribute to them or have synergistic relationships with the startups that will be coming out of the accelerator and then, with respect to the startups, again, the intent with this it’s really the vision again of the RPI president, of Marty Schmidt and he is a very strong subscriber to a rising tide raises all ships, or whatever that expression is right and really that if the regional ecosystem grows and thrives, then ultimately RPI benefits from that. So if RPI can contribute to it and also help the entire region and get regional contributions to it as well, then in the end everybody wins RPI wins, rpi contributes, the region wins, the region contributes. So again, this is much more than just an RPI-focused asset. It’s really intended to be an asset for the region. Develop new technologies, develop companies, bring businesses here and have businesses grow in the region all economic development, all to further then propagate the process.

Steve Melito: Okay, makes sense. So you’ve talked about some good reasons for why startups would want to join the scale Rensselaer Accelerator. I mean, for starters, if you’re in the Albany area, troy area. There’s the matter of geography. There’s also the fact that you’ve got some large players. Why else would a startup want to join your accelerator, say, instead of going somewhere else? Josh?

Josh Espinosa: Sure. So one thing to be very clear about is we are not the right place for lots of startups In many, many cases, say, a software startup, you’d be much better off at a WeWork style, you know, sort of setup where you might have the sort of camaraderie of other early stage small businesses, but you don’t need access to the high tech tools and facilities that we’re going to offer, etc. What we’re really looking for are companies that we can make a material difference with because of the unique platform that we have, where we have access to multimillion dollar machines. We have access to quantum computing right here on campus, you know, we have access to clean rooms from a semiconductor perspective. We’re really focusing on a very unique type of company, both locally and also sort of even more broadly in the region and beyond, where they want a place where it’s affordable reasonably affordable to scale their company but where they also can get access to those extremely high-tech tools just up the road. And so the truth is, in many cases we won’t be the right place, the right landing spot for many companies, but we’re really sort of trying to craft our niche in this tougher tech, more cutting edge space.

Steve Melito: Okay, good, Eric. What are your thoughts on this?

Eric Ledet: Yeah, absolutely, and just to build on what Josh said. So really the focus of this is, quote unquote tough tech, right? So that’s the type of technology first of all, technology-based companies and secondly, companies where the things like prototyping and development require specialized equipment, require more significant funds than typically like a digital software-based technology might. This space that is being built out for the accelerator itself will have laboratory space, both wet lab and dry lab space, which is one of the things that makes this accelerator and the location very unique relative to other assets that are already available in the region, and then, as Josh said, both access to the expertise facilities, even students at RPI and at our partner institutions as well. So a lot of reasons why this becomes unique with respect to the rest of the ecosystem in the region and, quite frankly, even within New York State, and why companies would be attracted to come. If it’s a tough tech company, we’re going to be able to provide some unique resources that they probably won’t be able to get other places.

Steve Melito: That’s great. Let’s talk about the location of the accelerator. So it’s not just an RPI graduate initiative. So it’s not on campus, although you could have had it there, and it’s not even in the RPI Tech Park in East Greenbush, which a lot of people know about. It’s sited in downtown Troy. Why did you choose that as the location?

Josh Espinosa: Sure. So just to be clear, the tech park is an enormous asset for us and it absolutely does play into our vision for where these companies go just not yet. And so if you think of again sort of the timeline of some of these companies, many of them let’s say the ones that are developed originally at RPI they’ll have the opportunity to go through our incubator network and the things that Eric is building out very aggressively and very successfully here when they’re ready and sort of actually graduate, let’s say, from RPI let’s say it’s a grad student graduating from RPI. They have an idea, maybe they have a co-founder or two they just recently incorporated. They’re not ready for the tech park yet. They’re not ready for that space. What they actually need is they need a reasonably comfortable place to work. They need to be proximate to their tooling and to their advisors and, I think, typically want a vibrant place to work where they feel like they’re part of that kind of exciting ecosystem of development. That’s what we’re trying to provide for them to go from two people to 10 people, 15 people, and then by that point they are ready to actually take proper space in our tech park. You know, as some exciting companies have done in the past, like, for example, map info, where at that point you’re ready to scale to a few hundred people, and so the more of those exciting startups that we can keep in the region, because we not only provided the tooling but also the talent and ideally even the capital if we can attract sort of the right capital here to keep some of these startups here, that would be an enormous win for the region.

Steve Melito: Absolutely, and yeah, the RPI Tech Park is a great asset. I used to work at Global Spec over there many years ago and used to go to events at Pat’s Barn. It’s a great place all its own. So what’s the timeline for the rollout of the accelerator, josh?

Josh Espinosa: Sure. So we’re in the process of negotiating the lease now. We already signed the sort of key funding document with County Entity recently. The plan is to begin our hiring process for the director in the next couple of weeks. The formal opening should be Q1 of 2026. So we’re very excited for that.

Steve Melito: Okay, that’s great. So let’s talk about success and what it’s going to look like, or maybe seen another way. Where do you see the accelerator in five or 10 years? Just to put some numbers on it.

Eric Ledet: You know, I think for us, looking at it, a lot of universities will use as a metric of success for their startup programs Say how many patents were filed, how many companies were started. Those metrics, ultimately, although they might be of interest and they’re very tangible things, they do not necessarily indicate the long-term success of a company. And so what all of the programs that RPI is running and what the goals for the accelerator are long-term success for ventures? And so it really looks like for individual companies, metrics for success are in five years. Are they still viable? Have they garnered follow-on funding and investments to help move things forward? Do they have products that are commercialized? Have they brought on new employees and grown in that respect? Have they brought on new employees and grown in that respect? So ultimately, as an accelerator, we want to have the number of companies coming in, growing. We want the number of those companies that are again graduating, so to speak, from the Accelerator. We want them to be staying in the region and continuing to grow, and whether they end up in the tech park, whether they end up in downtown Troy where there’s all kinds of very interesting real estate. You know you asked the question before why Troy? Great cups of coffee and good sandwiches. You know downtown, in addition to everything else, but there is a technology corridor that’s being built in Troy. I mean, in some ways it’s been there for a while but we’re trying to help expand that, help bring a reason for companies to come. And then one of the metrics for success is how many of those are staying and growing in the region. So bringing companies in, having them be successful, having them grow and stay locally, I think those are some of the major criteria for success.

Steve Melito: Excellent. So my last question and it’s one that startups are probably we’re hoping I’m going to ask how can startups that want to participate in the Accelerator contact you? Is there a website? Is there a number they need to call? What do they do?

Josh Espinosa: I think the easiest way for now would actually be to reach out to me. You can check out the Office of Strategic Alliances and Translation website at RPI. We will eventually have you know the proper scale Rensselaer website up and you know the director will be the preferred person once we hire them, but that will probably be a couple of months from now, so I’m the best person in the interim.

Steve Melito: All right, sounds good. Josh and Eric, thanks so much for being part of New York State Manufacturing Now.

Josh Espinosa: Thanks, Steve.

Eric Ledet: Thank you.

Steve Melito: We’ve been talking to Josh Espinoza and Eric Ledet of the Scale Rensselaer Accelerator in Troy, New York, and if you’re interested in technology innovation, there’s something else I’d like to tell you about. You’re not going to want to miss this. It’s the New York State Innovation Summit. Registration for it is now open. So join us this year in beautiful Rochester, New York, in October 29th and 30th for FuzeHub’s largest event of the year. Whether you join us as an exhibitor or an attendee, you’ll get early bird pricing if you register before August 22nd. So don’t wait. How do you do it? Go to NYSinnovationsummit.com and look for the two yellow buttons. There’s one for exhibitors and one for attendees and if you missed that URL for the website, don’t worry, just email FuzeHub at info@FuzeHub.com So, on behalf of FuzeHub and New York State Manufacturing Now, this is Steve Melito signing off.

Steve Melito: Hey everybody, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now, the podcast that’s powered by FuzeHub. I’m your host, Steve Melito. Today we’re talking to Sam Newman-Plotnick, cooperative Partner at Flowering Sun Ecology Center in Ellenville, New York. Flowering Sun is a community-run project that cultivates and provides organic gourmet mushrooms using sustainable agricultural practices, and they’re also one of our 2025 Round 2 awardees for FuzeHub’s Manufacturing Grants. Sam, congratulations and welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now.Sam Newman-Plotnick: Thank you Steve for having us.

