Episode #212 – The Price Of Eggs

 

The fastener industry powers ahead amid unsettling tariff news, cyber warfare and sky high egg prices. Martin Fastening Supply EVP Scott McDaniel joins newsman Mike McNulty to sift through the surprising FDI numbers on the Fastener News Report (29:22). From his new operating base in Malaysia, Würth EVP Asia-Pacific Dee Ward shares a very different viewpoint, as he drives growth while patiently waiting for baseball season to begin (8:58). On the Fastener Training Minute, Carmen Vertullo cautions on a simple but critical difference in an important ASTM vs. ASME standard (1:01:23). BONUS: Marco Rodriguez of Cresa presents his quarterly warehouse space leasing report. Brian and Eric watch for a black swan, and hope it will lay a few eggs. Run time: 01:13:23.

—

Listen to the podcast here

 

The Price Of Eggs

Did you get any fan mail after that last one, Brian?

No, I don’t really get much fan mail anyway.

 You probably do, but you just don’t check your email very often is the thing.

I check it often enough.

That’s what I’m thinking. I know you’re not out on Twitter at all. The outage makes no difference to you whatsoever, but a lot of the world was up in arms because of the cyber war going on out there. Did you get any reason to think that was a thing Bri?

You told me, so I am very aware of it, but I’m saying that Twitter’s not the only company that’s had problems with attacks lately. There are plenty of them.

Yes, you’re telling me. We’re not going to get into that too much on this episode 212. We’re going to drop this one on March 11th, 2025, right before we head off to the Pacific West Tabletop. We’re going to jam in a fast episode in our new condensed format. Of course, the fastener industry is talking nonstop about the tariff situation and the fallout there. Fastener Technology International editor Mike McNulty’s got Scott McDaniel with Martin on with him in this episode. They’re going to go over the latest FTI and if you don’t think the tariff news was playing into the latest report, maybe you didn’t see it yet.

Yeah, maybe. How could you not be aware of it?

Actually, the base number isn’t too bad, but forward-looking sentiments may be getting a little wobbly because of that. Anyway, Mike and Scott go over that. Plus, Marco Rodriguez with Cresa has his quarterly industrial warehouse space leasing report for us on the Fastener News Report. Carmen will help us to bring out our inner Joe Greenslade as he presents another Fastener Training Minute. This time, it’s an extremely short episode and he’s going to explain to you why you have to be really careful if you’re dealing with an ASTM versus an SA 193 or 194.

ASME. Yes, I know. Very confusing.

These deal with very specific high-pressure situations. He’s handling a problem that a client has right now on that. We squeezed in a training minute about that.

Yes, it’s very confusing actually. Very easy to slip past and just think ASDMA 193 and ASEA 193. I have fallen into that trap.

Don’t be like Brian, folks, listening to Carmen. We’ll kick things off with a conversation with our friend Dee Ward. You might recall he’s based in Malaysia these days, but he finds himself jaunting all over that part of the world in his current role as Senior Vice President Asia Pacific and Africa for Wurth Industry.

He’s used to living in different places.

That’s right. He’s a globe trotter and I thought it would be good to catch up with him. Just to say hello, but also, I wanted to see what the perspective on all this tariff bruhaha is from a different part of the world. We cover that on this segment with Dee. Further to the tariff issue, Bri, and to the readers, actually, if you’ve been doom surfing the headlines lately and the field of pessimism setting in, like you’re seeing a clear picture emerging and you don’t really like it, stick around to the final segment. We’ll take a look at a time in the not-too-distant past when one of the smartest people on the planet. Bri got it wrong.

I would hope he would be able to not get it wrong about imposing tariffs because I think looking at lots of things, including the share market, the view is not that positive.

The point is you really never know what’s right around the corner. Anyway, there’s hope.

Good, I’m glad.

This story will attempt to underscore.

Good. I’m ever hopeful.

We hope you enjoy the show and that you’ll let our partners know you appreciate them making it possible for us to bring it to you. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Brighton Best International, tested, tried, true. Brighton Best. Goebel Fasteners, Quality The First Time. Go Goebel. Star Stainless. Right off the shelf, it’s Star.

Fully Threaded is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners and the Ohio Nut and Bolt Company, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Fastener Technology International, INxSQL Software, Fastener Fair USA, J. Lanfranco, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Wurth Industry USA. You can send Brian some email, but he probably won’t see it. Send it off to FTR@FullyThreadedRadio.com. I’ll forward it over to him.

It’s possible that Brian@FastenerClearingHouse.com isn’t really directing quite properly, but whatever.

Always a possibility. However, we’re both out there on LinkedIn. That’s another surefire way. If you want to ring our bell. Of course, we got some nice little updates happening on the FullyThreaded.com website, cleaning that up after looking suboptimal for a while since we moved over to the new platform. One of our buddies is helping us out there and it’s looking a little smoother these days. A slow but sure progress and I guess that’s the way we do it around here.

Hopefully not quite so slow, but very sure.

That’s true, Bri. We should be going faster. I’ll tell you, if you like speed, you’re going to like the NASCAR simulator at Fastener Fair USA.

Yeah, I saw that.

Craig Penland and Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, they’re celebrating their anniversary by sponsoring the NASCAR simulator at Fastener Fair. Pretty much all our partners are going to be out there, Brian. I was scanning down the exhibitor list and it looks like it’s shaping up to be another great event. I got a call from Marty Nolan and he’s doing his magic in the after-hours department. Many of you who have been attending Fastener Fair and Vegas know that there’s usually somewhere, usually the night of or the night before the show starts, there’s a Marty party somewhere. That’s brewing right now. We’ll get the word out to you when all that gets settled. Fastener Fair. USA NASCAR. It’ll be here before we know it.

Yeah, time is flying. You are right.

That is true for this episode as well, folks. We sure do appreciate you clicking in. Let’s jump over to this conversation with Dee Ward.

—

Dee Ward’s back with us. Dee, great to speak with you again.

Thanks for having me on again.

It’s been several months, it seems longer, but you’ve traveled many miles since we last spoke over there in Malaysia, I guess you are right now. You just spent your first Chinese New Year’s over there. What was that like?

