Episode #196 - Clean Up

The new year begins with high flying headlines as Würth Industries all-star Mr. Dee Ward receives big news that has him taking to the skies (19:14). Fastener forecasters Jo Morris of the Fastener Training Institute and Jake “Valdez” Davis, CFS of BTM Manufacturing discuss their recent training week experience in lieu of actually prognosticating on the coming year (1:33:56). On the Fastener News Report, Abbott-Interfast president Bob “GQ” Baer joins news editor Mike McNulty with complete FDI data for last year along with a look ahead (53:26). Industry guru Carmen Vertullo presents the Fastener Training Minute, this time discussing the risky business that is the fastener game (1:28:23). PLUS: Everyone’s fastener friend, Star Stainless manager Mike Robinson, CCFE makes two big announcements (40:57). Brian and Eric will continue to travel by air, but probably won’t be sitting near the emergency exit.

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Clean Up

It is Fully Threaded Radio, voice of the mighty FCH Sourcing Network. If you buy, sell, import, manufacture, think about frequently, industrial threaded fasteners, this is the show for you. We’re very glad you clicked in. Eric Dudas with you. I’m joined as always by the co-host of Fully Threaded Radio, coming to us from the frozen tundra of the Chicagoland area. He’s a lifetime honorary Texan and code slinger, Brian Musker. Brian, are you doing all right there, dare I ask?

I would call it the lower reaches of the Arctic Circle.

I’ve seen it’s downright Siberian out there. If it’s any consolation, the rest of the country is facing their own version of that. I don’t know if it’s as stark as what you’ve got, but I talked to Dan Zehnder. He’s up in central Wisconsin. It’s pretty much just as bad up there. You’ve got good company.

As long as the heating keeps working, I’m fine.

It’s a perfect day to nestle in with a little fastener talk show. This is episode 196 of Fully Threaded Radio. We’re publishing this time on or about January 17th, 2024. That’s got a pretty natural flow to it. Usually, when the new year comes, it feels a little awkward. I don’t know. For some reason, that one just flows right off my tongue.

Dee Ward Off On A New Adventure

This is a great episode. It flowed pretty well as we put it together. You’re going to enjoy it, everybody. The new fastener season began with a big headline. We’ve got several on this episode. This one deals with somebody that everybody knows. He’s got a lot of friends out there. He’s off on a new adventure. He’s Dee Ward of Würth.

Headlines to kick off the new year announced that he’s been made the Executive Vice President of the Asia Pacific and Africa regions for Würth. He’s going to lead things off with us. Let us know how he feels about all this, what his first steps are going to be. When the news came out, it’s pretty rare to see so many people jump on board with congratulations. In Dee’s case, that’s exactly what happened. He’ll be joining us. You’ll get some of the details about all this.

On our feature segment, Jo Morris of the Fastener Training Institute and Jake “Valdez” Davis, one of the industry’s newest certified fastener specialists join us. Originally, we were going to talk about our predictions for ‘24, maybe a little look back on 2023, and then look down the road. It turned into something a little bit different. We had some fun doing it. You’ll all learn a lot. Just another one of the twists and turns of fastener podcasting.

The fun usually happens when the microphone is turned off.

Usually. In this case, we had a little while the mic was still running, fortunately. You’re not going to want to miss it. On the Fastener News Report, Mike McNulty welcomes Bob “GQ” Baer. He’s a real important part of the Fastener Distributor Index team. As many of you know, he puts together these charts, these compilations that we have. He’s been doing that for many years. He always puts thoughtful analysis into what’s going on with the FDI. It’s good to have him with us as we start the new year because we’re looking back at ‘23 a little bit. He brings his insights into this, as usual, the Fastener News Report, the show within the show.

For years, we relied on Bob to make the graphs up. Somehow, he’s got his calculations embedded in the spreadsheet to work out values. We rely on that to produce the graphics that go with the FDI report on our news site. Because there is a site called News.FastenersClearingHouse.com. One of the sections is the Distributor Index and the picture that comes up is the one made by Bob.

It gets a lot of clicks. Warming Mike and GQ up, it’s Mike Robinson of Star Stainless. He’s also the president of the North Coast Fastener Association. As he’s introducing the news, he’s got two juicy headlines to drop on us. That was a last minute thing, adds even more to this one. Plus, the Fastener Training minute is coming at you.

Carmen Vertullo is going to talk about the risky business that is the fastener industry. How you can mitigate some of that risk simply by the way you describe things to your customers when they come to you with problems or perceived problems. Which is ironic because we’re going to wrap things up, Brian, by touching on these 737 loose bolts story. That was flying around out there. Pun intended.

I’m ready.

You’re always ready. I hope you’re also ready to lay on us the fine list of sponsors we’ve got bringing Fully Threaded Radio to us.

It’s another new year and fortunately, the same great set of sponsors that we’ve had for years. We’re very lucky to have them. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio, Brighton-Best International, Goebel Fasteners and Star Stainless Screw Company. Brighton-Best International, tested, tried and true. Goebel Fasteners, quality the first time. Star Stainless Screw Company, right off the shelf. Sponsoring also Fully Threaded Radio are Buckeye Fasteners, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, INxSQL Software J.Lanfranco, Parker Fasteners, 3Q Inc., Volt Industrial Plastics, Würth Industry USA, and Solution Industries, home of solution man.

Heidi Volltrauer Has Received The WIFI Woman Of The Year Award

Let us know what you think of the show. If you’ve got suggestions, questions, so forth, the email address is FTR@FullyThreaded.com. As we get things started here, we’ll kick off with a headline that features one of the sponsors you just mentioned, Brian. Many years with us, Volt Industrial Plastics. I saw this splash across LinkedIn. I was so happy. Heidi Volltrauer has received the WIFI. That’s the Women In The Fastener Industry Woman of the Year Award. How about that?

That is very cool. I’ve known Heidi and met her at shows for years. Couldn’t happen to a better person.

This photo that accompanies the announcement, I’m telling you. This is like a movie star. She’s very well-coiffed. She looks like she could be walking down Rodeo Drive.

She just stepped out of the warehouse for a moment.

Over the years, she’s always come to the various shows and tabletops and stuff looking like a million bucks. I tell you, she would fit right in with the MWFAs. Volt and MWFA. I don’t think they are, but they should be the best dressed and all that. Congratulations, Heidi. We’re so glad for you. What a thrill. Glad, Brian, that WIFI gave this to a woman, too. That was nice.

I’m not quite sure what to say.

It shouldn’t take it for granted anymore. Moving right along, we’re going to dive right into it because we’ve got a lot to cover, a lot to pack in. It’s a lot of good stuff, too. I’ll say right at the top here that we received a whole slew of very heartfelt messages as we wound down the new year, related to the holidays and so forth.

I just wanted to acknowledge a few texts, a couple of phone calls, several cards and emails. We’re going to do the best we can in ‘24 to bring in another season. The year 2023, for several reasons, seems like a lot of the stars lined up for us. We’re very grateful to that and grateful for so many of you acknowledging it. It means a lot. I wanted to say thanks.

We’re going to try and keep it up. We’ve got some ideas not just for Fully Threaded Radio for the new year, but also for the FCH Sourcing Network and Fasteners Clearing House. You’re going to like them, folks. Thanks again for being out there and keep your eyes open. I hate doing this, but we had to get that said.

It’s going to be a strong season. We came into ‘23 with a doom and gloom forecast and we got through it. Let’s look forward to much better things in 2024.

There you go. You’re going to hear some optimism on this episode to support that. With that, we’ll pass things off to our partners. We’ll be back to put a wrench to this one.

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Brian, the new Link Magazine is out. Is FTR timely or what? Last episode, Carmen’s Fastener Training Minute dealt with tamper-resistant fasteners. Look at this new Link right here on the cover.

I saw it.

Tamper-Pruf Screws, 50th Anniversary. Right on the money. A lot of good stuff in this issue, the Winter 2024. See here, Brian, right near the front, this article by Joe Dysart. He does a lot of these techie stories for Link. This one deals with fastener distribution and AI. You can’t get away from it. Maybe Carmen was dialed into Tamper-Pruf’s 50th. I don’t know when he put that Training Minute together. Who knows? He’s got a lot going on. He always does.

I had the chance to sit in on his Experts’ Meeting. That thing is still cranking along. I’m sure many people are aware that Carmen put out the call for pretty much anyone in the industry. You had to be somewhat qualified. You didn’t have to be a CFS or anything. You had to be somewhat dedicated to the craft of the fastener profession to become a member. At no charge, he was including people. The class of ‘23 went through and the class of ‘24 has started. Tell you what, a group of sluggers he’s got going.

He’s offering a great service to the industry. That’s typical of Carmen, anyway. How’s it running? How does it work?

The meetings, as you would expect with Carmen, it’s a little bit loose. The general idea is about every two weeks on Friday afternoons. They have a Zoom meeting. There are something on the order of 20-25 people involved. I don’t think they all attend everyone, but they spend the whole time just going through a bunch of topics. There are content experts in various areas. They all share ideas, knowledge, help each other improve, and grow their knowledge. That’s the gist of it.

That sounds like exactly what the fastener industry is about.

Pretty much. When he launched this thing, he said he just wanted to find a way to give back. Training is a sub theme of this episode as well because we’ve got a lot of training stuff going on. The feature segment with Joe and Valdez talks about FSTNR Week. Carmen mentioned to me that he’s going to be doing some stuff as well in the training area.

This will be through Carver Labs, which is his baby. The Carver Facts Center is where he creates the Fastener Training Minutes. A lot of people know Carmen. He’s everywhere doing a lot of things. He’s doing some of his own trainings. He’ll be doing them in person in San Diego at Carver Labs. He’s offering all this. This is a new thing. Did you get one to this yet?

No.