Steve Melito: It’s great to have you here, so let’s start at the very beginning. How did you become interested in mushrooms and what’s your background like, and does it all fit together somehow?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Yeah, so I was raised in the suburbs of Albany and my family they’re mainly academics. Learning was always deeply valued and kind of an obsession and I think the love of curiosity just always stuck with me. I’ve always been passionate about systems that support people in the planet. I went to Cornell and I studied industrial and labor relations. So I really focused on understanding how to build fair and equitable workplaces. So collective bargaining, arbitration, those kinds of things really implementing healthy dynamics between management and employees always resonated with me as an important thing in business. So I think that background academically really shaped how I think about cooperation and system change in a whole. My interest in mushrooms came a bit after that, but once I started learning about them I felt pretty hooked. A bit after that, but once I started learning about them I felt pretty hooked. So you know I think that mushrooms have always been ahead of their time or really were probably just late to the party. They’ve been around in human culture for thousands of years. They’ve been used in everything from medicine to food to even spiritual practice. But only recently have I begun to really understand the full potential of mushrooms. They can regenerate soil, they can connect ecosystems, they can even inspire sustainable technologies and materials like product packaging. This seemed really transformative and I just you know I really wanted to be a part of that. I feel deeply that mushrooms are a truly revolutionary new energy in the world, and so bringing all these threads together equity, ecology, my love of food and wanting to innovate something special propelled me forward, and then Flowering Sun kind of kicked into gear.

Steve Melito: That’s excellent. Mushrooms are cool, so are mushrooms the same as mycelium, or are they different?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of mycelium. So you think about mycelium as the body and the mushroom is the fruit. So essentially underground you have these intelligent fungal threaded networks that are called hyphae and they recycle nutrients, they connect plant life. You can think of it like a natural internet. Actually, scientists refer to the mycelium under the ground is the wood wide web.

Steve Melito: I love it.

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Yeah, so they’re super vital to ecosystems. And the mushrooms is just the final iteration of the whole process, when you grow them and then you bear the fruit.

Steve Melito: So, did I hear you correctly, you mentioned the word intelligent. Do they communicate somehow underground, through chemical signals or something like that?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Yeah, they recycle nutrients and they connect all the different trees essentially underneath the ground, and so a lot of the communication that happens between plant life in the forest goes through the mycelial fungal networks.

Steve Melito: Excellent. So they play a critical role in the ecosystem overall. Are mushrooms plants or are they a fungus, or are they their own category? I’ve read recently some people say yeah, they should be their own form of life.

Sam Newman-Plotnick: They’re part of the fungal kingdom. So they’re pretty similar to humans in that they breathe in oxygen, they let out CO2, but they’re in their own kingdom. So they’re pretty similar to humans in that they breathe in oxygen, they let out CO2, but they’re in their own kingdom. For sure they’re distinct from plants.

Steve Melito: They’re distinct from plants, very good. So let’s change gears a little bit and talk about Flowering Sun Ecology Center. It sounds to me like it’s more than just a business. Can you tell us about it, some of the vision behind it?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Yeah, we see Flowering Sun as a farming community, really, above all, a handful of people that are deeply committed to regenerative practices and disseminating and educating that to the local food economy and beyond. So we have a long-term vision to create a cooperative network with the neighboring farms in the local region and really creating a network, a local food system with year-round organically grown food storage crops and really increasing the food supply. We want to get into education. We’re already getting into education, but we want to get more into education and create an actual educational hub that really trains the next generation of farmers and empowers people to live in closer relationship with earth and the elements. So we see that as cleaner tech and more responsible resource practices emerge, we see opportunities to really develop cooperative, non-extractive systems that work with the natural ecosystem rather than against them. They’re not mutually exclusive. So, combining forward thinking, manufacturing and design and a cooperative network where we work with neighboring farms, even if we are distinct businesses, this is going to benefit everyone and if there’s one investment in the future, that is for sure and most people can agree on in the future, that is for sure.

Steve Melito: And most people can agree on. I would say that’s good food and community Absolutely. And you’re located in Ellenville, which is in the lower Hudson Valley, is that correct?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Yeah, we’re about an hour south of Woodstock in Kingston.

Steve Melito: Okay, and so there are lots of local farms there.

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Yeah, it’s definitely a burgeoning area for regenerative, biodynamic permaculture, all that good stuff. There are a lot of people here doing some pretty cool things.

Steve Melito: Good and you’re growing mushrooms. What types do you grow and why did you choose them?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: So we grow blue oyster, golden oyster, lion’s mane, coral tooth and we sometimes grow enoki mushrooms and when we cycle, what we add and each week usually varies, but for the most part the oysters, the lion’s mane and the coral tooth are in consistent supply, we do fresh harvests. We have a whole system where we make our blocks. We put the substrate into this computerized bagger machine. Essentially, we make our blocks, we sterilize them. So the purpose of sterilization is to kill any competing microorganisms so that when you actually put the mycelium spawn in there’s a clean growing environment. So you inoculate the spawn, you let them colonize in the racks for a few weeks, then you put them into the grow rooms and this is a very precise janitorial job Lots of cleaning and maintenance, making sure the airflow is good and making sure the CO2 levels are good, making sure the humidity is at the right percentage. So we’ve really had to dial this in over the years. In the beginning we dealt with a lot of contamination. If one thing goes wrong, things spread and the whole operation has to essentially start over. So we’ve had a lot of trial and tribulation but we’ve been dialing the code in and it feels like a good time.

Steve Melito: So tell me more about these blocks. Are they made out of wood?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: They’re made out of soy hulls and sawdust, about 50-50. And that’s it, very simple.

Steve Melito: Okay, and when you inoculate the spores, do you have to drill a hole or make a hole and put the spore inside the hole, just like a seed in the ground?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: We have essentially a sealer, a sealer machine, so we open the bag and put the mycelium in and then we seal it up and then, when we’re ready to fruit them, we cut the bags and the whole process is about one to two weeks once it’s in the fruiting chambers. Give or take, and for the most part the varieties that we work with all grow really well together. So some varieties don’t work with other varieties, but the ones we work with all can be grown together in the same space. And we have plans to scale up and invest into some facilities and grow our existing facilities. Right now we have a couple grow rooms, so we’re maxed out of production. We’re a little above a thousand pounds a week, which is a pretty good amount, but we are going to go from there.

Steve Melito: Okay, excellent. And did you say one to two weeks to grow the mushrooms? Is it that quickly?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: The whole process takes about five to seven weeks, but once they’re in the grow rooms it’s about one to two weeks. So you have to include the inoculation and the colonization period before and sterilization and making the bags. Some varieties, like reishi, can take as long as three or four months, so it really depends. Reishi is a new mushroom variety that we’re introducing. It’s a medicinal mushroom, so things are always ebbing and flowing and we’re always trying new things and experimenting.

Steve Melito: That’s good, and you and I have talked before and I grow shiitakes on logs and I remember when I first started I thought, well, I can just take some logs off of the ground in the forest, and that’s not the case, because you need to have the right kind of mushroom in there, not the other kinds that you don’t want.

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Yeah, like I said, it’s a janitorial process, so you just have to get used to that and be okay doing the deep cleaning and the deep bleaching. It’s a very humbling process.

Steve Melito: Yeah, sure, sure. So we talked a little bit about how you grow your mushrooms and now I understand how you can do this during our long upstate New York winters. Does the weather ever become a factor outside to what you do inside?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: No, all our facilities are insulated. Our lab is indoors, we have the sterilizer indoors and our grow rooms are in our greenhouse within a separate construction unit. So everything is shielded from the elements.

Steve Melito: Okay good. So let’s talk about your customers a little bit. So if I go to your website, I see you’ve got retailers, you’ve got distributors, you’ve got restaurants. What’s your business model like? I mean, do you sell directly to consumers as well, or is it mostly B2B?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Right now. In the last five plus years has been a focus on B2B, so we primarily sell to small distributors. We sell to supermarkets mainly health food oriented markets. We sell to tons of restaurants spanning New York City, the Catskills, we sell in Albany, we even sell in the Berkshires now we sell in New Paltz and Kingston and I’m sure there’s some other areas I’m forgetting. But we have a plan to launch an e-commerce operation very soon, in a couple months, so we’ll be sending out fresh mushroom chef mix boxes that will comprise three to four varieties and you can pick and choose, and so right now we’re just working on the logistics and how to ship them. So by the time they get to the customer they’re really fresh.