Loud, exciting. Yeah, it was funny, we came back for Christmas just for two weeks. We flew back from Asia to Florida, to home. My oldest son had just graduated from Marine Corps bootcamp and so I was able to reconnect with him after thirteen weeks in bootcamp. He was able to come home for a week and so got to connect with him.

We flew back on the 30th of December and on the way back to Asia, you lose an entire day. When we landed, it was already January 1st, so we missed the New Year excitement then. At the end of January, we had the Chinese New Year and that was super exciting. The neighbor threw a block party, had a lion dance, catering, the whole nine yards. It was a lot of fun. Week-long of fireworks and booms. My dog absolutely hated it.

Some things are universal, aren’t they?

That’s right. It was a good time. It was a lot of excitement.

Was it a hard time getting your dog over there when you moved to Asia? I never thought of that.

Brutal. The amount of paperwork for the dog was probably more than it was for me and my family.

I never thought of that. I’m sure you’re having a lot of fun and learning lots of new things, but what a great way to kick everything off. I’m sure you’re not as bothered by the tariffs as a lot of folks reading this because you’re not exporting to the US mostly from what I understand, but what reactions are you measuring from people around there with the word of the new tariffs? I could tell you, it’s all that’s buzzing around here.

US Election & Global Impact

I remember we went through this in I think 2016. I remember when all that came through and I remember the chaos that ensued with it. From our side here in Asia, it’s really not a topic. It’s not a hot topic, I’ll put it that way. It does come into play sometimes, but it’s pretty quiet. Actually, the presidential election was a lot bigger buzz just because of the impact globally that the US has when we have an election year. That was the hot topic. Since then, the tariffs have been pretty quiet. Not a lot from my side other than just trying to relay back to our team members there in the US any information that I hear or see here in Asia.

You say there was a lot of attention paid to the US election, and that’s not surprising because, let’s face it, we’ve got our fingers and everything. With all the headlines with DOGE and all this going on right now, is that getting any ripples out there?

No. For the most part, when you reside outside of the US, as a US citizen, obviously you resonate with it. You check news media and whatnot to keep up to date. For those that aren’t US citizens that are living abroad, other expats, I think they see it, they don’t fully understand it in a lot of ways as an American would. There’s always a conversation piece to be had because an American will fully understand it, having lived there, grown up there, whatever.

For those that haven’t, there’s almost like you have to bridge the gap to explain a little bit in further detail because all they see is what the news media gives, and sometimes that’s not the full story. There’s been really good conversations around that. A full understanding, I wouldn’t go that far, but it does open up a lot of conversations.

Likewise, there was some fairly dramatic election results out of Germany. Does that get resonance there also?

For us, it does. Obviously, being a German-owned company, it majorly impacts what happens inside of the headquarters. I’ll reiterate what I said about the US. I don’t fully understand everything that happens in Germany. I just see what the news media gives, but I’ve yet to have full conversations with those inside of Germany to get their opinion and to get their take on it. I think there’s a lot of value in doing that. For right now, it doesn’t really impact. We’ll see what happens. I’m sure it will at some point. Positive or negative, from my side, I don’t know yet.

I’m guessing that you’re going to see a little evidence of tariffs, if not from direct disruptions to your business then for sure, with US suppliers going to India to look at possible new sources. I’ve been talking with some suppliers from here, they’re getting a lot of pressure from their customers to make sure they’ve got redundancies in place. You never know. Some of them are looking closely at India now. Do you see any evidence of that?

India’s Growth & Localization

Yeah, absolutely. Really, in Asia, it’s a really hard focus on localization. It happened in China during COVID. A lot of foreign direct investors left, and so therefore, the entire market shifted in China to where they were really focusing on how to localize from suppliers investors, etc. The same thing is happening in India. The difference is right now, India is on a 7% growth rate, and so you’ve got the power of the growth rate plus the localization.

 

The government in India has actually put out several things regarding fastener specific to where distributors have to buy inside of India based on the product and/or the volume. What that’s done is opened up a wide array of suppliers to jump in and enhance their capacity. We’re doing it inside of our company in India right now. We’re actually trying to expand the supplier market. It’s no different than globally. Everybody’s looking to India to see what are the capacities? What can we do? How can we grow it?

Are you making it yourself to India these days?

Yeah, I was there back in October. I’ve got another trip planned, I think, here in the next few weeks. I don’t have it scheduled yet, but we’ve got two brick and mortar locations in India. I’ve got sales teams all throughout the country. I’ll usually fly into Delhi, it’s the easiest route from Kuala Lumpur to Delhi, to see some of the sales guys there, and then make my way to Pune, which is where our office is. We also have a facility in Chennai.

Getting those frequent flyer miles there, Dee.

Always. Vietnam this week and Bangkok the next, and I’ll be in China in the end of the month. In March, I’ll be in Australia for a week. Yeah, definitely on the move.

You’re seeing a lot of new things. Let me ask you this, since you’ve taken on your new role with Wurth, what’s the biggest surprise that you’ve had?

I told the team here before I came, “I’m an American and there’s nothing that I can do to ever be Asian, but I will try my best to be Asian.” It is the same thing when we lived in Brazil for three years and loved living in Brazil. I had an absolute blast. It’s a great culture, but I was never Brazilian, but I tried my best to be Brazilian. Coming here, because I have 13 companies that I oversee, and they’re in 11 different countries. The biggest surprise for me is just how diverse we are. Even in Asia, from an American concept, you can put Asia in a box, and it’s not like that at all.

It’s so different from country to country not just the culture, but even actually how you do business is way different. If you take Japan, for example, we just opened a company in Japan, and the culture and the way that business is conducted in Japan is far different than it is here in Malaysia. That’s one of the biggest surprises, I guess, you would say, how to navigate doing business along with the culture aspect.

It's so different from country to country, not just the culture, but also how you actually do business is different. Share on X

I could see that. The culture outside the US to some people is just one big monolith, but clearly, that’s not really the way the world is. Getting back to this comment you made about trying to be Brazilian in Brazil, I remember on an earlier episode, you were telling us didn’t your kids pick up Portuguese while you were there?