He’s got a schedule that’s coming up. He’s going to be emailing a lot of people. I don’t think it’s online yet, but the first one’s happening February 26th and 27th, 2024. It’s a day and a half of structural bolting. He’s got another one in April, fastener tightening strategies. That’s a two-day event, and several more. I won’t go through all of them, but Carver Labs, Carmen Vertulo doing some training. A little bit different than what’s happening at the Fastener Training Institute. It’s going to be good and super information-dense. I’m looking way ahead, October 21st-22nd, 2024 hydrogen embrittlement, Brian.

Are you signing up for that one?

It says on his syllabus here, the NFDA is in San Diego later that week. You never know. It’s probably why he set it up that way. You never know. Hands-on classes by Carmen Vertullo. Further to the training topic, Brian, I saw a headline fly-by on LinkedIn. This came from Würth Industry, a huge supporter of the Fastener Training Institute. As you know, they’re major partners of the FTI.

They have been.

They’re also partnered with Trident Technical College in Charleston, South Carolina. They’re providing three in-person training courses taught by none other than technical instructor Randy Lammers. Many of you will remember Randy from the Würth Knowing show. We had him on the showsometime back when they kicked that thing off. I guess he couldn’t be kept down in retirement for too long.

The industry needs these knowledgeable people to stay around. Teaching is a good thing for them to do.

Passing that information down to the next generation. Würth Industry North America teamed up with Trident Technical College. I don’t have a schedule on this one. Not sure how to follow up on it necessarily, but take that knowledge and run with it. If that’s something that seems like it’s up your alley or somebody that you know. That fits right into our first feature of the year, Dee Ward of Würth Industry. He’s got big news. He seemed happy to sit in with me on this conversation, Brian. It’s hard not to root for Dee. He’s just such a gung ho kind of guy. You just can’t help but root for him.

He has a very interesting work life, too. At the time of the Tough Mudder, we ended up sitting next to each other. He lived a few years in Brazil with his family.

He’s got that international experience under his belt already. You’re right.

His issue is going to be he’s not going to be speaking any Portuguese anywhere where he’s going to. Maybe Angola.

We touched on that a little bit during the conversation., when I first saw this headline go by, I texted him and said congratulations in Swahili. Why did I see if he’d catch that? He got the joke, but I don’t think he’ll be doing too much language while he’s there. He’s going to have his hands full. That’s just fine. The people he’s going to be dealing with will work out with English. We’ll talk about that on this segment. We might as well dive right into it. What do you think?

Let’s go.

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It’s always good to start the year off by going online and seeing some good news. Logged down to LinkedIn and saw posts started off like this, “The start of a new year always brings fresh perspective, clean slate, so to speak, on the amazing opportunities that lay ahead over the next twelve months.” I could not agree more. That was written by a guy who’s got a lot of fans in the fastener industry. That is Dee Ward of Würth Industry. He’s here with us. Hey, Dee.

How are you?

Never better. It sounds like you’re doing pretty well, too.

It’s a great start to the new year.

It sure is. Tell us all about it. Congratulations. I’ll just say at the top here.

Dee Ward Discusses His New Role As Senior Vice President For Würth Industry Over Asia Pacific And Africa

Thank you. It’s much appreciated. It’s an opportunity that has been discussed. The Würth family, Rainer Bürkert and Larry Stevens here, the Executive Vice President for Americas and Asia Pacific and Africa extended an opportunity for me to be the Senior Vice President for Würth Industry over Asia Pacific and Africa. It’s humbling. I’m honored and excited all at the same time.

This is huge. You’re going to have to help us wrap our minds around this because that is such a giant territory. I’m sure you’re feeling the same way. What exactly does this look like to you? What are you going to be handling?

Basically, I’ll end up handling all of the companies in the region of Asia Pacific in Africa. It spans from South Africa up through Turkey, across to India, into China, all of the Asia Pacific region, Taiwan, and Thailand. South Korea is included in that as well, Malaysia, and then also Australia. It’s a vast territory to cover for sure.

For the time being, you’re going to be doing a lot of traveling. That’s my guess. Where do you start on that?

I leave soon. I’m traveling with Larry Stevens. We’re going to head to Taipei and Taiwan for a couple of days, and then we’ll end up in Vietnam. We’ll be in China and then finish off in Malaysia before we head back home.

That’s a lot of companies. How many is it? How many companies are we talking about here? What’s the head count in this group of regions?

There’s twelve companies in total. I’d say there’s some intertwined companies within a couple of those. Responsibility-wise, Würth has a business service, for example, in India outside of just the industry. That falls under my purview as well. A lot of services are done internally for all of the companies. It’s around twelve. Twelve managing directors, CEOs that I’ll be working one-on-one with, each of them and their teams.

Asia is typically outside of China, our smaller companies. As far as the headcount, it’s significantly more headcount than what I was over at Marine Fasteners. At the same time, the companies tend to be a little bit smaller. New to the Würth group, I’ll say that, whether they’re startups or spinoffs of something. The biggest thing for me is just the amount of distance between everything and trying to juggle the time zones.

We were talking on the last episode with Scott Camp over at Atlas Distribution about bilingualism. How long did you live down in Brazil? It was a while.

About three years.

You picked up Portuguese, which is amazing. Do you think you’ll be learning any new languages on this one?

Probably not. That would be my guess. Language learning is interesting. To learn another language is significantly easier once you conquer a second language. I’m sure there’ll be phrases and words I’ll pick up, but to be fluent, probably not.

Language learning is interesting. Learning another language is significantly easier once you’ve already mastered a second language. Share on X

I’d be the same way. It seems a little overwhelming. You’ve got a good wingman on this. I don’t know if everybody knows, but Larry Stevens spent a lot of time in China. He was based there.

He did. He spent fifteen years in China. He ran a company there out of China, and became the Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific before he transitioned over here as the Executive Vice President.

My guess is he’ll be able to supply you with a lot of contacts, know-how, and clout. Let’s face it.

Without a doubt. I am fully leaning on him and his years of experience in China. Not only that, but just his years of experience in the industry. Larry and I have an excellent relationship. He’s already proven to me that his business acumen and just his approach to leadership aligns with mine. That makes my job even easier because he’s already laid the foundation.

That’s interesting you say that because I was going to ask you next what your leadership style is like. Frankly, the way I’ll phrase it is, I don’t know. Maybe it sounds a little puffy and everything, but Dee, what’s your superpower?

Is it fair to say my wife? My wife is a superhero. We’ve alluded to this a couple of times, whether it’s on a blog post. We might’ve even hit this on a show one time, Eric. I’m a collegiate athlete. For me, it’s just about teamwork. That’s where I try to lean into. If you want to call it my superpower, that would be what I would try to do is to develop a team that works in unison together.

For example, in Asia Pacific and Africa. You’ve got all of these companies spread out across all these regions. The reality is we’re working towards one goal. If you can cast that vision, have those team members firing on all cylinders, and you put them on the field to play. They’re just going to make being a leader easy. Because they’re the ones that are knocking it out of the park.

It makes a lot of sense. Is Würth doing acquisitions in those regions the way they have been in North America, to put it that way? That’s where we’re focused. We don’t have such a good perspective on that.

No acquisitions. It’s a little bit more internal within the Würth group. These are more on, “Where do we not have a presence and how can we get a presence in that area?” It’s more focused on the, “We want a business there, let’s start something” versus an acquisition.

It’s more ground up. You’re not going to be an M&A piranha. Very interesting. Right off the top, do you see any issues that you know you’re going to have to be confronting? What’s top of your list? What are you watching for?

My focus is going to be for some of the bigger companies that we’ve seen. I won’t say that they struggled with the market the way it was in ‘23. It was just a difficult year in many aspects. The flip side is that the Asian market compared to the market here in the US. There’s a lot of similarities, but there’s also a lot of differences.

One, how business is conducted and then how that affects the market as a whole. The other thing that, with this position, you constantly have to look at is the value of each currency within those organizations. That’s constantly on your radar. For example, in Malaysia, it’s a ringgit. What’s the value and how does that flex throughout the year? That’ll be a focus area.

For me, it’s going to be getting to know the team members. I don’t like to use the word employees. I like to use the word team members. Getting to know the team members, learning about their business, and what their strengths are. How can I come alongside, coach, encourage, and just collaborate amongst the group.

You said your first destination is several places in Asia, along with Larry. Is that right?

Correct. We fly next week. We’re headed to Taiwan.

By any chance are you going to, or maybe you don’t know yet. Do you think you’ll be hitting the Taiwan show in June 2024?

Possibly. My travel schedule is booked until mid-May. I left June open intentionally. My boys will be out of school by the first part of June. I left that open intentionally, but there’s definitely potential that that could happen.

That’d be cool. I’m hoping to make it out there. Finally, I was supposed to get out there in April of ‘20 when the world melted down. It got canceled. It’d be pretty cool. We had Scott Camp last time. He reignited my interest in all that. A lot of good people in that part of the world.

For sure. A lot of good food as well.

I’d like to try it. You mentioned your boys. This has got to be a big move for them as well. How did you break it to them? How did you approach it with the family? I can’t even imagine, Dee.

It was interesting. When Larry asked me about this, I had to be very honest with him and told him I had never even been to Asia. We talked through that a little bit. I came home and approached my family with the idea. I told them I didn’t need an answer right away. We just needed to think about it and discuss it later.

About a week later, we were at the dinner table. One of my boys brought it up and said, “Are we going to talk about Asia?” I said, “Sure, let’s talk about it.” We went around the table. Everybody was on board. “It sounds like a great adventure and a great opportunity. Let’s do it.” We just started walking down the road.

My wife and I went on a discovery trip. The Würth group was very gracious to let Laura and I go over, travel, and see. I checked schools and came back. We found an excellent school where the boys are going to go, came back, and reported back. Everybody’s still excited. We’re just as excited as what we were when we were asked about it.