Steve Melito: Excellent. So, besides eating mushrooms, what can you do with them? In other words, can they be turned into useful products? You had mentioned packaging earlier, but are there other things that you can do?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: This is the part of the conversation that I’ve been most looking forward to and what I think has the most value going forward and also requires the most education for the customers out there. There’s so many mushroom supplements. The market’s pretty saturated, people think, but there are so many different types of products that you can use. Also, depending on the extraction level processes, you can make products very potent. So there’s a lot of therapeutic value in many of these mushrooms. Lion’s Mane has neurologic factors that can help with synapse connectivity and brain health. Reishi mushroom has all kinds of immune boosting properties. Maitake can purportedly help with anti-tumor, anti-cancerous properties and actually high dose Maitake extracts are being experimented on cancer patients. Right now you also have cordyceps. That is very good for physical endurance and longevity. There’s been some studies actually that show that it can help with oxygen utilization. A lot of high-level athletes take Cordyceps extract and that helps them kind of get that 10% more of a kick.

So right now we’re interested in ultrasonic technology. In essence, we are using high-frequency sound waves to rupture these very dense molecular structures inside the cell walls of mushrooms. These structures are called chitin, c-h-i-t-i-n and by and large this is where most of the bioactives are located the triterpenes, polysaccharides, beta-glucans all the compounds of interest that deliver the therapeutic impact from a number of these mushrooms that you really want. This technology is low thermal. It’s a green technology. You can use healthy solvents. You don’t need to use harsh chemicals. The extraction and efficiency is speeded up. It increases shelf life because it is leveraging nanoscience, so the particles are much smaller. I could go on and on, but essentially you’re targeting very localized forces into the cell walls, so your body is able to absorb only what it needs and nothing more. So many of the products in the market are blended or they go through maybe a single extraction process, but there are techniques out there that can get it to the next level and really deliver the therapeutic impact that consumer would want. So there are a lot of different kinds of products. There’s skincare. This is actually what we’re most looking forward to. We just launched a body butter, so this is a full body moisturizer, it’s a facial oil, it’s even a hair pomade, and so we use a number of botanical extracts, many of which can go through this process, and we use certain mushroom extractions and really increase the bioavailability. You can also get into pet products. You can get into straight up extracts, functional foods, supplements. The list goes on and on.

Steve Melito: Sure, so let’s talk about the supplements a little bit. My understanding is mushrooms are high in protein. Is that true? And then how does that compare to, say, the protein that’s available in meat or beans or some other source of food?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: So I’m a vegetarian myself. I think that a lot of vegetarians can become deficient in B vitamins because oftentimes there’s a lack of non-meat alternatives that can deliver the same protein, amino acid content. Mushroom fills in this gap very nicely. Actually, mushrooms, especially these gourmet mushrooms, especially these gourmet mushrooms have a full spectrum amino acid profile and they have really high protein and low calorie. So I would say it’s a superfood and you can texture them to mimic meat, you can bread them in panko and you can pan fry and you can put them on the grill, you can broil, you can bake. There’s so many amazing recipes out there, but I eat mushrooms a few times a week. I haven’t gotten tired of them just yet.

Steve Melito: They’re pretty amazing. So, listen, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about psilocybin containing mushrooms for medicinal purposes. What are your thoughts on that?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Look, there’s so much social and cultural baggage associated with these compounds. But when you really look into the history of them and the therapeutic benefits and all the different studies that have already been underway through MAPS, you know, with NYU and Johns Hopkins it’s clear that these mushrooms have value. Depends on the set and setting like with anything, but there’s a lot of really good evidence that shows that it can really help rewire things in the brain and the nervous system. It can allow you to soften your prefrontal cortex, which is really the egoic part in charge that creates all these stories of the past, present and future. I think we still have a lot to learn from them, but it’s clear that psilocybin has been around for thousands of years. Many different cultural traditions have used it for a variety of reasons and I think that the future is really exciting and I think we should really look into it.

Steve Melito: Excellent, so you told us a little bit about some areas that you’d like to go into in terms of mushroom-based products. What’s your vision overall for Flowering Sun Ecology Center? Where do you see it in the next five to 10 years?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Like I mentioned, I see that we want to really expand into education. We want to be educators, we want to teach people about regenerative biodynamic techniques. We want to serve as an example of how to work cooperatively. So I think there’s this illusion in the business world that to win, the other party has to lose. But when you pool your money, your resources and your decision-making power together in a way that is equal, there’s more success that can come from that. So I think it’s clear that co-ops that function and are governed well which is not always the easiest thing, but I think it’s something to strive for. Cooperative models that really value not just the business and the owners, but all the members I think can result in something really meaningful where we’re not just focused on mere profits but we’re focused on building a movement that’s endorsing a new way of living, a new way of eating, a new way of growing food, green technology, and these products are going to be really huge. We’re very, very grateful for this grant because it allows us to use some cash flow to really get started. We’ve been so focused on building up our fresh mushroom supply of the business, but when you start getting into products and you start adding value and getting more out of your raw materials, not to mention the B-grade mushrooms, the spent mushrooms that you can’t use. You can use all these raw materials and get so much more out of them, so there’s so many functional products.

Steve Melito: That’s excellent and that’s a great way to sort of ask. My last question is how can people buy your products? What’s your website and is it set up so they can go and order today if they wanted to?

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Yeah, we have our e-commerce CSA box operation starting in the summer. You can find that at floweringsun.org and you can find anything out about us through there. We also have an Instagram at floweringsun.org. We also started up a cosmetic product line. We’re really excited about this. We literally just kicked off our first product at the Empire State Expo at SUNY Cobleskill on May 2nd. So for the moment, we have a very simple landing page just to acquire some email signups, and that is truthmadeinnature.com. Two N’s truthmadeinnature.com Check us out, reach out. We’re happy to connect and we’re looking forward to the future.

Steve Melito: Awesome, Sam. Thanks so much for being on New York State Manufacturing Now.

Sam Newman-Plotnick: Thank you, Steve, it was a pleasure.

Steve Melito: We’ve been talking to Sam Newman-Plotnick, a cooperative partner at Flowering Sun Ecology Center in Ellenville, New York. Hey, if you’re interested in food and agriculture, let’s keep the conversation going. I’m inviting you to meet me in Herkimer, New York, for Vitality in the Valley. It’s where companies in the food, beverage and agriculture ecosystem connect. Vitality in the Valley begins with a reception for exhibitors on Tuesday June 3rd and is followed by the main event on Wednesday June 4th. There’s a trade show type aspect to it and this year’s keynote speaker is New York Secretary of Agriculture and Markets, Richard Ball. Whether you choose to join us as an exhibitor or an attendee, you’ll make some great connections at Vitality in the Valley. To register, go to FuzeHub.com, slash VIV2025. And if you didn’t get that, don’t worry, just email info@fuzehub.com and we’ll get you connected. So, on behalf of FuzeHub and New York State Manufacturing Now, this is Steve Melito signing off.

Steve Melito: Hey everybody, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now, the podcast that’s powered by FuzeHub. I’m your host, Steve Melito. Today we’re talking to Michael Allen, the President and co-owner of Z-Axis in Phelps, New York. Z-axis provides electronic design and manufacturing all under one roof a rare combination. Michael has been on the podcast before to talk about Z-Axis, but he’s here today to tell us about a business unit of Z-Axis called Bear Power Supplies. Michael, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now.

Michael Allen: Well, thank you for having me.

Steve Melito: It’s a pleasure, and before we begin, we’re going to talk about bear. But I’ve got to talk about birds for just a moment. I’ve got some chickens here in my home office and so, for our listeners, if you hear some bird noises, that’s not an error on your end. It’s just where things are at today. But, Michael, tell us the story of bear First of all. I’ve always loved the name. I’ve never seen any bears in the woods, though working on electronics. But why did you start Bayer? When did you do it? How does this business division fit into the big picture of what Z-Axis would like to achieve?

Michael Allen: Well, 25 years ago, z-axis was sort of in decline in its original business and we decided to get into power supplies and the idea was we had a lot of experience in power supplies, so why not, you know, go into the power supply business. And so we literally created Bear Power Supplies. You know, myself and a bunch of other people sat around the room and said we need a, we need a name. Zxs isn’t a good name for a power supply, there’s no picture. So, you know, we came up with a with the name of Bear Power Supplies. You know I had some very fundamental rules that had to have beginning of the alphabet, you know, first four or five letters preferably, and had to have a picture. And it’s worked out well. I mean, the number one Google search that finds Bear Power Supplies is literally Bear Power Supplies. They recognize our logo and my wife drew the logo. You know it’s a black bear and that’s what’s indigenous in our area in upstate New York. And so that’s how we started and it’s great and it’s a lot more creative than A1 and some of these other things I see people do to try to get to the top of the heap. So some of our listeners know what a power supply is, but other folks, like myself, couldn’t exactly sit down and design one.

Steve Melito: What is a power supply, Michael, and how does it work?