Yeah. My wife and I are both fluent in Portuguese. Once you hit a certain language level, you retain that as an adult. My kids were so young, they were 5, 3 and newborn.

They were raised on it.

We were only there for three years, but they picked it up so fast, and then once we got back to the US, they lost it just as fast. It’s incredible how fast kids pick things up, especially with the language when they’re young.

You also are fluent in the language of baseball. Here in North America, baseball season’s right around the corner. Of course, you’re hardcore and you’ve done a lot of coaching. In your current role, or I don’t know, are you going to be able to find time even to do any coaching over there?

No coaching, sadly. My boys go to an international school, and one of the first questions they asked when we came over to do the tour of the school, the admissions officer was asking my background. I told her I was baseball coach, and she immediately asked, “Do you want to start a team?” “I appreciate it but I’m going to have my hands full. No coaching right now.

I do get my baseball fix every now and then. I have been to a game in Korea, I’ve been to a game in Japan. I’ve not been to Taiwan yet, so those are the three countries that have baseball. I do get my fix every now and then. I plan on returning in June for a few weeks. Maybe while I’m back stateside, I’ll be able to catch a game.

Now, what are the concessions like compared to Wrigley Field or the like?

They’re similar. It’s just not quite the same. I will say this. Baseball in the US, it’s America’s favorite pastime. It’s a casual. You can go take in a game, whether you understand it or not is irrelevant. You can go and sit and have conversations. Japan and Korea, I’ll speak for those two. I don’t know about Taiwan. I’d assume it’s the same. It’s more like a football or basketball game because of the amount of cheerleading that goes on, the songs. It is very lively. It’s like going to an American football game. It is a lot of hype, but it is a ton of fun. I will say that.

We’re going to have a lot of fun coming up in October 2025 for International Fastener Expo out in Vegas. You gave me word before we turn the recorder on. You’re making it out there. That’s awesome.

I’m excited to see everybody. I miss the network in the US and miss all of the people in the fastener world, connecting with them on a regular basis. The plan is for me to come back to IFE and reconnect and bridge the gap. I’ve started to build a network here in Asia, and so it’ll be nice to bridge the gap between both. It’ll be exciting.

That is great news. I look forward to seeing you then, Dee, and probably talking to you beforehand. I sure do appreciate you talking with me because it’s always a pleasure and let’s just say it this way. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

No, I appreciate it. It’s always good to be on here and it’s always good to connect and I wish everybody the best. I hope everybody is doing well.

Dee Ward, Senior Vice President, Wurth Industry Asia Pacific, and Africa.

—

It’s the news segment. Once again, the top news item on everybody’s mind in the fastener industry and probably anybody else who’s in business here in North America is the tariffs. The lovely and talented Lynn Dempsey sent me a cutout from The Chicago Tribune Business Section.

She actually likes the printed form, though she does use her phone frequently, but she likes to read a newspaper.

Yes, she does. She’s a little old school on that. As a matter of fact, now it’s going to seem like light years from this moment, but keep your eyes open for the next Link magazine. We’ve got a story that touches on that idea a little bit. Anyway, this article that she sent me in the Tribune quotes Jim Derry of Field Fastener, and the headline was, “Tariff Wars Leave Us Small Business Nowhere to Hide.” This was from February 25th, 2025. Really, it’s not a very surprising story. They’re just saying that these tariffs are going to wreak havoc on small business and they’ll have to pass the cost increases along. Jim Derry was referenced in this thing.

He said some of the bigger people, they can absorb a little bit or they can do much different deals. If you’re a smaller distributor, you don’t have much leeway.

 

The big guys have volume and they’ve got a lot more leverage over their trading partners, but I guess the point’s well taken. Further proof that the fastener industry is making headlines as if we needed it. A little more calming news before we jump over to Mike McNulty. The Southeastern Fastener Association has their spring conference coming up April 29th to May 1st. It’s down in Florida, Bri. I know you just got back from there, but if you want to head back, it looks like it’s a pretty nice event.

They’ve got Football Hall of Famer Derrick Brooks as their keynote. They’ll be playing golf, pickleball having a good old time like the Southeastern Association is known. I don’t believe we’ve ever given that group a moniker like we have so many of the other associations. I’m just going to assign one right here. It occurred to me while I was looking up this web address, which is thesefa.com. We’ve got the MWFA, the best dressed of all the associations, PAC West, the grooviest and so forth. The SEFA, we’re going to call them the coolest URL of all the fasteners associations. What do you think of that?

It’s interesting.

Southeastern Fastener Association Spring Conference. Look it up if that’s in your marketing plan this year. They always have a good time. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Star Stainless, Global Fasteners and Brighton Best International. Of course, the news segment is brought to us by Volt Industrial Plastics. I’m pretty sure Heidi’s going to be there at the Southeast. That’s her stomping grounds.

One of them. I think she’s stomps pretty widely.

She does. She is a wide stomper. Fulton Industrial Plastics is everywhere, but that’s down home for them. On the topic of stomping, one more thing. Don’t forget that Fastener Mud Racing is back. I got a message from Bob “GQ” Baer. Of course, he’s the spiritual leader of the Rugged Nuts. That’s the name of the Fastener Mud racing team that has done various races over the years. I think this is the sixth year. 2024 was a little messed up, but this year, it’s an actual Tough Mudder race. It’s happening on August 23rd out there in Chicagoland. It’s actually Rockford, but that’s in connection with the MWFA FSTNR Week, which happens the following week. This is the unofficial kickoff. We’ll be talking a lot more about that on the show as time goes on.

You should get yourself involved in this if you’re even mildly interested because some people on the team are taking this very seriously and they’re already pretty well into training. Others, Jake Valdez Davis, for example, are a little more relaxed in their approach to the race prep process. Whatever your flavor, it’s a really accommodating team.

You can have a lot of fun. You don’t have to try and win this event. You can have fun just by being there.

Nor do you even have to do every obstacle if there’s 1 or 2 that scare you. Right now, I’m really bothered by this whole ice water event. We haven’t had to go through one of those and I’m getting the feeling like that may happen this time.

That doesn’t sound great to me either, being someone who can’t stand the cold.

