Craftsman With Character: How to Mentor the Next Generation of Machinists | Ep. 534

Every shop owner knows the workforce problem by heart. The trades got denigrated, tech ed programs got gutted, and a whole generation of kids never found out that a manufacturing career was even an option. We have all heard that speech a hundred times. What we rarely hear is a practical, repeatable way to actually fix it.

In this GenCNC series episode, we sit down with two people who built one. Dave Hataj is the second-generation owner of Edgerton Gear and the founder of Craftsman with Character, a semester-long program that pairs job shadowing with a character and worldview curriculum. Courtney Silver runs Ketchie in North Carolina, where she and her husband Andy took Dave's curriculum and launched their own version, Opportunity Knocks.

The through line is simple. Kids are starving for two things, purpose and community, and the shop floor is one of the best places on earth to give them both. Dave shares how a 2014 experiment with ten students grew into a Navy-funded program running across multiple states. Courtney shows why it is far less of a lift than you would think, roughly two hours a week for fourteen weeks with a handful of students.

We also get into the payoff owners do not expect. Reverse mentoring from young employees, a culture where machinists suddenly want to be on camera, productivity that climbs year over year, and stories like Miguel, a first-generation immigrant who fell in love with the trade, worked six to ten in the morning before school, and just bought his first home.

If you have ever done a plant tour for a school and wondered whether it actually mattered, this one reframes the whole thing. As Dave puts it, we make gears as a vehicle to invest in people.

What's Covered in this Episode (2:48) Dave on the origins of Craftsman with Character as a second-generation owner of Edgerton Gear (7:02) The Navy's two million dollar, three-year contract to take the program national (8:30) Inside the Craftsman Code, from I'm not the center of the universe to the world needs me (10:30) Why you need to head to Kennametal's booth at IMTS (11:37) Courtney on discovering Dave's work during COVID and launching Opportunity Knocks (15:25) Why it's not a big lift: twenty team members, six students, two hours a week (17:11) Continuous improvement: field trips, supply chain tours, and a Mastercam capstone part (23:31) Reverse mentoring and the young energy that re-energizes the team (24:40) Twelve years of rising productivity from more engaged, purpose