Michael Allen: So power supplies range is enormous, but you know the classic power supply people think about is you know your computer may need 5 volts or 12 volts or 3.3 volts to run, but what’s coming out of the wall is 120 volts AC or, in Europe, 240 volts AC, and so what you have to do is get from that high voltage AC down to a low voltage for your electronic circuitry to run, and so the power supply is a device that does that.

Steve Melito: I see. So if you have an incorrect power supply, I’m thinking that could be a pretty bad thing.

Michael Allen: Wrong voltage power supply could be a really bad thing, absolutely.

Steve Melito: Okay, good. So a few months ago you wrote an article for Electronic Design called what is a Rugged Power Supply, and I’ll share that link in the show notes later, but for our listeners today, what makes a power supply rugged?

Michael Allen: Well, it can mean a lot of things. You know, some of our rugged power supplies, you know, have to work over wide temperature range. You know we’ve done power supplies that have to work on the tundra, you know, minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius. Sometimes they have to be able to withstand a lot of vibration. Certainly, you know, the classic, worst case one is one on a helicopter that constant thumping can shake parts loose. So a lot of our power supplies are encapsulated so that if you drop them on the floor they don’t get hurt. So they’re filled with epoxy to make them rugged. So I’ve given you a temperature. I’ve given you, you know, mechanical ruggedness. Another reason that they may be rugged is if they’re, you know, out on a pole powering a security camera, you know that pole might get hit by lightning. So having a degree of protection against lightning would certainly add ruggedness. So that’s some of the different ways that power supplies can be rugged.

Steve Melito: Is EMI shielding part of what makes something rugged, or is that just standard?

Michael Allen: No, that’s pretty standard. You know, EMI shielding or EMI filters on systems aren’t really part of rugged. It’s just to meet the you know, the FCC requirements so that you’re not jamming people’s radios, etc.

Steve Melito: Right, and are there special cooling issues with power supplies? I was on a call yesterday with a manufacturer. They were telling me about making louvers to help cooling on power supplies and I hadn’t really thought about that. But do the power supplies you make have ways for air to flow?

Michael Allen: Yeah, every power supply is not 100% efficient. So if you are producing a power supply that’s putting out 750 watts, it may be bringing in 800 watts and that other 50 watts has to be dissipated as heat. That’s where it goes, and so you got to get rid of that 750 watt power supply. You got to get rid of 50 watts of heat, and there are multiple ways of doing that. The cheapest and classic way is put a fan on it, and that’s why everybody’s PC has a fan. It’s the cheapest and fastest way to get rid of the heat is you just blow some cool air across the circuitry and you can get rid of that heat. That does not make it rugged, though. You know fans fail. They suck in dirt, and you know so. A lot of our power supplies, even up to a we’re doing one that’s a 13 kilowatts. It has no fan. So you have to be very careful with your cooling. You know lots of big heat sinks, lots of chimney type effects to encourage just convection to take air across it. But you know there are all sorts of different ways of cooling. You know we even make some power supplies that are submerged, so they’re underwater. The ocean is a great coolant water is a very good coolant.

Steve Melito: Right. So you’ve mentioned some cases where I can see that you’d need a custom power supply, but they seem extreme. Are there lots of times when somebody needs a custom power supply, and the reason I’m asking this is there are lots of places to buy a standard power supply, including online, but bare strength seems to be really custom power supplies.

Michael Allen: Virtually 99% of the power supplies we produce are custom For your average application. 99.9% of the time you can use a standard power supply. You know every PC has a standard power supply in it. You know it’s a commodity item that’s made offshore. You know a lot of times people can just use standard power supplies, but there’s a lot of times that you can’t. There is nothing available off the shelf that’ll meet your requirements. You know we have people’s requirements that you know I must be able to drop this power supply. It’s used on a medical device and it may get dropped on the floor and if it does I want to keep my patient alive. So you may be a requirement that it can be dropped on the floor four or 500 times and still work. Well, there isn’t a single off-the-shelf power supply that can do that. So that’s an example of why you might want a custom power supply. You know we’re sort of a leader in the industry on low leakage power supplies. That’s something that’s pretty much only important for medical and you know the closer you get to somebody’s heart, the lower the leakage current is allowed. You know if the power supply is across the room from the patient then you know you can have pretty high leakage and if it’s in their vicinity, where they can touch it, you have to have lower leakage. And if, as soon as it gets internal part of the circuitry gets internal to their body, then your leakage current must be much smaller so that you don’t cause harm to the patient. So we make a lot of instruments that are powering infusion pumps, and salt water is conductive, so that’s inside the body when low leakage is important.

We also make power supplies that will power cameras that are used during surgery and by definition are internal to the patient. So again, low leakage is important and we make power supplies for different heart instruments where the instrument itself may be inside the body, and you know we have to have, you know, low leakage power supplies for that. So we really are a leader in low leakage power supplies. And there are very few CF low leakage power supplies available in the market. They just don’t exist. You know it’s pretty much forced into custom.

Steve Melito: So I’m glad you mentioned medical power supplies. I wanted to ask about that when you work with designers and you mentioned low leakage current what are some other things designers need to consider with a medical power supply? Things like proximity to the patient, I think you mentioned as well. Is there anything besides low leakage current that really is critical?

Michael Allen: Yeah, there are some requirements that if you’re connected to a patient, not only do you have to have low leakage so you don’t cause their heart to defibrillate, but if for some reason in the middle of a procedure they start having where they need to be hit with the paddles, you have to have very low capacitance to your power supply back to earth. And the reason for that is when they hit with the paddles they want the current just to go between those paddles. They don’t want you to start kicking the surgeon or something because you got some current going through the knee. So capacitance is very important and it’s really a system capacitance. So it’s not just the power supply capacitance, it’s the capacitance of the power supply plus the capacitance of the device, the instrument that my customer is producing. So we work together to decide you know a capacitance budget, how much can he have and how much can I have, and that’s very critical. And sometimes our power supplies have to have very low capacitance. I mean we have one power supply for medical application that has to be less than five picofarads of capacitance between the input and the output, which is extremely low.

Steve Melito: So Bayer is known for its expertise in medical power supplies, certainly as a custom power supply manufacturer. Are there other markets that Bayer is really looking at? I know industrial is a focus, but are there more specific parts of that industrial marketplace perhaps?

Michael Allen: Yeah, there’s a lot of industrial applications that a custom power supply might be needed. Examples are anything used in the railroad industry, you know. I mean there are circuitries in the railroad industry that are literally still working. You know relay circuits that have been in service for over 100 years, and so you know normal power supplies will have a practical life of between five and 10 years. Well, that’s completely unacceptable if you’re monitoring train traffic or control or those type of things. So for those type of things you have to use a different type of power supply or components in power supply that are much more rugged, have a much longer life, and you know that’s not available to an off-the-shelf power supply. So certainly anything in the transportation industry often requires a custom power supply and we have a lot of expertise in that.

Steve Melito: Sure, how about the aerospace industry? Is that also an area that you’re looking at?

Michael Allen: It is most of the time that’s done by very large companies, so it’s not usually the type of thing that they’re looking for smaller companies to produce. They’re going to use thousands of them and it’s a derivation on the theme of what they’ve already had. And you know, frankly, I’d rather never make the news that there’s smoke on a plane and it was caused by a fault in our power supply. So I don’t go after commercial aviation at all or military aviation. We don’t design power supplies for either of those applications.

Steve Melito: Got it. Let’s talk about Bayer Power Supplies as a business unit a little bit. So when you get an order for Bayer Power Supplies, does that customer get access to all of the expertise within Z-Axis? And you’ve made a lot of equipment investments, you’ve got a lot of engineering talent. How does that work?

Michael Allen: Yeah, so my engineering department is and the whole company is really completely integrated between Z-Axis and Bayer. So when you order a Bayer power supply it is being manufactured on the same equipment, the same one of my three surface mount lines that are placing all the parts for Z-Axis contract manufacturing and because we do, you know two thirds of the business is contract manufacturing, one third is custom power supplies. You know we get the luxury in the power supply business to have high volume equipment that you wouldn’t be able to justify for the size of Bear, and so you know we get to use high volume, fast equipment to produce our power supplies, all done right here in upstate New York.

Steve Melito: That’s right and we’ve talked about this before, but I believe you’re one of the largest users of Micronic equipment on the East Coast. Micronic is a PCB Equipment Manufacturer.