We’ll take it as it comes. That’s what I say. I don’t even know if it’s on there for sure. Get out to ToughMudder.com. If you want to just look generally at the race, reach out to Bob “GQ” Baer or Jake Valdez Davis or Bobby Wagner. Who else? GH III. Those four guys, they’re all organizing the roster. There’ll probably be, I would say, on the low end, 30 on the team, high end 50, which would be really cool. Of course, Brian and Lynn will be your armor bearers should you need them. I think last time you were carrying quite a few pairs of glasses and backpacks and stuff for people.

Yeah, while I’m running around, trying to take movies of different parts of the place.

Your service to the team is invaluable, you guys. Now it’s time to shift the focus of the show to the most focused guy in the fastener news business. That can only mean one thing, Bri.

For news about screws that you can use, here’s Mike McNulty.

—

Thanks, Eric and Brian. This is Mike McNulty from Fastener Technology International Magazine, bringing you the Fastener News Report, which is sponsored by Volt Industrial Plastics, makers of the world’s finest plastic fasteners. Major League Baseball Spring Training is in full swing in Florida and Arizona. Many government workers are in fear of being found out, and the tariff chaos has reached a whole new level of madness. I’m still focused on fasteners and ready to deliver today’s Fastener news report.

In this episode, Martin Fastening Solutions Executive Vice President and NNFD President Scott McDaniel joins us to re reveal the latest results of the Fastener Distributor Index, also known as the FDI. Also, in this episode, we have our top story on TriMas Aerospace and Newsmaker headlines from Safety Socket, AFC industries, GWR Fasteners, Fontana, Field Fastener, EchoBolt, Brighton Best International and more. On the back page report, we’re going to talk about shop class, and we also have Marco Rodriguez of Cresa with his quarterly industrial warehouse space leasing report.

—

Fastener Distributor Index (FDI) & Tariffs

The seasonally adjusted Fastener Distributor Index for February 2025 rallied to 51.6 after its lackluster 47.6 reading in January. This was the first above 50 reading since October of 2024. The forward-looking indicator, also known as the FLI, continued its slide, impacted by challenging news on tariffs, dipping to 47.3 versus 49.9 last month.

Fastener Distributor Index data is collected and analyzed by the FCH Sourcing Network in Baird. The FDI seeks to identify demand pricing and outlook trends within the American fastener distribution industry. To get some insight into these results, we’re going to talk to Martin Fastening Solutions Executive Vice President and NFDA President Scott McDaniel. Scott, thanks for joining us on the Fastener News Report.

Thank you very much, Mike. It’s good to be here.

It’s good to have you back. Last time you were on was in October when the FDA was pretty robust at 59 and 50.5 for the FLI. What do you think about the latest results?

It is certainly interesting. I think the last time we spoke, there was a lot of uncertainty about the election and going into what that was going to look like. That seems like years ago now. I think right now with the FDI, it certainly feels in our business and people I talked to is that it feels like we’re building some momentum. As you mentioned, the headwinds of the tariffs got everybody a little bit spooked. Depending on your point of view and whether you think they’re negotiating chips or negotiating targets or here to stay it will certainly have an impact on our industry and a lot of America.

Yeah, that was definitely the theme of this report. We’ll get into some of the comments. I think it might be one of our longest comments section that we’ve had in a while, mostly on the tariffs. Before we get into that, let’s look at the numbers. The sales numbers and all the pricing numbers, the month to month and the year to year went up dramatically this time while supplier deliveries and respondent inventories went up a little bit and employment and customer inventories dropped modestly. Any insights in the numbers there?

Certainly. I thought it was interesting that the inventories or respondent inventories are actually the highest at any point in the last twelve months. Supplier deliveries are one of the highest three months. The pricing, certainly, I was surprised at anybody seeing the impact of it yet because while there’s been a lot of discussion, a lot of theorizing. We haven’t seen a lot of actualized impacts yet, but we know it’s coming very soon and very quickly.

Just as we shake off inflation, we get price increases from tariffs.

A lot of the tariffs, at least at my viewpoint, the tariffs feel like a price increase. It’s not our supplier getting it, but it’s not us either.

When you do the blanket stuff, everything goes up. Targeted against companies that are bad actors and that makes sense to me. The blanket stuff does not. The other number that I want to talk about a little bit is the PMI, the Purchasing Managers Index. It kept its head above 50 for the second straight month. It dips slightly to 50.3 versus 50.9 the prior month, but that is the first time since 2022 that it’s been above 50. It’s still above 50. That’s a good sign, I think.

Yeah, I would agree. I think there’s a lot of positives in that. I think coming into this year, there’s a lot of optimism. At least it felt like it from people I’ve talked to and from our own teams. The realism of the impending tariffs went from just a talking point or something that was out there in the future to something that people are spending hours a day on conference calls and trying to understand. Even now, I think there’s still some misunderstandings from people. I was talking to somebody and they said, “No, this isn’t us. We’re in Taiwan and we’re not in China.” I said, “No. This coming for everybody.” It’s different this time around.

Coming into this year, there was a lot of optimism, but the reality of the impending tariffs quickly shifted from a mere talking point to an urgent issue people are spending hours a day on conference calls trying to understand. Share on X

It’s causing a lot of disruption and changing basically every day.

The last set of numbers, we have the six-month outlook, and that retreated a bit to a somewhat gloomy 44%, thinking it’s going to be better in 6 months, 24, the same and 32, which is a high backend number 32. I think it’s going to be worse six months down the road. That’s retreated from last month. It was 50, 33 and 17. Almost doubled up on the number of people who think it’s going to be worse six months from now.

I think a lot of that’s just the reality, getting closer for the tariffs and the uncertainty. I was talking to one of my friends that’s not in the fastener industry, amazingly enough. When we were talking, I was asking him what they were doing with tariffs. He’s like, “We don’t even see that. We don’t buy anything from China.” They’re a domestic producer in the tourism or service industry. For him, it was just a news article. For us in the faster industry, it’s a lot closer to home. It’s a lot more real, but I also think when I talked to my team about this, I’ve always viewed fasteners or the high transaction low value products, they can shut a line down at any point if you don’t have them.