Did you hold out for a private jet?

I did not. It’s funny. It would make traveling so much easier. It’s a long haul halfway around the world.

Randy Lammers used to have one, didn’t he?

I don’t know if he did or not. I hadn’t heard that story. That’d be nice, though. Maybe I could call him up and see if I could use it.

I used to always kid around with him. What about baseball? How is that going to affect the guys in their sports? Are they going to be the king of the team? That was always the old joke. The guys from the American teams would go over there. They’d be superstars, even if they were marginal guys over here. How’s that look for them?

I have three boys. My oldest will graduate in May 2024. Obviously, he’s going to graduate and remain here in the States. My other two are still going to be in high school. We’re still looking at options with my oldest. He’ll be a senior. He’s a cross-country runner. We’re trying to figure out. Is it maybe part of the season or part of the year. He would still be able to stay in the States and run his cross-country season versus being in school over there.

I want to give him the flexibility of trying to walk through that a little bit, especially for a senior year. My other one’s going to be a freshman. My youngest will be a freshman starting high school in Asia. They’re excited about it. As far as the baseball thing, I’m going to have to travel probably to catch some baseball games. Where we’re going to be living, there’s not a whole lot of baseball. I’ll have to do some traveling to get my fix, so to speak.

We’ll come back to that in a couple of minutes. Let’s move it back to the fasteners for a little while here. You’re obviously a guy who has a very interesting vantage point of the fastener industry. It’s even more global than it was before. We are going to be taking a look at the FDI as it winds down for ‘23 in the next segment. What’s your read on the fastener business? If you need to just keep it on North America, that’s cool. What are you looking at?

I’m not deeply involved enough yet to know what it looks like on the other side of the globe. Here in America, it was nice to see that uptick. That was a little bit of wind in the sails for everyone. Maybe just thinking long-term. Everybody knows that Q1, maybe even Q2, depending on when things break, is going to be status quo.

I would imagine from what it was in ‘23, the first half of 23 for us was good. The back half was just a struggle. I’ve said this multiple times. We’re going to have to diversify in our approach, what I would call getting back to pre-pandemic levels. I know that customers are still sitting on a lot of inventory just through the pandemic and trying to work through that.

You’ve got high-cost inventory versus incoming inventory. Just trying to work through pricing and what that looks like. In production levels from the OEM sector, what is going to be normal for them versus what it was during the pandemic. It’s going to be a struggle. I don’t like to call it a grind. It’s just going to have to be something that fastener companies are going to have to diversify. Find new avenues from a business standpoint on who to sell to and how, and make sure it’s strategic in order to continue to grow sales.

Fastener companies are going to have to diversify and find new avenues, from a business standpoint, for who to sell to and how, and make sure it’s strategic in order to continue growing sales. Share on X

You’re based down in Florida still, Dee. I imagine that as your previous role as CEO of Marine Fasteners, you’ll be phasing out of that while you ramp up on your new responsibilities. You’ve probably got a lot of loose ends to tie up over there, don’t you?

I’ve worked the whole month of December 2023 as, I would say, a dual role. It was trying to get acclimated to what was to come for the start of the new year with APA, Asia Pacific-Africa. Making sure that everything at Marine Fasteners was tidied up. I’m one of those guys. I do like to finish well. Meaning that even though I knew this opportunity was coming, being a team guy, and having a team mindset.

It’s important for me to know that when I step away from one thing, that all the I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed for the team. That way there’s no cleanup after I’m away. That’s what it’s been. Still in Florida, worked through most of that. Alex Mikros, he’s also CEO of Würth Construction. He’s the new CEO at Marine Fasteners. He’ll have a dual role. I love Alex. I love his leadership style. We’ve always gotten along. We had a good collaboration and mindset towards business. He’s going to do amazing things at Marine.

Thanks for dropping that on us. That’s a little scoop I was not aware of. We’ve had Alex on the show previously. I guess we’ll be speaking to him again. That’s great news.

He would love it. We met at the Marine Fasteners office and finished up some last-minute details. Did a Q and a for the Marine Fasteners team. We brought everybody onto a live stream where they could ask questions, personal questions, business questions and left it open. We had a lot of fun with him.

We didn’t mention all the Rugged Maniacs or the Tough Mudders or whatever we’re calling ourselves. My guess is we’re not going to see each other in August, but you got excellent reason for missing 2024, Dee.

This August 2024, probably not. Maybe 2025 we can talk or the date would change. You never know. I might be able to make a trip. This August, we’ll be trying to get my family acclimated into a new culture, school, and etc.

You were a hardcore mud racer in 2023. I forgot though, what was your nickname that you had on your Jersey?

Mine was Dee Nuts.

Because I had another one. It’s my thing, thinking up names for guys. If you ever wanted to change that one out, I have one for you. It could be Clean Up.

That’s perfect. There you go.

Further on the baseball theme here before I let you run back to clean up some more of the loose ends aforementioned. What is the name of that special team that you’re following in the world of baseball that you’ll be watching from afar?

I’m a Braves fan. My whole family are Braves fans. I’ve coached high school baseball since 2016. I had to send a resignation letter on that in December 2023. That was heartbreaking. At the same time, it’s been a few years. I had my run. I’ve got two guys that you’re going to hear probably in the baseball world. Riley Greene, he’s center field for the Detroit Tigers. Vaughn Grissom, who played for the Braves and just got traded to the Red Sox. They’re both high school graduates where I coached, 2019 grads.

Is that right?

They were drafted and doing exceptional things. That’s my claim to fame. Those guys, they’re good guys.

That’s got to feel good. I’ll tell you it fits right in. The team management aspect, the team player role that you like to play and your philosophy and all that. It’s just fantastic. Dee Ward, Würth Industries, you’re the Senior VP responsible for Asia Pac and Africa. We’re so grateful that you came and talked with us first on that.

Always a pleasure. I appreciate you having me every time.

God bless you and your family as you make this courageous adventure. I’m sure we’ll be talking to you down the road.

Thanks, Eric. Much appreciated.

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It’s the news segment. First one of the new year, Brian. Mike McNulty is coming up. He’s focused as always, like a laser. He’s also got football on his mind, though. The hometown team, the Browns are in it. By the time this gets out, we’ll already know what happened on the first round. He’s focused. Let’s just leave it at that. It was good to lead off the show with a big headline segment. All the best to Dee. We got another guy on the line with us, who’s got some big news. A couple of pieces of big news to drop. He’s everybody’s fastener friend, Mike Robinson of Star. What’s up, Buddy?

Thanks for having me on.

It’s our pleasure.

As always. How’s your new year going? You got any resolutions that you’ve already pondered taking up?

Some of them, yes. I started out the new year good, but then day two came. Those fizzled out real quick. Other than that, make this year better than the last, that’s the goal.

Big news coming out of Star. Long-awaited news.

Star Stainless Launches Web Portal For Quotes And Orders

Customers and everyone out there that’s reading this, we’ve heard your ask and what you guys wanted out of us. We had our website launch. We finally opened up our web portal for you to go on there. Get your quotes and your orders put in and search through our product offerings and everything like that. That is up and running.

We had a plethora of our customers. As soon as we launched it and announced it, they were on the website registering their account and getting all set up right away. We had a long list right off the get go. It’s so far, so good with it. We had a few little bumps in the road, but worked through them very quickly. Nothing but good things so far. We’re excited about that. The ease that it gives our customers out there. We’re still here to answer the phone anytime they want to call or email us. We’re giving them that option that they’ve been asking for who knows how many years.

That’s great. Interesting.

That’s a great way to start off the new year for Star Stainless. We’re talking full eCommerce, right Mike?

Yes. All through our website, we have a web ordering portal there that they’ll sign on to, assign them right onto their account. They have all their information on there. It defaults to their local warehouse that they get its shipments from and everything of that nature. It’s full non-contact if they don’t want to talk to anybody and they’re working at 9:00 PM. They could get their orders placed.

Good news. I was talking to Tim a little while back. We’ll be talking about this further on the show in more detail. At least, we got that headline out there. Good for you. Go Star. Right off the shelf, right off the web.

There you go. Maybe we’ll need to change that slogan there.

You might want to think about that.

You’re doing double duty because you’re also the president of the NCFA. It’s a North Coast Fastener Association. You guys made some decisions and signed a contract, didn’t you? What’s going on?

We’re starting 2024 off with some big, exciting stuff here. In February, we have our Annual Spring/End of Winter Dinner on Thursday, February 29th, 2024 out in Strongsville, Ohio. We’re going to have a couple of speakers out there. We got some marketing experts to speak specifically on marketing in the fastener industry and how to go about it.

What methods there are out there, what works, what doesn’t work, and different ways to go through your marketing campaigns there. We’re excited to get the first meeting of the year there, meet with some of our fastener friends that we haven’t seen throughout the holiday season or through the winter months here where we’ve been hibernating in Cleveland. Excited to get that kicked off.

NCFA Announces Distributor Social On The Goodtime III Cruise Ship

The big thing that we signed that contract for that we’re excited about is it’s going to be one of the best that the North Coast has ever put on. It’s our Distributor Social for 2024. We typically have our Distributor Social in the springtime. It just so happens this 2024 in the springtime, right around our Distributor Social time, Fastener Fair USA is going to be in Cleveland, Ohio.

Rather than compete a week later and have our Distributor Social or two weeks earlier. We’re going to hold our Distributor Social the Tuesday before the Fastener Fair starts. Fastener Fair is on Wednesday and Thursday. We’re going to have our Distributor Social on Tuesday, May 21st, 2024 the NCFA Distributor Social.