Michael Allen: Yes, we have a total of 11 pieces of equipment from Micronic, so with two more on order, you know, we have their stencil printers, we have six of their pick-and-place machines and we have four of their storage towers. Wow, and certainly you know there may be some people out there that have more equipment, but our pick-and-place machines are either the latest generation that were introduced a year ago or the second to the last generation that was issued before that, so it’s very modern equipment.

Steve Melito: And all this happening in upstate New York. You’re not too far from Rochester, out in Phelps.

Michael Allen: Yep, halfway between Rochester and Syracuse,

Steve Melito: Okay good, and how many employees do you have?

Michael Allen: About 95 today.

Steve Melito: I have a feeling you’ll be hitting that 100 mark sometime.

Michael Allen: You know I have a goal to keep below 100. It works well for our facility. You know we work with one shift by design. Every time we can’t keep up with one shift then we buy more equipment so we can. That’s how we got the six-foot-in-place machines but can place machines. And you know one shift doesn’t have the headaches of night supervisors and trying to hire engineering and it’s the other shift’s fault and I have only one shift that solves a lot of problems and makes it a great place to work.

Steve Melito: Absolutely.

Michael Allen: You know, with one shift, 95 people. We have a 32,000 square foot building and 95 people work well in that. You know, the bathrooms work well, the parking lot works well, the microwaves work well, so it’s a good sizing. So if we start getting approaching 100, I will probably figure out if there’s some low-value products that we can outsource so that I can keep us at this level, right right, and when we talked previously on a podcast, we had discussed how Z-Axis works with everyone from startups to very large manufacturers.

Steve Melito: Is that true on the bare power supply side as well?

Michael Allen: Yeah, we certainly deal with some products Companies that are just coming out with their first product on the bare power supply and two very large companies. I mean we have seven or eight different companies that we sell a custom power supply to that sell over a billion dollars a year. So you know we have a lot of large companies that are our customers.

Steve Melito: Excellent. So last question for you, Michael if somebody wants to get in touch with you about Bayer Power Supplies, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Michael Allen: We have a contact form on our website that we really do take care of. It’s not like one of these ones. We check it once a week and certainly people can always reach out to me or my sales department. You know sales at bear, b-e-a-r, p-w-r.com. It would certainly get back to people very quickly.

Steve Melito” Fantastic. Michael Allen, thank you so much for being on New York State Manufacturing Now, thank you. So we’ve been talking to Michael Allen of Z-Axis and Bear Power Supplies in Phelps, new York, and if you’d like to hear more from Michael, I hope you’ll consider joining FuzeHub for how Manufacturers Succeed at Marketing an upcoming virtual event that’s scheduled for May 14th from 12 to 1 pm. Michael will be one of our panelists and one of the things you’ll learn is how Z-Axis built a YouTube channel with over 100 videos and 6,000 subscribers. That’s right, 6,000 subscribers. To join us for this you’ll need to register, so go right now to FuzeHub.com, slash infuse-marketing-meetups, and if you didn’t get that URL, don’t worry, just email FuzeHub at info@FuzeHub.com and we’ll get you set up. So, on behalf of FuzeHub at New York State Manufacturing now, this is Steve Melito signing off.

Steve Melito: Hey everybody, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now. The podcast that’s powered by FuzeHub. I’m your host, Steve Melito. Today we’re talking to Mike Mowins, president and owner of Vetted Tech Incorporated. Vetted Tech is a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business that specializes in the additive manufacturing of metal and polymer components for the medical, automotive, defense, energy and aerospace industries. Mike, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now.

Mike Mowins: Steve, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. We’re actually located in Syracuse on Court Street Road.

Steve Melito: You are Okay. I’m glad that you mentioned that, so you’re in the heart of it all now.

Mike Mowins: Yes, we are right across the corner from Carrier and not far from Lockheed Martin and Saab.

Steve Melito: Excellent, excellent. So, Mike, you’ve had a very accomplished career. I’ll admit. I went on a LinkedIn and tried to learn about you some more, and you graduated from the US Naval Academy, earned an MBA and were the president of global licensing at Phillips Screw Company for almost 30 years. So, Mike, what made you want to start your own business?

Mike Mowins: Well, I really came to the decision to start my own business for two real reasons. One, I’d worked for Phillips Screw for 31 years and been their employee, ran the whole company for 31 years and been their employee, ran the whole company. But we had owners that did things behind the scenes. You know I ran a couple of acquisitions, did a couple of things there, but I did want to be able to go out and start my own business on my own terms. And the other thing that was really driving my desire to start the business was having a way to give back to the veteran community. I was a graduate of the Naval Academy. I never got to serve because I was NPQ at graduation, not physically qualified. I had a service disability at my graduation. So I was discharged at graduation, got my degree and was able to go on to get my MBA out of URI. But it was a way for me to give back to all of those who serve our country on a day-in, day-out basis. One, by employing an all-veteran staff and two, by focusing the work that we do here at Vetted Tech on our rural fighters and supporting the DOD and the United States overall.

Steve Melito: Excellent. So additive manufacturing, or 3D printing as it’s more often called, covers a wide range of technologies and materials, which ones does Vetted Tech specialize in?

Mike Mowins: You know that range of materials and those range of processes is growing every day. We’re seeing new and innovative ways to do additive manufacturing spring up all over, from electron beam additive manufacturing to new resin-based polymer systems, as well as what we’re seeing out of a company that we’re working with in Rochester called CBAM in their new carbon fiber reinforced takeoff from an old Xerox technology with inkjet Very interesting. We’re looking forward to working with them on some great new projects. But right now we specialize in additive manufacturing in metals utilizing direct metal laser sintering. So we’ve got a big container of powder that’s swept across the top of our build plate in very thin 40 micron layers. Our razor comes in, fuses that together in the shape of the part that we’re building and then comes in and scrapes another layer over in 40 microns and fuses that next layer. So we’re able to build very intricate, near net shaped metal parts in stainless steels and nickel alloys. But we also do what’s called fusion deposition modeling, which is essentially taking a fishing line, melting it and creating a form by squirting it out in the right shape. We utilize Markforged Systems here with our onyx and carbon fiber-reinforced onyx in a number of different ways, as well as being able to print nylon and several other types of plastics, building, useful parts for drones, fixtures, tooling all sorts of different applications. Our work in the metal area is very specialized and we have a lot of great customers there as well.

Steve Melito: Good. Now you mentioned the term micron. Is that, if I recall correctly, about one one-thousandth the size of a human hair? Is it that small?

Mike Mowins: It’s very, very thin. Yes, you’re right. You’re right in the neighborhood.

Steve Melito: Okay, good. So, Mike, do 3D printed metal parts have the same properties as the ones that are produced with subtractive manufacturing methods like CNC?

Mike Mowins: No, well, you know, in many cases we have as good and sometimes often much better properties, especially in some of the areas we’re looking at growing our business. We’ve been approached by Austal, which is in the submarine industrial base, and they’ve asked us to join their supply chain and one of the things they’re looking to us to do is to create parts for them in copper nickel, and the problem that the submarine industrial base has right now with copper nickel is that the castings that they’re buying for copper nickel parts have about a 50% failure rate because of high porosity. With additive manufacturing we’re running 99% capability with good parts almost all the time. So we are looking at parts that come off our build plate right now in our stainless steel and nickel alloys that are as good as a cast part, and if we do a process called hot isostatic press or HIP, then they’re as good as a forged part and sometimes often better.

Steve Melito: Wow, so you mentioned earlier you do some work for the government and some of your government customers are the US Army Department of Energy. Can you tell us about the parts you make for them, and are they for prototyping production or maybe both?

Mike Mowins: We do parts in both different areas for the DOE and the DOD. We have been approached. We were approached very early in starting the company by US Department of Energy’s Morgantown National Lab and they came to us and said okay, we need to build this in 316 stainless steel. It was our first great challenge. It was a contract we had with USDOE. We made some very intricate, tall parts with very thin walls and then we made what’s called a pintle and that is the center of a combustion that USDOE builds down in Morgantown and we built it probably seven or eight times over the last five years for them in a range of different materials, starting out in 316L stainless steel and making it the last time around for them in nickel alloy 718. But beyond that we’ve done trial parts and fixtures for National Surface Weapons Center, carderock, for their fatigue testing area. We do carbon fiber reinforced parts for a number of different applications within the DOD. And then we also do work with Naval Nuclear Laboratories which are all around us here in upstate New York. We’ve got the Schenectady facility, the Niskayuna facility, the Bettis lab out in Pennsylvania. So we’ve become a key supplier to a lot of their opportunities as well as supplying, you know some of our space opportunities with Blue Origin and other areas. So yeah, we’ve we see an awful lot with Sandia National Labs as well. We’ve done quite a bit for them.