I’ve often used our products often make up half of the SKU count of a bicycle or a car or a snowmobile or a ceiling fan but make up 2% to 3% of the overall value. While it’s certainly impactful to us, my hope is that the overall impact doesn’t negatively harm the economy and the growth that we see in front of us. I think there could be a little bit of people being overly pessimistic on some of these things. For us, when we deal with metal all the time, it is very it is very real and very impactful.

Also, emotional. The folks at ITR Economics put out some recent blog posts where they’re saying the tariffs are a problem, but they’re not going to cause a recession. They might for Canada and Mexico.

They could. If we can get the price of eggs under control, hopefully, by the time this is out there. Eggs have come down and gas stays low, people will be a little bit happier.

The egg situation is funny. Any other comments on the data or the numbers before we jump into the respondent commentary?

No. I think that there’s still there’s still a lot of optimism out there. Depending on some of your political viewpoints or which papers or websites you read, there’s certainly no lack of news on a daily basis. It’s down to understanding the message behind the message or what the goals really are. If tariffs are the only goal, that’s one thing, but I think there’s a lot of other things and other bargaining chips on the table behind those.

Impact Of Tariffs On Small Businesses & Economy

Let’s jump into the comments, and like I said, these are heavy on tariffs and also, concerns about whether the expected recovery of 2025, and then it also ends with some people that are having some decent results nonetheless. The first one is we are raising pricing to offset some of the tariffs. We are also expecting increased activity as some customers are attempting to beat tariffs, most likely coming, so buying ahead of tariffs.

The next one is the tariff situation is causing uncertainty regarding pricing in the near future. Already touched on that. This one, this is the longest comment. It says, “There were plenty of visible green shoots in our industrial business coming up into the new year that shriveled and died in February. The tariff changes, expansions packed quite a bit of punch for so much of our industry and greater economy. It seems inevitable at this point that the drag on inflation will soon renew. Our revised assumption is that the long overdue recovery will be postponed in the near term. The short version is that this sucks for all involved. Fingers crossed that in the long-term, some good comes out of all of this.” Anything to add to that?

No. I think that there’s a lot of truth in all those things. I think from the green shoots comment, in our business, I think we had a lot of green shoots and most of them, I don’t think any of them really shriveled up and died. Some are going straight ahead, some are a little bit delayed, but that’s to be expected with any of those things. Trying to beat tariffs in the timing of those things, I think one thing that’s different this time when the first round of tariffs went in eight years ago, a lot of people tried to move products out of China or tried to go move from China to Taiwan or China to Malaysia or India.

If everybody gets a tariff, China will obviously have a higher one, but if everybody else has a tariff, there’s not much where people will be able to do to avoid that. My personal view is these are here to stay, at least for the next four years and maybe longer, considering that the first round of tariffs stayed through the last administration.

Whether it’s a trend, to me it’s less transient. It doesn’t feel like something that’s going to be in place for six months or a year. It just feels like this is the new normal for now. The US has had a pro-tariff position long time ago in the US and it’s like anything else, things can change quickly, but there’s understanding what history teaches us. I’ve heard the saying history doesn’t always repeat, but it often rhymes. I think there’s certainly lessons to be learned there.

 

Yeah, that’s definitely. That’s a good point, looking back at what’s happened and got to make adjustments and move forward. The next couple comments are more on performance for the month of February. It said, “The month of February 2025 was only $15,000 shy of being our biggest selling February of all time. This is on the backside of a January 2025 being our biggest selling January of all time. So far so good this year.” Good news from that contributor. The next one is, “Very good, strong month in February, following a solid January, keeping our fingers crossed that March will follow suit and not get blown up by tariff wars.” That’s the second person going to the finger crossing.

There’s a lot of that around.

We got just two more. The next one is, “Starting to see some of the results of the new administration in our day-to-day business. Tariff concerns have driven demand of domestically manufactured screws slightly higher. We’re hopeful that demand for domestically threaded fasteners continues to moderate throughout the year.” What do you think? Is it going to change the demand of domestic fasteners a lot or moderately?

I think moderately. Certain things are just needed when people need automobiles to drive, when there’s people need power generation or new appliances or power tools for their homes. I think consumers have shown a remarkable resilience to pricing over the last 6, 8 years, 4 years maybe. Nothing continues to get cheaper. Everything is gotten more expensive over time. One thing we’re looking at is I try to identify ways to help our customers operate better, more efficiently, driving greater value to offset some of those tariff impacts that are unavoidable at this point.

We’ve got one more comment. It says, “We expect that regardless of tariff impacts, manufacturing and fastener sales will return to normal. We appear to be in a down cycle showing signs of reversal.”

For sure. Depending on the markets. The automotive market in the US is still a little bit depressed. The ag market is certainly very depressed, but I think there’s been some signs of recovery from people I’ve talked to and other areas I mentioned, the power generation and energy transmission markets are continuing to perform very well.

All right. Anything else to add on the FDI or the FLI before we give you a chance to tell the readers of what’s going on at Martin Fastening and the NFDA?

No. I appreciate the opportunity to come on and share my thoughts and it’s always interesting to see what else is out there in the marketplace. It’s certainly been a little bit of a roller coaster and I think that like anything else, that makes the days go by very quickly and it’s always good to be able to solve new problems and identify ways that we can help our team, help our suppliers as well as help our customers

Also sell some fasteners, as Eric likes to say.

That’s right.

Alright, so what what’s going on at Martin Fastening Solutions?

We are continuing to grow. We just opened up a new facility in Kansas to meet a new customer request. Later on in April, we’re actually having a Special Olympics charity golf tournament in Muscle Shoals. It’s the Shoals area Special Olympics Golf Tournament on April 28th. If anybody’s in the area or is interested, you can check out the Martin website for some more information.

Very good. The benefactor of that is the Special Olympics?

Yes. Correct. For the Shoals area. It’s something very close to our hearts.

Very good. All right. That sounds good. I mentioned earlier you’re also the president of the NFDA. Anything to report there?