What’s going to make it even cooler is we’re changing our venue. We normally hold it in the Independence area of Cleveland. Same hotels, same lobby, same place almost every year. This 2024, we rented out the Goodtime III cruise ship. It is only going to be your fastener friends on this cruise ship. It’s got four levels.

It has four different bars on each one of those levels for you to get your drinks to go and talk business, socialize, get to see all your fastener friends there. We’re going to board the boat around 5:30 PM that Tuesday. Ship’s going to set sail around 6:00 PM. We’re going to get back to the docks around 8:30 PM. It’s about a two-and-a-half-hour cruise, not quite like Gilligan’s Island. No three-hour cruise here.

We’re doing two and a half hours. We don’t want anyone to miss the Fastener Fair on Wednesday and Thursday. The boat takes us. It will sail us up and down the Cuyahoga River out on Lake Erie, see the skyline of Cleveland, Ohio. It’s just going to be a cool event. I’ve lived in Cleveland my whole life. I’ve never been on Goodtime III. I’ve heard about it. I’ve seen it, but I’ve never been on it for an event.

That just sounds like a good time. I heard that Morgan Rudolph of Rudolph Associates is going to be the guest pilot. Is that true?

I did not hear that. If the walleye are biting, I bet you Morgan’s going to know where they’re at. He is more than welcome to take us over to wherever those walleye or perch are. I will catch some dinner for Tuesday night.

We’ll have to confirm that. Just stay tuned to Fully Threaded Radio, folks. We’ll keep you apprised. This is huge and a big departure from past Distributor Socials as you said. Do you know the capacity of this ship?

Typically, at our Distributor Social, we have somewhere between 150 and 200 distributors and suppliers. This ship is going to hold up to 400 people for us. If anybody is coming into Cleveland for the Fastener Fair, I strongly encourage you to come check this out. We’re going to have registration on our website up sometime in early February 2024 for you. It’s just such a great event because you have your distributors there. You have your customers. You have your suppliers. It’s just a great way for us to interact in a relaxed atmosphere with all our fastener friends there.

I’ll say that the NCFA Social is always a great affair.

It’s great. Everyone’s relaxed there. There is business that gets done, but like I said, a lot more relaxed atmosphere. It’s more a bunch of friends getting together to talk business and catch up with each other.

The big headline from this segment is Star’s got e-commerce and the NCFA is going out to sea. That’s just ahead of the Fastener Fair USA, which will happen in May 2024. The cruise is May 21st, Fastener Fair the 22nd and 23rd. On the 22nd, that will be the night of the big welcome bash, which will be held at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is turning into potentially a pretty big week for Cleveland and the fastener industry, isn’t it?

It is. My friend over at Solution Industries, Tim Vath is going to be one of the bands getting to play at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for that Fastener Bash.

We’re psyched about all this. Just to remind everybody, this is the news segment. Mike McNulty will be coming up in just a moment with Bob GQ Baer to look over the FDI for 2023. Volt Industrial Plastics has been the sponsor of this segment for many years. We sure do appreciate that. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Brighton-Best International, Goebel Fasteners, and Star Stainless. Right off the shelf, right off the web, Mike. Thanks for coming back to the show, amigo. You know what time it is.

It’s time to introduce my fellow Cleveland Browns fan and Cleveland sports nut. With news about screws that you can use, Mike McNulty.

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Thanks, Mike. 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. The Cleveland Browns American football team qualified for the NFL playoffs for just the third time in the 21st Century and got blown out in the first round by a team that they dominated in December 2023.

Bolts are making transportation news. Federal debt topped $34 trillion US dollars for the first time ever. The total overspending amount in 2023 was equal to the federal government’s total spending in 2002, just over two decades ago. I am still focused on fasteners and ready to deliver this Fastener News Report.

Abbott Interfast President Bob Baer Joins The Fastener News Report To Reveal FDI Results

In this episode, Abbott Interfast President Bob Baer joins us to reveal the latest results of the Fastener Distributor Index, also known as the FDI. On this broadcast, we have our top story on LindFast Solutions Group as well as newsmaker headlines from Penn Engineering, Sherex, Vogelsang, Great Lakes Fastener Group, Norm Fasteners, AFC, Volt Industrial Plastics, RotorClip, Brighton-Best International, Fasnap, and more. On the back page report, we’re going to talk about market forecasts. We’ll get to all of that and the latest FDI results right after this.

The Seasonally Adjusted Fastener Distributor Index for December 2023 dropped after two straight months of improvement to a sobering and unexpected level of 47.5 versus 53.4 in December. This was the 7th sub-50 result in the last ten months. The Forward-Looking Indicator, also known as the FLI, also softened to 49.6 versus 50.4.

Fastener Distributor Index data is collected and analyzed by the FCH Sourcing Network and Baird. The FTI seeks to identify demand pricing and outlook trends within the American Fastener Distribution Industry. To get some insight on these results, we talked to Abbott Interfast President Bob Baer. Bob, thanks for joining us on the Fastener News Report.

Thanks, Mike.

Good to have you back on.

It’s always a privilege to get invited on and speak on the show with you. I’m always happy to contribute to the industry. Hopefully, my analysis is as meaningful to others as I think it is to me. That’s always debatable.

I know you spent a lot of time looking at it over the years. I’m sure readers are looking forward to know what you think about the latest FDI and FLI results.

Let’s get into it. I’m a numbers guy. I tend to focus on the chart and the number, and crunch the number cruncher. We can’t help it. I try to look a little deeper into the results. What I noticed was that just looking at averages, the average FDI index in 2023 was 48.1. The average for the entire year is under the line. Eight of twelve months were basically below 50. As we all know, 50 is a level where neither growth nor contracting. In contrast of 2022, the FDI average was 51.2 with ten of twelve months above the line, so a tail of two years.

At the same time, despite business being off, our industry is pretty much better than most of the rest of the industrial world as a whole. You can see that if you look at the PMI chart, the Purchasing Managers Index. It’s been off fourteen months in a row below the line. We’ve managed to creep above the line in between there, but fourteen months in a row, we’ve never had that kind of tracking. I don’t think on the PMI. It’s a dismal year. All around in industry, we fared a little better, but definitely a down year.

Fully Threaded Radio | Fastener Insights — Fastener Insights: Despite business being off, our industry is still doing better than most of the rest of the industrial world as a whole. You can see that if you look at the PMI chart, the Purchasing Managers Index.

That’s a good way to look at the average in 2022 versus 2023 and tie in. Any insight to why the fastener industry has done better than the general manufacturing and better at weathering storms?

There’s a lot of opinions on that. We started to turn the corner here. We had a couple of up months followed by another down month. Which incidentally, if you look back at the chart, you’ll see that that has been the pattern as we start to creep up. We fall back a little bit and regroup. We eventually get into the green and stay there for a nice long period.

I’m hoping that’s the case again this 2024. History tells us that we don’t normally just jump back into the green and stay there. If you look at the long-term chart, you can see the pattern, the one we post in color. It’s very evident. A lot of it just has to do with our industry being on the front end of things and demand for our product line having to be there well ahead of the marketplace.

Product has to be made, has to be on the shelf, has to be prepared in order for the eventual sale or production to happen on the backend. We see things first. We feel it first. We contract first. We grow first. As far as the differences between our industry and the rest of the industry, I don’t know. It’s interesting, but there was a lot of panic in our industry in ‘21 and ‘22.

The second half of ‘22 coming out of that, everybody just had so much inventory that everybody put the brakes on. Prior to that, the first half of ‘22 was almost as crazy as the year ‘21. You couldn’t keep up. You couldn’t get product in. You didn’t know if you had enough inventory or not. All the panic buying just inflated the numbers enough in the first half of the year that we held to the end of the year and held our ground.

Let’s dive into some of the numbers here. The sales number tanked. That’s probably the main thing that brought the FDI down. Employment dipped a little bit. Inventories and pricing were mixed while deliveries were fairly flat. Any insights there? Anything jumped out to you?

All the meaningful numbers dropped. One of the things I noticed is respondents’ inventory is up again. At the same time, customers’ inventory dropped. This has happened in the past. It doesn’t happen too often. What it typically means is that shipments are going to benefit here for a month or two as our customers replenish because their inventories are down, they’ll pull some inventory out. There’s so many different factors that go into the numbers. One of these days, I’ll figure out the weighting because I know that each one of those variables is weighted. I honestly can’t say I know what the weighting is. I think Baird takes care of that.

Baird’s on there.

I’ll have to find out from there how much importance each one of those are. There are some other factors too that affect our industry. On the pricing end, China Steel’s raised steel a few points. Factories that are starting to get busy overseas, they’re going to follow through with that. You’re going to see those increases come through. One percent to 3% is going to mean it’s not going to correlate one-to-one to product because of labor.

The smaller, more hungry factories, if you’re dealing with them, may hold the line. They’re definitely still slow overseas. Our business is still a little bit slow. Across the board, everybody saw double digit reductions in 2023. There’s always areas of business that buck the trend and they’ll be up. Certain segments are up. For the most part, everybody’s been down. Lead times are good. They’re pretty short. I expect them to increase this 2024.

As everybody does expect, we did experience a soft landing. Business is going to turn around. Those lead times are going to jump. Pricing is going to jump with it because everybody’s going to rush in their orders. Customers are going to come and realize they’re short on inventory. We’ll all be placing orders at the same time.

The thing that caught my attention is that the six-month outlook got, what I would describe, as a little bit more bullish. Numbers came in at 55% of the respondents expecting things to be better in six months. Thirty one percent expect them to be the same and only 14% expect them to be worse. That’s a nice mini surge versus 47, 29, and 24 in November. Even with the FDI, dropping that six-month outlook got a little bit better.