Steve Melito: Good and do you do some work for non-government customers as well? Can you tell us about some of those projects and how they find you?

Mike Mowins: Absolutely. You know the customers find us in a number of different ways. Some of them approach us directly and some of us approach us through Xometry. Xometry is a nationwide clearinghouse for CNC work and additive manufacturing and we’ve worked with Xometry since 2020, and we’ve won their Manufacturing Excellence Award for the last four years. In fact, we just got our award for 2024, where we have a 100% on time, 100% quality rating with them right now. So we’ve been very fortunate to be the go-to for Xometry on anything that’s stainless steel 316, 17-4, and the nickel alloys 625 and 718. We’ve done everything for them, from making tailpipe holders for GM Racing out of high-performance nickel alloys to building parts for Blue Origin and some other key customers. We also get approached by standard industrial customers that come to us and say, hey, we’ve got an idea, we want to do this. We’re just finishing up a production run. As you heard earlier, my shop is busy, so you’re hearing a little background from them finishing up a production run. As you heard earlier, my shop is busy, so you’re hearing a little background from them. Good, they’re finishing out an order we have with TE Connectivity down in Pennsylvania building Very small, very intricate stainless steel parts that go into connectors and various probes that they do.

Steve Melito: Okay, good. Now part of what makes VETATEC different from other companies that offer 3D printing services is that you’re AS9100 and ISO 9001 2015 certified. Yes, Can you tell us how you earned those certifications and the role that the New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership played?

Mike Mowins: Certainly you know, I came out of a 31-year career at the Phillips Screw Company and I managed 140 different companies around the world, did a lot of work in the aerospace industry, was actually the small business representative on the Aerospace Industries Association Supplier Management Council. In the last three or four years I was at Phillips Screw so I was very familiar with what the aerospace industry was looking for. They’d come to me and asked if I’d make 3D printed parts for the things that we were doing with Phillips Screw. So I knew that that industry was going to be a key industry for me when I looked at additive manufacturing and starting that up as an organization, and I knew that AS9100 and my ISO 9001 were going to not only be fairly good barriers to entry by other players in this market but give us a step up versus all of our other competitors in the market if we were there first and best. And so I went out to TDO, which is our local MEP representative. Jim D’Agostino and the team over there are just absolutely fabulous. We were down in Washington DC with them about two weeks ago as their kind of poster child for what you can actually do when you partner up with an MEP, and they came in. Jim came in even before we opened the doors, walked through our facility with us and said, okay, here’s how we’re going to help you set up your shop, because we knew what machines we were going to get in, we knew how much space they took and we kind of mapped out the product flow from powder coming through the door, getting inspected, going into the backside of their facility here, going into our machines, making sure that our machines were running tight, and then going from our machines into the post-process area which is on another side of a wall to separate those two different variables. And then they actually came in and helped us write most of our quality manual. You know I’d been inspecting and looking at ISO manuals. So I knew ISO 9001. I knew AS9100. But the team at TDO, Sarah Burlingame over there, came in and helped us walk through each of those various steps, making sure that we tailored our manuals directly to our processes and directly to what we were doing.

And I’ve got to say that has really been a tremendous benefit for us because in the four years that we’ve been AS9100 certified we’ve had count them one minor finding on all of our audits and that was just. It was on our last audit and it was kind of crazy because the auditor came in, couldn’t find anything really wrong with our systems and what we were doing and he said you know, you didn’t take into account this bulletin that came out in August. We got looked at in September. That said you need to have a risk assessment for the impact of climate change in your risk assessment in your AS9100. I was like are you kidding me? He had to find something and that’s what he found. Yes, indeed, we’ve been just partnered up with TDO and the FuzeHub MEP. We partnered up with FuzeHub statewide and we’re at the Aerospace Conference in Canada as part of their project a number of years ago. We’ve worked with FuzeHub at the Innovation Summit. I mean, it’s just been a tremendous boon to what we try and do here at Vetted Tech.

Steve Melito: Oh great, and many thanks for going down to Washington DC last week for what they call Hill Day, and that’s when the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Nationwide talks to Congress, and it’s important for them to hear from manufacturers like yourself as well.

Mike Mowins: PDO and what the whole MEP system is done for us. The other thing I didn’t touch on is we partnered up with Mohawk Valley Community College and Corey Albrecht and his team out there. John Laporte was very early in our process of going towards CMMC that we want to talk about as well. But the opportunity I had to go down to DC was really timely because we were able to go down and promote the MEP partnership. But also talking about an appropriation that we are requesting through our Congress and Senate representatives for the next Mantec bill to support our warfighters even further and upgrade our shop here as well as duplicate our shop in the Far East.

Steve Melito: Good yeah, so let’s shift gears and talk about cybersecurity a bit. Your company has implemented NIST 800-171 cybersecurity protocols and is moving from CMMC-1 to CMMC-2. Why did you earn those certifications when so many other manufacturers are either wondering what the heck I’m talking about or are waiting to go after them?

Mike Mowins: When I was working at Shut Up Screw, as I said, I was the small business liaison to the Aerospace Industries Association and as part of that, I was one of the original interviewees with the DOD and the government to be asked okay, we’re going to implement cybersecurity, how do we create this and what are the swim lanes we need to be in? Now that goes all the way back into the mid 2000s, late 2000s, early 2020, early 2010s, and we actually developed the swim lanes for how you do CMMC, If you’re a manufacturer, if you’re a service bureau, if you’re doing this, if you’re doing that and so I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to be a critical part of any work we wanted to do that was going to support DOE, DOD and any of the government type of customers, and so I started very early on. When Corey Albrecht and the team over at Mohawk Valley and CCM over there started their program, I was one of the first applicants for their CMMC training program under the first round tranche of grants over there, and so we had their auditor associate company up in Watertown area come in, go through our first assessment with us. We looked at what we found and said, okay, how do we do this? And as I worked through our implementation, I knew that we didn’t want to have a very wide network because we’re a small company and we want to keep it that way to an extent. But we also want to keep a very tight lid on all of the CUI and levels above that CUI that come in and out of our company here. And we’re ITAR registered, so we’re registered into the Joint Certification Program as well. JCP in-portal, out-portal that we could control very tightly and create. That enclave where all of our CUI resided never got out into the outside world. We have internal virtual networks as opposed to one large network for the company. If you come in as a guest. It’s a very separate network within our organization from our internal organizations and almost all of our machines are hardwired so it never goes out over an open network anywhere with what we’re doing in CUI. So, CMMC, we knew it was coming. We knew it was going to be a critical stepping stone going to maintain all of our DoD business and so we got into that process very early and because I had a background in it with what I did with AIA earlier, I was able to move us along that path very quickly.

Steve Melito: Good so, Mike, one last question for you how can potential Vetted Tech customers reach you to talk about parts and projects?

Mike Mowins: Well, we’ve got a pretty active website and you can actually log into our website. We’ve got a customer portal there. All you have to do is go into the inquiry part of our portal and say I’ve got this, can you help me? But they can also call us or reach out to us via our email at any time as well. You know I get emails and inquiries coming in and out through our web portal on a regular basis, but they can also reach out to us through the local MEP, Jim D’Agostino, over at TDO. You know if he’s got another company that he’s working with that he finds needs what we do. He’s a great go-between, a great way to connect us up, and we do that with Corey Albrecht, we do that with Everton and Rika is out at FuzeHub. Overall, we work with Elena on a regular basis. It was great to go down to DC. We had a couple of customers come back through that as well. So really, by our website, our website wwww.vetted3d.com, or direct to me, m Mullins at Vetted3D.com, or inquiry at Vetted3D.com Any of those emails will get to us and get the whole process started on how we make your parts for you.

Steve Melito: Fantastic, Mike. Thanks so much for being part of New York State Manufacturing Now.

Mike Mowins: Steve, we are excited. The partnership with MEP FuzeHub TDO, Corey Albrecht and his team, john Laporte, on the CMMC side has just been a true boon to our organization here and we look forward to many more years of working with the group there.

Steve Melito: I’d love to hear, and thanks for your support of the whole MEP network. It’s really critical.

Mike Mowins: Well, their support to us is critical as well, and we truly appreciate it.