Yeah, absolutely. We have our annual meeting coming up on from June 11th to the 13th in Charlotte, North Carolina. We’re having not only the annual meeting, but also the ESPS, so a chance for people to talk with their customers and their suppliers in the Charlotte area. I’ve spent quite a bit of time there. I’m looking forward to it. It’s always great to catch up with other people in the industry. I also believe that several of the older generation, the veterans from the fastener industry that may not have been in attendance at the last couple of annual meetings are planning to be at this one. I’m looking forward to seeing them and reconnecting with some people I haven’t seen in a couple of years.

You call them the older generation?

Maybe the Hall of Famers. How about that?

It’s a joke I make sometimes when you have the young fastener professionals and it’s like, “Maybe we need to mature fastener professionals group.”

I think I’m firmly stuck right in the middle. My daughter’s will remind me all the time how old I am. I still have a lot to learn and continue to learn every day. Every day, I pick up something new.

Every generation has something to add to the team.

We’re better together.

You mentioned your daughter. When we talked before you came on, you said you were getting ready for a move from St. Louis. You’re moving to where?

Jackson, Tennessee. I have a seventeen-year-old son who’s a high school senior who will be attending Southeast Missouri State in the fall to be a pilot for an Aviation degree. My daughter will be starting high school down in Jackson, Tennessee. Our fastener business is headquartered down there, and I’ll also be closer to our headquarters in Florence, Alabama. My wife is very excited. This is our seventh move in my career. She’s a fantastic decorator and takes great care of everything since she’s been busy planning out the transition to the new house.

She’s a professional at it.

She absolutely is so much better than me. I just throw stuff around on the walls, but she makes sure everything looks good. I’m very thankful and she’s always been extremely supportive of my career and it’s been a great ride so far and looking forward to the next steps.

I’ve heard lots of good things about that area down there.

It’s definitely a growing area and it’s about halfway between Nashville and Memphis, so it’s a little bit better weather. Not a ton better than St. Louis, but a little bit better, but certainly a dynamic growing area.

Very good. Your son going to be in the aeronautical, so there’s definitely a lot of fasteners in those airplanes.

There is. He’s grown up in the industry with as my whole family has because he hears us talk about it all the time at home. It’s been a real blessing to see both my kids grow up and mature and look forward to where their lives and their careers go.

It sounds like a lot of good things going on at Martin Fastening, the NFDA and also with your family. Good luck in all that.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Good to have you back on. As I said earlier, it’s the second time in the FDI seat, so you’ve done a good job and both times you’ve been on, it’s been over 50, so I have to keep track of your track record.

I hope to continue the streak.

All right. Thanks for joining us on the Fastener News Report.

Thank you.

That was Martin Fastening Solutions Executive Vice President and NFDA President Scott McDaniel. The FDI number for February, 2025 was 51.6 versus 47.6 in January. Visit fdisurvey.com to participate in the process and get a detailed PDF copy of Baird’s Monthly Analysis. Now for today’s top story. TriMas Aerospace, Monogram Aerospace Fasteners, Allfast Fastening Systems and Mac Fasteners brands have been awarded a multi-year global contract with Airbus, expanding the company’s existing contract scope across all fastener business units and further strengthening TriMas Aerospace’s position across the global Airbus supply chain.

Vitaliy Rusakov, Group President of TriMas Aerospace said, “We are honored to be a supplier of high performance fastening solutions to Airbus. This contract reaffirms our commitment to delivering the best in class engineered products and advancing manufacturing technologies to meet the evolving needs of the aerospace industry.” This extended agreement broadens TriMas Aerospace’s reach across multiple Airbus civil and military fixed and rotary wing platforms, including but not limited to the A320, A350 and the A220.

The contract incorporates next generation fastening solutions and newly qualified products designed to optimize robotic assembly processes for aero structures and major aircraft components. In addition, TriMas Aerospace continues to invest in state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment and advanced processes to accelerate performance, enhance capabilities and drive efficiencies in aerospace fastening technology. TriMas Aerospace will be making the contracted fasteners and trim mass manufacturing sites in California and Kansas.

Next up is today’s Fastener Newsmaker headlines. In corporate news, a federal court upheld a jury verdict on counterfeiting in favor of safety socket. Keller & Kalmbach and LAW NDT founded a fastener testing joint venture called MEXS. The IFE Group partnered with Global Supply Chain Solutions. Stafa secured an exclusive dealership for fasteners made by August Friedberg. AFC Industries opened a facility in Monterey, Mexico. GWR Fasteners acquired a new Citizen Miyano CNC Machine. KL Jack bought a new 5,000 square foot warehouse. Growermetal announced its 75th anniversary celebration.

Fontana Grupo acquired a majority ownership position in right type fasteners. Field Fastener opened new facilities in Arkansas and Arizona. White Cap acquired Chris Kahn Supply and Fasteners and EchoBolt announced a new contract with RWE Renewables. In Personnel News, Brighton Best International promoted Jennifer Lin to manager of its Dallas Branch. Phoenix Specialty Manufacturing announced the additions of Terry Cross as materials and purchasing manager and Lisa Ricard as quality manager, as well as the promotion of Buck Fralick to engineering manager.

Aeromed Group appointed Chris Ravenscroft as president of Aeromed International. Bolton Nut Manufacturing Limited named Ashley Nichols as its new finance director and FDH Arrow appointed Ian Walsh as its Chief Executive Officer. You can get details on all of these stories and more in Fastener Technology International Magazine and the Fastener News Report monthly newsletter, both available online FastenerTech.com. Next up, and before we turn to the back page report, here is Marco Rodriguez from Cresa with his quarterly industrial warehouse space leasing report.

—

This is Marco Rodriguez with Cresa providing FTR readers with a quarterly industrial real estate update. As always, we’ve been digging into the data for the seven major markets we track, and it’s clear that industrial space isn’t a one size fits all situation. What’s happening in one part of the country can be vastly different from another, and that has real implications for how you plan your warehousing, distribution and production footprint.

It's clear that industrial space isn't a one-size-fits-all situation. What's happening in one part of the country can be vastly different from another, and that has real implications for how you plan your warehousing, distribution, and production… Share on X

Let’s start in the South. If you’re operating in that region, pay attention to Atlanta. Still great value. Lease rates there are up 5.6% year over year with the average asking rate about $8.70 per square foot. Dallas is also showing moderate growth at 4.3%, but rates are still below Atlanta at $8.69 per square foot. Miami, considered a premium location primarily due to the lack of land availability and being surrounded by water, lease rates are significantly higher at $19.78 per square foot, but growth is slowing down to only 2.4%.