That’s interesting because the FLI dropped slightly from November. Obviously, the sediment is a little worse, but that’s probably dead on. Everybody is expecting business to bounce and to get better. Those of us who’ve been sitting on inventory have watched it slowly disappear and recognize that those orders are going to have to come through to replenish it. That’s a big part of it.

The fact that the government is projecting GDP growth again. In 2023, nobody expected growth. They were in the consensus 2023 was negative growth, like 0.1% or so. The economy grew 2.6% so they’re projecting again growth this 2024. I don’t think they’re going to be off. There was a lot of money spent in manufacturing structure investments.

Obviously, reshoring comes to mind when we think about that. A lot of us, including Abbott, are being told by many customers to reduce the risk of supply chain overseas. This Asian conflict that’s sitting out there forever, that everybody always talks about and says will never happen. It seems like it might get closer to reality, at least in the customer’s eyes. They want us to move away from Asia if we can. A lot of manufacturing, as a result, is going to come back to the US. I know we’re looking at it ourselves.

A lot of people are seeing that Mexico is going to benefit from that as well as domestic manufacturing and operations.

For sure, Mexico. There’s a lot going on in Mexico. Also, inflation. If you look at inflation, it’s dropped nearly in half from 2023, which is a big part of the soft landing. That’s going to boost customer confidence. The world recession, I don’t think it’s likely that it won’t occur. Although, there’s a small level of risk it could. We’re going to see a slowdown.

Definitely, those who supply OEMs have already seen it, but it is a soft landing. It is going to turn around. We’re still going to see growth. I’m betting business is definitely going to go up. The stock market’s going to go up. One of the only negatives we do have in our economy, not one, but a negative is housing. The interest rates can continue to be a thorn in their side. People aren’t moving. They’re not jumping around. Nobody wants to get rid of a 3% mortgage and pick up a 6% or 7% mortgage.

Can’t blame them. Anything else on the FDI or the FLI before we move into the respondent commentary?

From my end, that’s most of the stuff I saw. A little bit about the job market. I don’t know how much impact it has on the industry and on our index in particular. We’re still struggling to hire people, obviously. Everybody is. The job market in December added a lot of jobs, 216,000. It finished very strong. Unemployment is still around 3.7%. It’s been under 4% for just about the longest time ever.

I’m a little worried about a couple things. AI being one of them. I don’t know how that’s going to affect our index per se. I read Cognizant, who I’m not familiar with. They did a study along with a college. They’re suggesting 90% of our jobs will be affected by AI. It’s an interesting stat when you hear something that high, 90%. There was a lot of successful strike activity in 2023 with unions.

They got what they wanted.

They did. That’s going to affect 2024’s actions. The labor market is going to continue to be tight. We’re going to continue to see wages go up. From a cost perspective, that’s going to affect our industry. From the ability of the US manufacturing to jumpstart and get going again, we’re going to have some issues with hiring labor at a higher wage, especially.

Who knows someday, maybe we’ll just have a couple of robots doing this report.

Let’s hope not. Interesting stuff, AI. I know for everybody, it’s the buzzword. Everybody’s talking about it. There’s hundreds of millions of dollars being invested into it. My opinion on AI is like the computer. The computer brought data to us quickly. AI does a great job of analyzing things way faster than our brains can, but I still think it needs to be interpreted by a human.

I agree, 100%. Let’s move into some of the comments. I’m going to present these. If then you want to jump in with any comments on these comments, feel free to do so. Barrett said we basically had a balanced mix of bulls and bears this January 2024. First quote is “I did not expect December to be a profitable month with fewer business days and an extra paycheck. I was pleasantly surprised.”

Next one is “Strong demand for the month of December 2023. Surprisingly, our distributors seem to continue to have strong demand for domestic externally threaded fasteners. On the bullish side, December saw a slowdown in new orders and shipments. Expect January to March 2024 to be the same. Many customers are very cautious about getting too much in order with the uncertainty of the economy and election year.”

I agree with that comment, 100%. It’s interesting. This is what occurs when we’re on the cusp of flipping over bears and bulls all at the same time. It’s hard to commit one way or the other when it could flip either way. We are on the verge of flipping over to the positive side, getting our index back up in the green. The fact that those comments are coming in mixed as opposed to all positive or all negative is a clear sign that there’s some transition going on here.

The next two are probably on the bear side. “Although, we responded higher for the future six-month activity, which we cited earlier with all the higher, this is more to do with new business than current customers. We’re more cautious when it comes to current business activity related to the economy. The last comment is “Typical December. Not awful, but the usual slowdown the last two weeks.”

“December is always our worst month, so the negative answers from month-to-month shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Our customers are mostly closed the last two weeks of the year. Many of our vendors are closed in the last week of the year.” I know these are seasonally-adjusted rates, but do you see anything different this December than typical Decembers?

Yes and no. The pattern I see when I look is that December’s down a little more when we’re in a down period. There have been December’s in the past since we’ve been charting our index where we’re literally almost through the roof. They’re above the line, high 50s. Maybe lower than the peak, but still in the green. December’s not always bearish entirely, but it does tend to be maybe on the lower side of the rest of the months.

With the extra days off for Christmas and New Year.

People are taking vacation and production slows down. By the time Christmas comes, there’s a mad rush in September-October to get products shipped and in for the holiday. There’s a little bit of a reprieve.

Those are the comments, a mixture as we noted and you noted. Hopefully, it’s putting us back in the green going forward.

That is the overall sentiment with 55% saying, “Yes, we’re going positive.” I agree with that. We may see one or two more down months and then hopefully, a turnaround. Who knows what the end of the year will bring with the election. That’s anybody’s guess.

Let’s jump over. What’s new at Abbott Interfest and with you? I know you guys had an anniversary. You just got hammered with some snow. What’s going on?

We did. We had our 75th anniversary, that was in September 2023. We had a big to-do at the Westin in Wheeling. All our employees attended. It was a nice, wonderful event. Before that, Abbott Interfast was inducted into the Midwest Fastener Hall of Fame. Only the third company to do so. That was a big honor. We were present at that event.

We’ve done a lot of traveling. We’re looking at a lot of different markets again. Trying to de-risk some of the products coming in from Asia, including looking at some new machinery. We’ve been on a buying binge for the last couple of years, bringing in screw machine, CNC, and trying to automate some things. We continue to do that. This is going to be the year for us that we bring in some additional different kinds of machinery, trying to diversify ourselves a little further.

Our Denver office is up and running. We have five employees in Denver. We talked about going retail at one time. That’s still a little bit on hold. I’m not sure where it’s going to go. As everybody, we’re trying to add salespeople. Anybody out there is looking to jump in a 75-year-old established fastener company. We’re trying to hire some outside salespeople.

I thought you were going to say you were trying to hire 75-year-olds to sell.

We don’t discriminate based on age. If you’re good, you’re good. That’s covering the majority of it of what’s going on for Abbott. As you know, I’m still involved in the MWFA. Although there’s a very good chance I’m in my last year. I am winding down. Jake Davis is still our president with Jill Lewis, our VP. GH3, George Hunt III is taking over my treasury duties that I’ve held for the longest time ever. I’m winding down, but MWFA had a banner year in 2023. FSTNR Week was another success.

That’s coming up again this 2024.

This 2024, FSTNR Week is in August 20 to 24. That will be preceded by, of course, the Rugged Maniac Race on the 18th and Build-A-Bed on the 19th. Again, a great week to come down at work, do the trade show, and get involved.

You were going to mention Nancy retired.

Nancy officially retired. She is still helping us out a little bit. Francesca Lewis is our new executive director. She’s doing a wonderful job. We’re going to hang on to Nancy part-time as needed. We have a couple of events coming up. February 22nd, we have an event in Oak Brook, at Puttshack. We have the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Thomas Wallstrom is speaking. That’s always a great event to figure out what the Fed thinks about the economy and where they think it’s going. In March, we have our all-day Fascination with Fastener Class and in April, wine tasting, which was a big success in 2023, if you missed it.

I missed it, but we had some pictures that you guys sent over and published in the magazine. It looked fun.

The MWFA continues to put up some very nice events. I won’t go any deeper into the schedule since April’s firing off. Except to mention, we’re looking forward to FSTNR Week again.

Quite a good thing for the industry.

Hopefully, it’s turned into a staple. I understand Eric has Jake coming on the show. I’m sure he’ll go through the rundown again and probably repeat everything I just said. As president, good reinforcement. It is good to know.

Congratulations on being inducted into the Fastener Hall of Fame in 2023. Good job.

Thank you.

Quite personally you got in, too.

At the IFE along with Eric, Brian, and George Hunt.

That I did not miss. I was there for that. Congratulations.

Quite an honor. Thank you. I’m very humbled by it.

It’s always good to have you on here on the Fastener News Report to talk about the FDI, the FLI, the fastener industry, Abbott Interfast, and the associations that you’re involved with. We appreciate you coming on, sharing your insights.

Thank you very much, Mike. I’d also like to thank Eric and Brian for keeping this thing going, keeping the industry informed, and continuing to invite me back. I appreciate it.

Good job. I just noticed that we’re closing in on episode 200. Who knows what’s up their sleeves for that.

Amazing, for sure. That’s why they’re in the Hall of Fame.

That’s right. Thanks again, Bob.

Thank you, Mike. Take care.

LindFast Solutions Group Completes The Purchase Of Hi-Q Fasteners

That was Abbott Interfast President Bob Baer. The FDI number for December 2023 was 47.5 versus 53.4 in November. Visit FDISurvey.com to participate in the process and get a detailed PDF copy of Baird’s monthly analysis. For our top story, LindFast Solutions Group, also known as LSG, completed the purchase of Hi-Q Fasteners. A company that has decades of experience in fasteners, as well as the same relentless focus on meeting the customer’s needs, as does LSG.