Steve Melito: Fantastic. So we’ve been talking to Mike Mowins, President and owner of Vetted Tech Incorporated in Syracuse, New York. Two of the topics that we’ve discussed today additive manufacturing and cybersecurity are important parts of some upcoming FuzeHub events. The first is our Spring 2025 Finger Lakes Cybersecurity Event in Rochester, that’s on April 17th. The second is a Rapid Tooling Workshop, also in Rochester, on July 16th. You can learn more about both events by Googling the FuzeHub Events calendar list, and I’d encourage you to sign up for the cybersecurity event soon, while space is still available. And if you missed any of that, don’t worry. Just email info at FuzeHub.com and we’ll get you the information that you need. So, on behalf of FuzeHub and New York State Manufacturing Now, this is Steve Melito signing off.

Steve Melito: Hey everybody, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now, the podcast that’s powered by FuzeHub. I’m your host, Steve Melito. Today we’re talking to Don Lynch, senior Program Manager at Train, develop, optimize, or TDO, which is the New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership Center for Central New York. We’re also talking to Pat Penfield, professor of Supply Chain Practice at Syracuse University. The topic of our talk, supply chain management, is an important one for manufacturers. Whether you’re concerned about tariffs, sustainability or just conserving precious cash, supply chain management is critical to the success of your operations. Don and Pat, welcome to New York State Manufacturing Now. Yeah, great to be here, Steve. Thank you, wonderful. So, Don, let’s start with you. Please tell us about yourself. Where did you work before joining TDO and how did your manufacturing experience shape your current supply chain focus?

Don Lynch: Thanks, Steve. I had a wonderful set of experiences in my career. I have had them so far. I’ve worked in manufacturing, performing operations roles and supply chain roles over the last 30 years prior to joining the MEP network. The last 15 years of that were with a medical device company here in the central New York area. I have been very fortunate to have joined TDO about two years ago and have had just a lot of fun working with small and medium-sized manufacturers across New York State to help them improve, among other things, their supply chain management practices. So I feel very fortunate to have an opportunity to continue to do what I enjoy doing so much.

Steve Melito: That’s fantastic and, Pat, please tell us about yourself as well. Before we began the podcast, I was having a laugh with you about how you have been on television. You’ve obviously, in addition to your education, you have many years of industry experience, including for some well-known companies. So what can you tell us?

Pat Penfield: Yeah, Steve. So prior to joining academia, I was in industry for 15 years, worked for Johnson Phillips Corporation and Raymond. I’ve got my PhD in sustainable resource management and I’ve been teaching here at the school for 20 years.

Steve Melito: All right that’s fantastic. So let’s talk supply chain management. It’s complex, but let’s try to simplify it a bit. Don, we can start with you again, In basic terms and at a high level. What’s it all about?

Don Lynch: Yeah, I thought a little bit about how to simplify something that at times can be really complex and challenging, and so I’ll take a shot at it. I think what we’re trying to do in supply chain management is to help make sure that we’re spending what’s necessary to generate revenue not more, but not less, because we can sacrifice the revenue. So, to simplify this, I think we’re trying to make sure we’re making good decisions about the money that we spend to earn revenue in a competitive marketplace, and that money is often focused on resources, materials that we purchase, services that we buy to help generate those products and or services equipment, inventory, investment and then the conversion activities what I like to call turning stuff into stuff. You know really complex terms there, but you know getting those resources in converting them into products and services that then can be sold in a competitive marketplace at a price point that’s higher than what you spent to get to that point.

Steve Melito: Absolutely, Pat, what would you like to add to that?

Pat Penfield: Yeah, I think Don’s right on. I think it’s just input, transformation, output, and so you know we’re trying to do it the lowest cost, highest quality, and you know that’s what all companies are seeking.

Steve Melito: So Don. What are some common supply chain management problems you’ve seen manufacturers struggle with, and are they different at smaller companies?

Don Lynch: I think that the issues are common. The bigger question may be the scale of the risk as you’re dealing with these issues. Some of the more common issues that I run into are lack of alignment between what is being prepared for so we get back to that discussion about spending money to prepare and win revenue in a competitive marketplace. If there’s a lack of alignment or a lack of understanding, then the money that’s being spent doesn’t always translate directly into revenue that’s earned in the marketplace, and I think that’s a common challenge everywhere. And aligning what is sometimes viewed as maybe an internal facing function operations and supply chain management with what sometimes is viewed as an external facing function sales and marketing, getting those two in alignment with each other so that you’re spending money on what will generate revenue for the company and vice versa, you’re seeking and earning revenue opportunities that the company is able to fulfill that alignment piece is probably one of the biggest common challenges that I’ve run into.

Steve Melito: Sure and Pat, you mentioned earlier that you’ve done some work for some very large companies like Raymond Corporation. How do their challenges, say, differ from smaller manufacturers and are there just some common challenges in general that you see?

Pat Penfield: Yeah, there are common challenges and I think the two areas that I think most companies are struggling with is cost and labor, especially in New York, and so this is the unfortunate thing, right? So everybody’s trying to figure out how can we do things at a lower cost, but it doesn’t help with the COVID situation that we had, and then this tariff situation that’s occurring and inflation overall, right. So I think a lot of manufacturers are struggling with that right now. So try to do the most and I think if you’re a smaller company, struggle even more because you don’t have that economies of scale, and so it just makes it more and more difficult to be able to just recover from a cost standpoint. And labor, labor is a big issue. Everybody’s struggling with labor, trying to get good people. So I think it’s harder for the smaller companies to get great people because they don’t have the resources and the wherewithal that some of these large companies have, you know, in offering just great salaries.

Steve Melito: So I think there was, you know, just this issue that’s been percolating within the supply chain, you know, with these two areas in general, yeah, it’s an interesting one to think about workforces related to supply chain, and I think it’s sometimes siloed the way that people think about it, but you’ve both made a great point that it is indeed going to affect a lot of things. So part of the reason that you’re both here today is to talk about a pretty helpful program that the New York State Manufacturing Extension Partnership is running. It’s called Supply Chain Initiatives and it can provide help to companies. So, don, we can start with you again. What is this program about?

Don Lynch: Thanks, Steve. There’s some funding that is coming from our federal sister organization, the National Institute of Science and Technology. There’s funding that’s provided under the CHIPS and Science Act and that has resulted in some state awards happening across the country for states to help small and medium-sized manufacturers improve their competitiveness through improving their supply chain management practices. So here in New York we’ve got several things that we’re doing to deploy this funding in a way that benefits small and medium-sized manufacturers. The first is we’re running a supplier scouting program. So we have a set of very talented resources within our MEP network that we’re leveraging and some tools and processes to help us help companies find better suppliers. This could be because there is some type of a quality or delivery issue with an existing supplier. It could be a new technology that the current supply base can’t provide. It could be a risk management play to help reduce the risk of a single or sole source supplier, or maybe a supplier that may be coming from a long distance away, outside of the country. So those types of situations are all leading companies to look for new suppliers and we can help with that by searching, evaluating suppliers, screening them and confirming that they’re able to meet a manufacturer’s requirements and they’re interested in doing business with that manufacturer. So we’re doing literally dozens of those requests every week for companies right now and really helping, I think, a lot of companies align with a better and stronger supply base than they had before. The second program that we’re running is called a supply chain assessment, and so we are meeting with small and medium-sized manufacturers to evaluate their current supply chain management practices versus a set of 59 best practices that I’ve curated over 30 years of making mistakes in my career, lots of lessons learned that I’m happy to share with folks in that space. Not every best practice applies to every company, so that’s a big part of the conversation is what are you doing today? Why are you doing that? Have you considered these best practices? If they apply? We’ll try to boil that down to a small set of prioritized recommendations that we’ll share with the company and then come back and try to help with some implementation under the grant funding. And the third program that we’re running, which I’m very excited to be doing in partnership with Pat, is we’re offering a series of supply chain and strategic sourcing workshops that are subsidized by grant funding so we’re able to create access to these very high quality programs to help companies improve their skill set in supply chain management with their people, and so we’ve completed one of three workshops. We have two more scheduled between now and the end of the grant period, which is scheduled to end in May of this year.

Steve Melito: Okay, great, and that’s a nice segue down over to Pat and Pat, you’re an important part of this effort, especially in terms of the instruction, important part of this effort, especially in terms of the instruction. Can you tell us a little bit about this Supply Chain Initiative program and how it can help manufacturers?