For businesses in the South, these trends signal potentially rising operational costs, particularly if you’re in growth markets like Atlanta and Dallas. Moving up North, we see a different picture. Chicago offers a sense of stability. Rent growth is a solid 4.1% and the average rate is a reasonable $9.09 per square foot. If you value predictability and cost effectiveness, Chicago could be a region to consider your operations. We have New York. As always, it’s a high-cost market where lease rates are a whopping $19.20 per square foot.

However, rent growth is starting to be flat at only 1.1%. For businesses in New York, this slow growth might mean some cost stability in the industrial space market, but it’s still a high base cost to contend with. Let’s switch gears to the West Coast. Here we’re seeing a bit of a shift. Los Angeles is actually experiencing a decrease in lease rates down 6.3%, bringing the average rents to $17.57 per square foot.

The Inland Empire, which is still a key logistics hub, is also seeing rates decline by about 1.2% to $13.18 per square foot. For businesses on the West Coast, this could indicate a potential opportunity to negotiate favorable lease terms or expand operations into these areas. What’s driving these regional differences? The usual factors like vacancy rates, new construction and overall business demand are always in play.

Section 321 Tariff Rescission & Industrial Real Estate

Let’s hone in on something that could have a direct impact on your supply chain and inventory strategies. The recent rescission of the Section 321 or de minimis tariff provision. You might be wondering how this tariff change affects your operations. Many think rescinding Section 321 might reduce demand for industrial space, but I think it’s actually likely to create more demand and here’s why it matters for your business.

Section 321 allowed imports below $800 to avoid tariffs. Many companies sold cheap cell phone accessories and shirts online, shipping directly from Asia using overseas warehouses and cheaper labor. With that provision gone, those imports are going to become much more expensive. From an operational perspective, this likely means businesses will look to hold larger inventories in the US.

You might see a shift towards increased domestic production to mitigate import costs. Either way, this points to a growing need for industrial space, more warehousing for inventory, potentially expanded distribution centers, and even more domestic manufacturing capacity. For you as business operators, this could mean needing to reassess your space requirements and potentially factoring in increased lease costs in certain areas if demand increases.

We always recommend starting your lease renewal 12 to 18 months before the expiration date. This allows tenants to retain the most amount of leverage in the negotiation. One thing landlords fear the most is vacancy. Whether you are willing to move out or not, landlords are willing to make concessions if they believe there’s a risk of your business is moving out. If you have more questions about markets I didn’t cover or just want to talk about industrial real estate, reach out to me on LinkedIn, Marco Rodriguez with Cresa.

—

Now let’s turn to the back page to talk about high school shop class. After 3 to 4 decades of decline and even in elimination, high school shop classes, also known as industrial arts courses or technical education classes, are on the rise and back in fashion. Thanks to rising tuition costs at traditional universities, limited job opportunities for recent graduates of colleges with ideological curricula and armies of administrators, the devaluation of the bachelor degree in the job market, the 2020 pandemic and the upcoming threat of generative AI to white collar workers, school districts around the USA are spending millions of dollars to expand and revamp shop classes for the 21st century.

After three to four decades of decline and near elimination, high school shop classes—also known as industrial arts courses or technical education classes—are on the rise and back in fashion. Share on X

The Wall Street Journal reported on this shop class revival. Here are a few highlights from the article. Hands-on skills are staging a comeback at leading ed school districts driven by high college costs and the demand for more career choices. In a suburb of Madison, Wisconsin, Middleton High School completed a $90 million campus overhaul that included new technical education facilities. PBK, an architectural firm in Texas is designing a $140 million career and technical education center for students at Spring Branch independent school district in Houston.

Ohio and other states are offering schools financial incentives for classes that lead to industry certifications in such high demand jobs as pharmaceutical technicians and pipe fitters. About 150 students at Sutherland High School in Sutherland, Oregon take Josh Gary’s woodworking class, a number equal to nearly half the student body.

The wood shop features laser cutters and computer assistant routers. In 2024, the school opened a $750,000 metal shop. I think that this is a great long overdue and common-sense development that stirs up fond memories of my own time in shop classes in the late 1970s and early 1980s at Mayfield High School in Northeast Ohio. Woodworking class, metal shop, electronics lab, home maintenance class, and probably my favorite, a theoretical and hands-on class on internal combustion engines, which included a final project of dissembling, cleaning, fixing and reassembling an engine from a non-working lawnmower donated to the school.

The final test was to pull the cord to see if the lawnmower would start. Mine did on the first try, and it remains one of the highlights of my days in high school. This has been Mike McNulty of Fastener Technology International Magazine, bringing you the Fastener News report. Please send your news, pictures, comments, corrections, or complaints to me at McNulty@FastenerTech.com.

—

This is Carmen Vertullo with your Fastener Training Minute, coming to you from the Fastener Training Institute and Carver Labs in beautiful El Cajon, California. I’m going to talk about a situation that is not yet resolved. I’m right in the middle of it, but I want to lay a little bit of groundwork for a possible future Faster Training Minute. This topic has to do with ASME standards and particularly, fastener standards that involve boiler and pressure vessels out of the ASME boiler and pressure vessel code.

It is a very important code having to do with high pressure applications on Navy ships, nuclear power plants, other types of power plants, and as far as fasteners and other all other kinds of material standards go, it’s at the top of the list. It’s up there with aerospace. It’s very serious fastening standards. One of the interesting things about it, ASME, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, governs this and we have lots of ASME fastener standards, but ASME incorporates some ASTM fastener standards into this code.

They are generally fastener standards that are governed by the A01 committee on iron and steel, not the F16 committee on fasteners. Two in particular that we’re dealing with right now are ASTMA 193 for bolting used in high pressure, high temperature applications, and ASCMA 194, the companion standard for nuts used in those same applications.