Hi-Q offers a complete line of SEMS, thread forming, and machine screws in inch, metric, steel and stainless. It carries spacers, standoffs, and self-clenching hardware. All Hi-Q products are imported and stocked in Santa Fe Springs, California. LindFast has the opportunity to learn from Hi-Q and expand its capabilities, while HiQ will be able to leverage the supply chain capabilities and distribution network that LindFast Solution Group offers.

LSG says that the acquisition will be a benefit for its customers, suppliers, employees, and others. LSG also expects very little change in the near term to its customers, suppliers, and other partners. The goal is to maintain the strong Hi-Q brand in the market and Hi-Q’s strong focus on customer service. Other LSG brands in the group include Lindström, Stelfast, Fasteners and Fittings, Chiang Shin, Mega Metric, Solution Industries, and Star Stainless.

Next up, the Fastener Newsmaker headlines. In corporate news, Penn Engineering acquired Sherex Fastening Solutions. Vogelsang expanded its slotted pin inventory and increased its manufacturing capacity. Great Lakes Fastener Group acquired Frontier Fastener. Norm Fastener established its first USA manufacturing facility in Michigan. AFC Industries acquired Chicago Industrial Fasteners. Volt Industrial Plastics completed its 2023 expansion. Arnold Umformtechnik inaugurated a new production facility. Rotor Clip opened a new logistics distribution center in Texas.

In personnel news, Jen Adams joined Avantus Aerospace as VP of Human Resources. W.W. Grainger named Chris Klein to its Board of Directors. Spirol International Holdings‘ Board of Directors appointed Jeffrey F. Koehl as chairman. Brighton-Best International, also known as BBI, appointed Peter Smith as Vice President of International Sales and Troy Enders as General Manager for Australia.

In milestone and award news, Fasnap Corp. owner Sally Reed celebrated her 90th birthday on January 10th, 2024. Nord-Lock received a Fastenal Supplier Award. 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 at FastenerTech.com.

Let’s turn to the back page to talk about market forecasts. In the last months of 2023, two press releases on fastener market forecasts were issued. One from the Fredonia Group in the USA and the other from Research and Markets in Ireland. The data and timeframe for each vary slightly, but the gist of each is basically the same.

For most of the rest of this decade, the average global demand for fasteners will grow by more than 4% annually, which isn’t too shabby. Fredonia has been covering the fastener industry longer than I have been in it. They say that the industrial fastener global market will grow annually at 4.7% reaching $119 billion US dollars by the year 2027. Driven mainly by increasing fastener demand in various global manufacturing sectors.

Research in markets is newer to me in covering the fastener industry. It projects the global market to reach $125 billion US dollars by 2030, growing at an annual rate of 4.2%. They also give segment and regional forecast growth percentages per year as follows. Metal fasteners growing at 4.1%, plastics at 5.5%, China growing at 5.6%, Japan at 2.9%, Canada at 3.5%, and Germany at 3.1%.

Neither market research firm says anything about the Great Depression of 2030 that the fastener industries’ longtime friends at ITR Economics have been warning us about for the last ten years. ITR reports that following the mild recession that it is forecasting for 2024, there will be good economic times ahead for the rest of the 2020s, followed by an actual Great Depression starting in 2030 and continuing well into 2036.

They add that many will be caught off guard by this coming depression. If they do not have plans in place, individuals and their businesses will face serious trouble in the 2030s. What is a fastener industry professional to do with these and other market forecasts? Some wise folks that have appeared on this show say that it is hard to predict anything beyond the next three months. I suspect that weather app operators might say that one week of accurate forecasting is a real challenge.

I say keep one eye and some attention on these expert projections. Consider the reputations and track records of those making them. Take everything with a grain of salt as my grandparents from the USA’s greatest generation used to say to me. Keep both your eyes and all of your attention on today and your own experience.

Always remembering this truth written thousands of years ago. “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” This has been Mike McNulty of Fastener Technology International bringing you the Fastener News Report. Please send your news, pictures, comments, corrections, or complaints to me at McNulty@FastenerTech.com.

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Carmen Vertullo Discusses Controlling The Risks Of Giving Customers Advice About Fastener Use

Welcome to the Fastener Training Minute. This is Carmen Vertullo, coming to you from Carver Labs in beautiful El Cajon, California and from the Fastener Training Institute. Our topic, like many, came as a result of an email that I received where a client had an issue. In this particular case, the issue was relatively simple, but it leads to a larger topic. That larger topic has to do with controlling the risks associated with giving your customers advice about the use of fasteners.

In this particular case, the customer said to my client, “I need something in writing that says your threaded rod will do such and such.” My client came to me and said, “How do I handle this?” I said, “It’s very important that you handle it correctly.” When I come back, I’ll tell you how we dealt with that. I’ll also help you to control the risks associated with this risky business that have nothing to do with fasteners. They have to do with your behavior.

We are talking about how you safely give your customers advice in the use of your product, or I should say, how you advise them. This instance, as it turns out, came from one of my clients. They literally got an email where a customer wanted to know in writing that their 1/4-inch threaded rod was adequate to hold an electrical box hanging from the concrete ceiling of a parking garage.

The inspector saw this. The inspector insisted that they either needed to use a 3/8 threaded rod or they needed to use two 1/4-inch threaded rods to hold one electrical box. I have photos of this. If this was television, we would show you the photos but it’s radio so you have to imagine it. You’ve been in parking garages plenty of times. You’ve seen all kinds of things hanging from the ceilings of parking garages.

In this case, it’s a simple 4-inch square galvanized steel electrical box hooked onto a conduit with some wires obviously coming into it. You won’t find this anywhere. Though, it is good practice to never hang anything overhead or safety-related with one fastener, whether that’s a screw and concrete or a piece of threaded rod, or whatever.

It’s a good idea not to have one. In this case, this conduit that connected this box had another piece of threaded rod in more boxes and threaded rods all up and down. This is not what you tell your customer, but the principle would be if that threaded rod fails, is the thing going to fall down? Is there some other threaded rod downstream that will keep that from happening?

You can have that conversation with your customer. At the end of the day, all you should say about your product, your threaded rod, for example, is “This is 1/4-inch threaded rod. It has a tensile strength of whatever.” You could conceivably advertise a safe working load based on that tensile strength of, let’s say, 1/4 of that weight. That’s as far as you should go.

You don’t know how they’re going to attach that threaded rod into the concrete. It’s going to be epoxy in a hole. Are they going to use a drop-in anchor of some sort? Are they going to use a concrete screw with a bracket? Who knows what the rest of that contraption looks like. At the end of the day, your job is to protect your company from liability, whether you’re a salesperson, an advisor, or even an engineer.

If you want to advise the client based on the application, just be careful to include an authoritative citation that’s not yourself. In other words, a specification or a standard. You could refer them to someone else, such as me, to help them decide with calculations, if needed. Whether or not that fastener that you’re supplying is adequate for the application.

You don’t want to be nasty about it. You don’t want to lose a customer over it. You don’t want them to just say, “I’ll go use someone who is going to help me out.” It is possible to help them out in an authoritative way and give them the answer that they need or lead them to it without putting your company at risk.

The main way that you do that is to ensure that you have some kind of a policy in the company, which everyone should read and sign. That states that you are not allowed to give applications advice to the customer other than the performance of the specific material or the specification or standard that it’s derived from. If the customer asks for that, you must let them know that, “We’re not engineers. We are fastener suppliers. As far as we can go is to tell you what the performance of the item might be.”

This also applies to things like torque. How tight should I make this bolt? It’s okay to provide the customer with a torque table or a chart. That Fastener Training Institute information that you might have from one of those classes or even from the IFI Technology Connection. At the end of the day, you are telling them, “Here’s the correct torque for this fastener in a standard application.” It’s the customer’s responsibility to know whether or not it’s suitable for their application.

I hope I didn’t scare any of you off from being able to provide good service and advice to your customer. There is a way to do it. If you ever find yourself backed against a wall, where you might lose a sale or you have a situation where you’re going to annoy a very good customer. If you need some help, please don’t hesitate to call me.

I have lots of weird wiggle words and ways to phrase things that will let your customer feel like they’re being well taken care of in spite of the fact that you can’t give them exactly what they want in terms of the information. That has been your Fastener Training Minute, helping you to control the risks associated with the risky business of selling fasteners. Thanks, folks.

—

Brian and Eric, back with you. Brian, it couldn’t have come too soon because we got all the heavy lifting in this episode out of the way.

If you say so.

The news and the FDI, that’s heavy. The training part of it and all, and big, important things with Dee. We can shift a little bit into some frivolity.

I like that.

It will be frivolity plus. I got just the perfect couple of people to help us along with that. First off, she always seems to be in a good mood. She’s always up from the Fastener Training Institute. Jo Morris is with us. What’s up, Jo?

I’m always up. That’s because I’m so short. I have to jump high to keep up with all of you guys.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Welcome aboard. Next, this guy has a very good reason. He’s the barista for the entire fastener industry. It’s Jake “Valdez” Davis, BTM. What’s up, Jake?

Hello, gentlemen and Jo. It’s a pleasure. A happy new year to you all.

Jo Morris And Jake “Valdez” Davis Discuss Certified Fastener Specialist Training

When we were putting this conversation together, my original idea was to have a lighthearted look ahead at the 2024 fastener world. What are we all paying attention to? What seems like on the horizon and all that. Maybe look back a little bit. Speaking of looking back, that’s the segue here. Sneaky of me, isn’t it? I had a conversation with Christian and TJ about their recent experience over at the Fastener Training Institute. Jake, you were there too. You guys are all the newest Certified Fastener Specialists. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. As I said on LinkedIn, blind squirrel gets an acorn.

We do not regard you as a blind squirrel, Jake. Though we might make fun of you, but not a blind squirrel.