Pat Penfield: Yeah, what we’re trying to do, Steve, is again teach people certain processes, certain techniques, certain tools, and really that’s the whole. Goal is, again, education. How can we make them get better at what they do right? And that’s really what you want to do Right. Just learn, you know, try to grow. And these are great classes. You know. The first one we had was just on an introduction to supply chain management. Again, just to kind of reiterate and talk about you know what processes are and you know we looked at various things that are happening today and trying to figure out. You know how do we deal with tariffs, these cost increases. You know what do we have to do in order to make sure the supply chain is stable, whole, and you know you’re not dealing with issues and problems. That’s really kind of what we talk about. Then we talk about tools that you can use. You know that TDO offers and you know very exciting and then our next two are going to be on sourcing right, very, very key and very critical these days, especially with this tariff situation that’s going on, you know, on in our country. And so, again, if you’re a sourcing person, you’re really very, I’m sure, very anxious and very concerned about these potential tariff impacts, because that’s a cost that they’ll be bearing. So I think the other thing which is nice about this class it works hand in hand with what Don’s doing, and Don is by far one of the best supply chain professionals in the country not the state in the country and so a lot of your listeners. They’d be very, very fortunate to work with Don because he is one of the best, and so this is kind of the neat thing these work hand in hand right. So we’re going to teach you some things and Don’s going to hopefully help them implement those things, and that’s ideally what this whole thing’s all about is getting better at what we do.

Steve Melito: Good. One of the terms you mentioned, don, was supplier scouting, and it makes me think about a time when it seemed like you could just go to Google and do a search and come up with a great list of suppliers. And if that couldn’t do it, then you’d go to say ThomasNet or GlobalNet or GlobalSpec or some industrial search engine and look there. That just doesn’t work as well as we’d like it to in theory. So what does the term supplier scouting mean and what’s the value that MEP centers can bring to this process?

Don Lynch: Yeah, I think it’s a great observation and a great comparison to make. It seems easy, but it’s not. One of the things that I learned from Pat very early in my career was this is a relationship business. You have relationships that facilitate effective communication, and what I mean by that you know it’s a broad term but helping to make sure that both the suppliers completely and thoroughly understand what they need to do to meet their customers’ needs and, vice versa, that the customers are completely and thoroughly explaining to suppliers what they need. So a lot of this process is gaining an understanding of what’s required for a supplier to successfully meet the needs of a small or medium-sized manufacturer and then trying to, at least preliminarily during the scouting process, identify if they’re able to meet those. So I think that’s kind of the first step is what do you need? So we have what we call an intake session with a small or medium-sized manufacturer and we try to capture what those requirements are. It’s not uncommon to have that first discussion result in a second or third follow-up to clarify, because we really want to understand exactly what the challenge is. That’s not being met and then picking up the phone and talking to people. Yes, those tools that you mentioned are part of our process. We’re clearly trying to take advantage of any technology that we can to make this as efficient as possible. But, if you will, that’s a starting point. That’s a list of contacts to make and then we pick up the phone and we start talking to people. This is what we need. This is what we’re trying to help with. These are some of the challenges that the current suppliers are having meeting that need. Is this something that you think you might be able to help them with? If not, that’s great. Now we know nine out of 10 times we will ask that supplier do you know someone that might be able to do this? And we’ll get an answer. And that’s really valuable. You don’t get that from a Google search or from a ThomasNet search Not that those aren’t great tools they are. But that conversation helps get you into that next level of nuance of maybe what specifically the supplier can provide that the manufacturer may need or not. And then, because we’re all part of a network of people, they’re often able to help us if they’re not the right ones and they’re usually very upfront about. You know, we don’t want to get into something that isn’t going to be successful either. So having that conversation upfront and really leveraging the relationship aspects of that help us to, I think, connect suppliers that are of a higher caliber, more capable than perhaps what the manufacturer is working with today, and that ultimately helps them become more competitive.

Steve Melito: Right and Pat, what do you think it takes for a manufacturer to be successful at supplier scouting? Certainly, there’s a need to really roll up your sleeves, but are there certain skills that someone would need to have to be good at this?

Pat Penfield: Yeah, I think what Don had just stated right, it’s that process. You know, having a process in place, you know, being able to understand exactly how to do it is really key and very important. I think what Don had just stated makes perfect sense. But again, if I was one of your listeners, if I was a manufacturer, I’d be working with Don just to learn the process. Once you have the process, then you know you can go ahead and start doing that stuff on your own. But that’s the great thing about Don and his organization They’ll teach people how to use that process and I think once you’ve done that, then you can go ahead and do your own supplier scouting. It’s not a hard process, it’s just a process you have to learn right and so you know. The neat thing about Don’s experience is he’s done this before. He knows how it works, he knows how to implement it and then he can show you, know these companies, how to do so. And if you do that, that’s how you can improve and get better. You know from a supplier scouting standpoint.

Steve Melito: Good. Let’s talk about the training workshops a little bit. You had both mentioned some of the topics that are covered, but when you say training workshop, people have an image that pops into their mind and I’m wondering what is it like? Is it classroom style? Do you listen all day? Do you do hands-on exercises? Maybe some of both? How long does it last? What can you tell us, don?

Don Lynch: Actually I’m a head sort of pad. This is his area of expertise.

Pat Penfield: Yeah, the workshops are over two days, so three hours on Zoom, right, and so we realize that it’s difficult for people to be on Zoom for three hours. So you’re not just going to be listening to me, you’re going to be watching videos, we’re going to be discussing articles, we’re going to be doing some actual cases, we’re going to be working on some tools, and so you know, the goal is to get smarter at what you do and then, hopefully, give them some tools that they can incorporate and use. Right, and that’s the whole goal. We want people to come away from the workshops with something that they can actually use and implement, and that’s truly what we’re striving to have happen, and it’s so needed today.

Steve Melito: Good and Pat, how can somebody find these workshops online? Don, maybe same question for you. Are they on a TDO website? Are they somewhere else? I’m going to defer that to Don first.

Don Lynch: Yeah, so the first thing we always try to do with this process is direct people to their local MEP center. There is a network of folks that are just passionate and skilled about helping small and medium-sized manufacturers succeed. FuzeHub is one of those organizations in New York State that we’re very lucky to be able to work with. There are 10 other MEP centers. Each MEP center has that contact information on how to register and FuzeHub also has some information on their website about this. So those are all sources to find this Similar to the scouting process. We want to make sure it’s a good fit. We don’t necessarily want to encourage someone to attend a workshop that they’re not going to get value out of. So we’re doing our promotional efforts through the local MEP centers and relying on their expertise to try to contact manufacturers that they have relationships with that they feel will get the most benefit from this. So that was very successful in our first workshop and we’re continuing that for the remaining two workshops. Okay, good, and the next one is in March. Next one is in March, that’ll be on strategic sourcing, and then in May we’ll have the final of the three workshop series on advanced strategic sourcing.

Steve Melito: Okay, great, and just for our listeners, if you don’t know who your local MEP center is, I would encourage you to reach out to FuzeHub and we’ll get you to the right person in the right place. That’s what we’re here for. Last question for you both what types of companies should apply to be part of the Supply Chain Initiatives Program? The reason I ask that is there’s probably somebody who’s out there saying I’m too small, or maybe I’m too big, or it’s sort of like the whole Goldilocks thing Like what’s right, what, I’m too big, or it’s sort of like the whole Goldilocks thing Like what’s right? What’s the porridge that’s going to taste the best here?

Pat Penfield: You know, honestly, it’s for everyone. You know that’s the thing Small, medium sized, large companies. You know there’s always something that you can learn and, trust me, we would not waste our time with these classes. You know, and that’s the goal Again always to come away with something you know able to employ.

Don Lynch: Yeah, and I just want to echo what Pat said there. These classes give people an opportunity to learn from. You know, from my opinion, one of the best supply chain management academic institutions in the country Syracuse University and then having Pat a professor of practice in that program who has had both manufacturing and work experience and a lot of academic training and studies and a lot of experience delivering these types of programs effectively. So it’s a tremendous opportunity for New York State manufacturers to tap into this talent that exists right here in our own community.

Steve Melito: Fantastic and Don and Pat thanks so much for being part of New York State Manufacturing Now.

Don Lynch: Appreciate it, Steve. Thanks for having us.

Pat Penfield: Yes, thank you, Steve, nice to talk to you again.

Steve Melito: You bet. So we’ve been talking to Don Lynch, senior Project Manager at TDO, and also with Pat Penfield, professor of Supply Chain Practice at Syracuse University. The topic of today’s talk, supply chain management, is one that small to medium manufacturers can’t afford to ignore. But here’s something else that will grab your attention as well. Manufacturing is the most attacked industry by cyber criminals, and many small to medium manufacturers who are attacked unfortunately don’t recover. The New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership can help you to strengthen your cyber defenses. That’s why FuzeHub is organizing the Spring 2025 Finger Lake Cybersecurity Event in Rochester on April 17th. For more information, email info at FuzeHub.com. On behalf of FuzeHub and New York State Manufacturing. Now this is Steve Melito signing off.