The reason for this short training minute is to send out a warning that if a customer orders an ASTMA 193 product or a 194 product, it’s pretty straightforward how to get that done. Most companies are competent, they do it right, they know what they’re doing. There is a companion standard that goes with them to govern quality assurance requirements and so on. ASME and the boiler and pressure vessel code also published the same exact standard, but they call it SA193 or SA194. There are a few other bolting standards in there as well.

Even though they are exactly the same, the interpretation of the requirements, especially for chemistry, is different. You could easily end up thinking you can just take an ASTMA 194 nut and use it as an SA194 nut and you could have yourself in a little bit of a pickle doing that. Just a bit of a warning, whenever you see SA193 or SA194, be sure the manufacturer’s fully aware that it’s not the same thing even though the standards are exactly the same.

The interpretation and the writing standards, or what I would call the mandatory appendixes that apply to the SA standard is different than the ASTM standard. I hope that’s helpful. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have sometime in a future Fastener Training Minute. We may drill down on this or it might be worth a webinar sometime. I hope you learned something. This has been Carmen Virtuo with your Faster Training Minute.

—

Brian, that was the shortest Fastener Training Minute that we’ve ever recorded, I believe. He got right to the point on that one.

It’s a subject you could go back and revisit at length because it doesn’t just apply to one single ASTM standard.

As he said, he was just setting the table really for a bigger discussion, but this was really on his mind. We had just gotten done recording again and he did another one of these like close to twenty-minute episodes and I said, “Carm, I’m looking for a short segment here. We’re trying to get a tight show.” He whipped this one out of his pocket, really. I take what I can get with him, but I appreciate all of it. Thanks, Carmen, for doing such a great job and a great service to the fastener industry every episode.

Thanks also to Dee Ward with Wurth. Glad to hear you’re going to be in Vegas for the International Fastener Expo. Talk to you then. Also, Mike McNulty and Scott McDaniel. Scott with Martin, of course, and he’s the president of the NFDA these days. Appreciate your help. Marco Rodriguez with Cresa gave us his quarterly commercial leasing report. I know there’s a lot of guys in the audience who find that info very valuable. Reach out to Marco on LinkedIn if you want to pick his brain on that any further.

Of course, the title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio. We couldn’t do it without you, guys. Brighton Best International, Goebel Fasteners and Star Stainless. Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Fastener Technology International, INxSQL Software, Fastener Fair USA, J. Lanfranco, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Wurth Industry USA. You know the email address, it’s FTR@FullyThreaded.com and yes, we are aware of the ongoing cyber wars.

Nobody’s digging it. Everybody’s trying to figure out what to do about it, including Elon Musk and having Twitter go down was I think a big shock for a lot of people. It happens. Alright, speaking of tech geniuses, we promised that we were going to roll out of here with a reference to the smartest person in the world getting it all wrong.

Yes. Tell me.

I was scratching my head here really, trying to think about how to put things in perspective, as I usually do. Of course, thinking about tariffs and then all we’re really grinding on these days is AI and how to present an offering that actually does what it says and does something pretty cool in the process. The whole thing can be very overwhelming.

With the tariffs and so many people, as we’ve seen with the forward looking indicator and so forth, there’s a lot of stress and even some pessimism out there. Add to that, a headline. I caught this on Zero Hedge. This is from a column by Porter Stansberry called The World As You Know It Is About To End. He makes a good point of specifically saying how it’s going to end. Don’t worry, it’s not the end. It’s just an end to the way things were. In the process of doing that, he gives us all a cause to be optimistic or at least to have a ray of hope.

I like rays of hope, actually.

Yes, he’s trying to say that you can’t always tell what is right around the corner. He says, “Here’s one great example. In his 1996 book, The Road Ahead, Bill Gates foresaw how the internet would become part of our daily lives. At the time, few people in the world knew more about how your computer technology and communications networks were evolving and merging. Gates had a huge advantage over virtually every other investor in the world. In fact, there may have been no one in history ever to be in a better position to understand such a massive change in the world’s economy.”

Bill Gates did not mention search engines or social media in his book. I won’t read it all here, but it goes on to say just a few years after this book was published, a little company called Google came around and gobbled up a huge part of the internet as well as Facebook. Search engine and social media as genres didn’t even make it into Gates’s thinking. If you think these things don’t have an impact on our world, I don’t know what world you’re living in, but we’re living at a point right now where it’s very difficult to see around the corner. My guess is that we’re going to be faced with things that are just as dramatic.

Not everyone is smart all the time. A very smart guy was Steve Ballmer. In 2007, when the iphone came out, he said, “Apple is making a big mistake. It’s way too expensive and no one is going to pay $500 for a phone and doesn’t have a keyboard.”

Another great point. We don’t have to pick on Microsoft alone, Brian, for examples of people missing big changes coming up, especially when they relate to technology. I tied this into the whole tariff thing simply because I feel like the economy has a lot of similarities. There are so many moving pieces, variables, unknowns, and especially for guys like, I’ll just speak for myself. I get the headline version of what’s actually going on. Hard to read into the tea leaves too deep.

We’ll wait and see. I think that the inconsistency of the on again off again tariffs is what’s freaked the market out.

Change is the only constant.

I’m still waiting for the price of eggs to come down.

I don’t know about that either, but I can tell you that on the next episode, we’ll have a pile of on the floor interviews from the Pacific West Fastener Association Tabletop. We’re heading off there right after we put this one to bed. Hope to see some of you out there and we sure do appreciate you tuning in.

Stay positive.

If guys like Gates and Ballmer were getting things like that wrong, Brian, there’s hope for us yet.

Yeah, I know. That’s why I remember this whole thing so well.

Alright, keep it rolling, folks. Get out there, sell some screws and we’ll talk to you next time.

See you next time.

 

Important Links

• Mike McNulty on LinkedIn
• Scott McDaniel on LinkedIn
• Marco Rodriguez on LinkedIn
• Carmen Vertullo on LinkedIn
• Dee Ward on LinkedIn
• Eric Dudas on LinkedIn
• Brian Musker on LinkedIn
• Fully Threaded Radio Email
• Brian Musker Email
• Tough Mudder
• Fastener Technology International
• Mike McNulty Email
• The Road Ahead