It was a great week. I was thrilled to find out a few weeks ahead of time. I was in Dallas for an SFA event. TJ and Christian were there and found out they were going to be in the class. That eased a little bit of my anxiety. I certainly know Jo and having her there, and the aspect of having those guys there, knowing a couple of fastener friends. I had something a little bit more to look forward to. It’s a great week of education and very insightful. I don’t want to scare people. There’s nothing easy about it, nor should it be.

It’s not a blow off class, is it?

No. I certainly found that out on question one as soon as I opened the test.

That’s why it means something. If it was easy, everyone in the world would have one.

Everybody would be doing it. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to go and take part in it. One of the first things that happened when we were going around the class introducing ourselves. I was thrilled to see how many younger people were in it, younger in age, but also younger in the fastener industry. I found myself being the senior citizen of the class with 27 years of experience. The next closest, if I remember, was around 14 or 15 years. There’s a gentleman from Heico Fasteners that was there in the class. That just struck me. Two very positives to me as we got started on that.

Are you starting to finally reconsider that YFP membership?

It’s emeritus, I believe. That’s the aspect of it.

You identify as young.

I identify as YFP.

That’s interesting. I love that we have so many young people join us. It isn’t a class for your first day on the job. I love that you found out that TJ and Christian were going to be there because they’re not brand new to the industry. They’re established industry people., for several years, we have had some industry experts join us for our classes. I love that.

We had a gentleman, who took the class twice, that has been in the industry for over 30 years at a very big distributor. He’s like, “There’s just so much to learn that I came back again.” He passed the test on the second time. I was interested to ask you if you thought it was going to be just newbies. I’m glad that there were some experts or some people that have been in the industry for quite a while there just to show you that it’s never too late.

No matter what you’re going to learn something while you’re there. You’d be surprised with how many people have not gone through the class. They haven’t taken the test. There’s absolutely something at every level of your experience in our industry. You will get something out of it. I was pleased. You were not the oldest, Jake. You just probably did have the most experience.

That’s what I said. By age, certainly not. I support it, 100%. If you remember, I called you. I was going to send one of my newer salespeople to the class in Chicago of ‘22. I ended up sending my QA Deanna. She went and became a Certified Fastener Specialist. You had told me the gentleman that had started with us on the sales side only had probably around 5 to 6 months.

You said, “I would wait and get him maybe 12 to 15 months of just work and industry work at your place before because it could be a little daunting to somebody that might have 90 to 180 days in.” For somebody that’s had 27, there were words and phrases and formulas that old Jake hadn’t quite seen yet.

Let me ask you a couple of questions about the testing, Jo. This is sounding like a bigger topic than I thought. It sounds like this person that you were describing who took the class twice. Did this person not pass the test on their first attempt?

Didn’t even attempt.

There was just so much they felt overwhelmed. My next question would be what percentage of people who go through fastener training, go on to do the CFS Test, and then successfully pass it? Do you have a feel for that?

I would say that to do the week long, it is probably 90% will take the test and 75% will pass.

You’re a very tough task master, I would say.

Remember, we want you to pass. A lot of people have to retake it. You’re not expected to be an engineer when you’re done. The goal is that you have the resources. You know where to find the information. You can speak logically to your customers, to your suppliers. We want you to pass. If you don’t pass, we guide you, we help you, and give you more resources.

We encourage you to come back and retake it. We want you to pass and we learn from that. We take surveys every day in class. How did we do? It gets a little old, but we glean from that. What are we missing? The test has 100 questions, but we have 200 questions in the bank. Every test is different. The order of tests, the questions you get are different from the colleague that’s sitting next to you.

We watch that. We see, where are they struggling? How are we teaching that? The instructors and I get together after most of the weeks. We look at, where did we fail? Who’s not understanding it? How are we instructing it? We’re going through CFS. The Certified Fastener Specialist Program was refreshed during COVID.

It was a needed refresh where we just needed to update, not just graphics. The content is the content, but how we’re teaching it. We introduced a lot more hands-on because everyone likes it’s easier. It’s horribly boring, hard to just sit in a class all day. Jake, you can attest to this. Just sit there and listen, especially the information about fasteners. We’ve introduced more hands-on group exercises, working together.

Our next reiteration we’re working on it is going to have more case studies. We give you a problem. We teach it to you. We give you a problem. You work in groups. You have to solve a problem. You have to find solutions. You’re utilizing what you’re being taught. We’re trying to look at and improve how we’re teaching. The test gives us a lot of that information. What questions are they struggling with? It’s a live class that is constantly being refreshed and upgraded. It has to stay relevant for our industry.

How many Certified Fasteners Specialists are there walking around in the fastener industry?

We have about 2,500. That’s not an exact number. That’s general.

That’s way higher than I was imagining. I don’t know why. I had a much lower number in mind.

Keep this in mind. It was first introduced in 1998. It’s been around for quite some time. We started with just seven single days in California. You could take those over the course of a year. We morphed it into a week-long class. We still have the seven-day classes, but it’s a little bit of a different product because a big part of this is getting to know the industry.

There’s a huge networking aspect. We all know that part of our industry to be. I try to incorporate that with Fastener Training Week. That’s why we do a lot of group things. We always try to find something social. I encourage everyone to work together. It’s fun if it’s at a hotel. Have dinner together, spend lunch together. Even if they’re a competitor, these are your colleagues. That’s a big part of our industry. Fastener Training Week has grown quite a bit. We have been around for quite a while.

Do you provide the opportunity for successful test takers to get a fastener tattoo of some kind?

That’s a good idea. We could come up with a tattoo. They get a plaque.

Some of the latest CFSs are tattooed people. That’s why I’m asking.

That’s a good idea.

The other thing, Jo, that I’m thinking about. Most of us haven’t sat down and taken any sort of formal exams since we stepped out of college. We thought, “Thank God, it’s the last one I have to take.” It’s a bit daunting, the idea of having to sit through a test.

It is and it’s not short. I had guided everyone, “It should take you about four hours.” I was getting texts from a couple of students saying, “I’m on hour seven of this.” It’s an exam. To your point, Brian, I had written tests. I didn’t do everything online when I was in college. It’s just different. The test used to be written, but having it digital makes more sense.

You can speak to it. Jo sets it up and prepares you. About a week before I left for California, I got the pre-class workbook. That was homework, prior to read through. There were some problems in there to do to get your mind right. I’m looking at the introductory quiz that we took. Out of twenty, I missed five. I did pretty good. I didn’t know the answer to two.

Brian, to your point, they quickly got you in the mode of expectations of where we’re going within this. Jo mentioned it, they do a very good job of breaking the class up. There are certainly hands-on portions of it. We had three groups between the 27 or 28 students and the case studies. We would all sit at a table and work together.

We’re looking through the IFI and the case study. Again, you’re introduced to these people. You’re spending 8-9 hours a day together or more, if you’re doing dinner and such. That aspect of it. You’re meeting them, but you’re also learning with them as well. It’d be a very difficult thing to get in and just go heavy on class without the breaks.

The class interaction is huge. The smaller classes do better because the goal we want the students to say, “I don’t understand or how about this or what about this example? I brought this certificate.” We encourage people to bring a cert. We review certification and test reports. We teach them how to read prints. We encourage people, “If you want to bring one, bring one. We’ll review yours.” That interaction, it just helps in the learning process, as opposed to just classroom lecture. It’s a fun week.

The interaction helps the learning process, as opposed to just classroom lectures. Share on X

Jake, you run two fastener companies. ISSCO and BTM manufacturing. You’re always hunting for candidates to fill open positions. If you see CFS after a name, does that catch your attention? I would expect it would. What do you think the premium on the salary is going to be for something like that?

I don’t know. I’m still negotiating mine.

You just got it.

I gave that up. Eric’s too bloody tough.

To me, it just shows just the dedication and the interest in education. Jo hit the nail on the head. To me, again, I mentioned it. In my time in the industry, there’s a lot of what we studied and what I tested on that day-to-day I don’t have. I left that class having so much more confidence and being able to speak more intelligently.

Have more confidence knowing, “Where does Jake go? Where do I direct my people to go within the IFI if we do have an issue come up dimensionally or a failure or whatever is thrown at us?” That was my biggest takeaway. Once I got done with the test, I have these resources at my disposal for the rest of my career. The aspect of it that they’re there. I can remember something and go and look through my notes. Find the answers or lead me in a direction that I need to go.

I always say the best thing you can possibly learn even at university is where to go to find information.

Jake, you were a huge help. I have to tell you. The post and having you in class, that people could see that somebody like you, who had all this experience, came and that you did it. I’ve had a lot of people in our industry that have been in it for a long time reach out to me and say, “I’m interested in taking your basics class.” I love that. It’s just someone from the media, from Link Magazine. They want to take our basics class. I’m like, “That’s great that you want to get involved and understand what we’re all addicted to, why we’re all here.”

You certainly don’t need to be selling it to take it. This class is open to podcasters as well.

We’re coming to Cleveland.

We weren’t setting ourselves up for this. Why don’t you lay the calendar out for us, Jo? You’ve whet a few people’s appetites.

We will be in Cleveland twice in 2024 in April. We will be hosting at BBI. Thank you very much to BBI. We will be back in November at the IFI Headquarters. That’s for Fastener Training Week. We’ll be back there for the Fastener Fair for a single day class. For Fastener Training Week, we will be in Cleveland in April and November. They sell out.

We had a record attendance in Chicago in 2023 with the Midwest Fastener Association at their tabletop. We had 55 students, which is a lot. It’s a lot for any class. Jake, now that you’ve been through it, you can see just the shuffling of people. You want people to have somewhat similar levels of experience so that you can teach at the same level. That’s just tough to do with a huge group. We are going to keep it smaller.

When are the instructors going to be announced for these? I looked online. It all said to be announced. When does that come out?

For Chicago, we will have Carmen, Lawrence and John Metcalf. We’ll have Salim and Lawrence for both Cleveland classes.

Salim and Lawrence are who we had in LA. Fantastic job. They have so much intelligence. They could probably take a 30-day long class.

All the instructors are top notch. That’s for sure. They’re preeminent in the industry. You mentioned BBI is hosting the training here in Cleveland, which is wonderful. You are also in partnership with Würth. They’re a sustaining partner. That’s got to be a very valuable arrangement that you have. How did you get all that set up, Jo?

They’ve been a long-time supporter of Fastener Training for years. I just asked them. They wanted to continue to support us. They are our sustaining sponsor. We are always looking for sponsors to help with the day classes, the webinars. Honestly, training is expensive. We have a new program that we’re introducing in 2024.

We’re bringing a new learning management system on, so an LMS. It’s going to be great for our industry. It’s a huge investment for online learning. It just allows companies where you can log in. You can register. It tracks the classes you’ve taken. You automatically can download the material that’s there. Jake, you’ve taken some of our online stuff. It’s literally up to me to send it to you. “Here’s your quizzes. Here’s your tests.”

This is going to be completely new. A company can log in. They can assign it to their employees, a class or a series. We will have addendums. If they’re suggested for warehouse or quality or purchasing, we have a set schedule of classes that you can take. Managers can log in. They can assign classes to their employees and watch their progress.

The students will log in, download the material that they need. Immediately after watching the webinar, a digital test will come up, a multiple choice. There’ll be a pass-fail. It’s a great record-keeping option. This is going to be helpful, we hope, for some of our smaller distributors that don’t have the resources to keep track of employee training records.

The system can email managers automatically weekly to let them know the status of their employees and where they’re at. You’ll be able to log in and take online classes. You’ll be able to register for live classes. Each person will be able to own their own learning portfolio. That’s coming up. It’s very expensive. It’s very time consuming.

We are always looking for sponsors to help us with content development, updating and refreshing the current week-long class, bringing new online software. It’s never-ending. We have very bright people in our industry. We are constantly trying to upgrade and bring new and interesting classes that are relevant for every level. We’re very appreciative to Würth and all of our sponsors that help us on any level. Not just the big sponsors. We appreciate you, but all of them, the little ones too. Jake, I’ll take you up on your offer for coffee for our classes.

I was going to bring it up. You and I negotiated that.

Coffee, Training, And Fastener Insights Powering The Industry Forward

Finally, let’s hear about this. Christian mentioned this in the last episode. I was holding off too, but here we are, folks. You got something to drop on us, Jake?

Coffee is the lifeblood of the fastener industry.

Let’s face that. We drink a heck of a lot of it.

Jake, coffee is one of the lifeblood.

The morning lifeblood. Not at night, but the morning lifeblood. Fastener Training Week is a day-long commitment. I had just noticed, nothing against where we were. The hotel will remain nameless, but I noticed the swill we were drinking all week long. I found an opportunity for BTM and U-Bolt Blend to be introduced as the premium coffee sponsor for Fastener Training Week in 2024. Jo and I are working out the details, but coming soon to a Fastener Training Week.

That’ll be good coffee.

The percentage of those that pass is probably going to go up. I would say probably by 5% to 7% just by changing the coffee.

Muy bien amigos. I’m foreseeing some attractive U-Bolt Blend mugs to accompany those as well. We’ll see what we can do on that front. Congratulations to everybody on that one. Here we’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about FTI. These segments never go quite as I envision them, but this is all great info. Congratulations again, Jake, and all the CFSs. How many passed out of this LA edition?

I don’t know the number off the top of my head. There’s no time limit. You can take forever to take the test. The number’s relatively low.

They’re slowly rolling in.

We’re not even at halfway yet.

You ever catch anyone cheating?

No. It’d be hard to cheat because every test is different. It’s an open book. We give them the resources. You have to go find it. Why would you want to cheat? The people that are there want to make an investment in their career.

They’re all serious-minded. There’s no spit balling, just screwing off in class.

There’s not a lot of people that don’t want to be there.

I’m going to just get rid of this other question I was going to ask about fastener training detention, but that doesn’t exist apparently.

That’s all dependent on what happens the night before. Each and every night.

Spoken as a veteran. Why don’t you tell us? Come on, Jake, lay it on us.

It’s good. To Jo’s, just on that test-taking aspect of it. They mentioned it, the instructors. It’s imperative, certainly it was for me, to get back and to start. I didn’t have any timeline. I didn’t know what to expect, but I got back on Friday. I came into the office on a Sunday, just to do some catching up. That’s when I first cracked the test. They suggested, “Start on it as soon as you can. Certainly that information, everything by a fire hose, that we just got is hopefully top of mind.”

To me, it made it go a little bit easier, at least knowing where to go look in the notebook or in the IFI and just things that we had just done. I would encourage anybody that does do it in 2024, try and get after it a day or so after. I know I saw there was a gentleman that was in the class that literally posted on LinkedIn on Saturday. The class ended Friday at noon and Saturday, he had passed. I’m like, “That’s as top of mind as you can get.” Speaking from experience, I would go that route, try and get it done as quickly as possible.

Slotting the time in is a part of your overall experience. It’s probably very good advice.

If you’re a professional procrastinator, you have to put that thought away and not be a procrastinator.

To Jo’s point, it’s open-ended. You can start it and stop whenever you feel. My strategy was I did 1 through 50 that Monday. When I had a minute, I just had it open and I worked through 51 through 100. That’s when I started to go back. You can flag a question if you’re iffy. If you’re 50-50 on it, you can flag it and come back and revisit it.

What do you need to pass?

Eighty five percent. You can miss 15%. You think we’re too tough?

This is the fastener industry. We have high standards. I won’t say what they were, but both Jake and Christian posted their scores on LinkedIn. You guys, you’re bringing it. You’re setting the bar high.

That was impressive. They both passed on the first time.

The tattoo idea comes back to mind here because these are just hardcore guys. Should I say, Jake, Tough Mudders? You see a commonality here?

I do. You’re right. Tough Mudder equals CFS, and smart.

Fastener badass. That’s for sure. All kinds of good stuff is going on, Jo, at Desert Distribution. That’s your main gig. I don’t know if people realize that’s your main thing. You’re not a full-time Fastener Training Institute operator.

I’m a true fastener chick.

You know everybody. You’re always around. You’re bouncing around the industry. What’s going on over there?

I drink a lot of Jake’s coffee.

That’s the secret.

The only time you go down hills is when you’re on skis.

That’s true. Desert Distribution is my main gig and we’re excited. We hired David Palmquist to cover California for us, which is huge for us. John and I know David for years because we wrapped ND for many years. Great organization and we had a great time. David is king of the king. We are just incredibly lucky. He has filled a huge hole. He’s going to do phenomenal.

With that and adding more horsepower, we were able to acquire a couple new lines. One of them is Eurolink, which I’m super excited about. If you guys know Craig, he’s grown so much. I love the niche that he’s created with hard-to-find metric fasteners. I just love the story. They just moved into that new building.

It just affected since January 1st, 2024. New for us, but I’m excited. They’re growing. They’ve just been fun to work with. A few interactions that I’ve had, a few RFQs that I’ve sent over, but I’m excited. That’s a great niche. We’re excited that we have Eurolink. We also just brought on Screws Industries. I’m very excited. I’m headed to Chicago next week to meet with them. That’s going to bring a lot of options for us on the West Coast.

You’re making a lot of people jealous.

We brought in All Electronics Hardware. We’ve got three big lines in addition to all the others. All of our principals are phenomenal.

We were glad to see that news about Eurolink for sure.

We’re overjoyed. I think the most of Craig. We’re honored that he considered us.

He’s a good dude. They’re good people.

I’m going to ask Jake the same question in a second. As long as I still got your attention here, Jo. Did you have one topic area that we were going to talk about if we would have done the original segment that we talked about with the ION24? What’s the big thing coming down the pike for the fastener industry in the new year?

We still hear all the AI buzz. I’m always still interested. I’m still trying to figure out. I try and participate in all the panel discussions, not participate, at least attend the panel discussions to figure out, how is this going to help? How can it be applicable and apply to us? I do think that’s going to be still a big mover for 2024. I’ve heard some buzz about the Russian sanctions and the EU regulations. It was hot, then it was cold. As a supplier, I am still getting inquiries from a handful of OEMs and distributors to provide paperwork on if we are aligned with the sanctions. I don’t know where it’s going.

We hear all the AI buzz, and it’s always interesting. It helps to attend panel discussions to better understand how it can be applied to us, because it’s going to be a major driver going forward. Share on X

How do you answer those questions at this point? You receive them. What do you do with them? You don’t know.

Has the government even defined all the issues yet?

I don’t think so.

I don’t think so either.

As you said, was very hot for two to three weeks in November 2023. It has completely died off. We saw customers of ours, both distribution and manufacturing, wanting some blanket statement. It just wasn’t anything we were comfortable with doing and just said, “Not to our knowledge.”

I had one particular part for one customer. I did a little bit of a deep dive on that one and was able to provide them with the information on that one specific part. I’ve got customer coming to me where I’ve got 200-225 SKUs. I don’t have the bandwidth to even start to go down that aspect of trying to identify if those parts have anything from Russia or not. Everything that we’ve provided so far has been met. We haven’t had any pushback. That’s why I said it’s gotten so quiet on it. I wonder where it’s at.

It’s a trick bag. Everybody’s waiting for that. We’ll keep you posted. We’ll all be watching ‘24. That’s the topic. What else is going on over at BTM Manufacturing?, before you answer that, Jake, I’ll just set the table for you. Folks who may have been reading this may have gotten the idea that Jake is a professional fastener student and coffee merchant. However, he also has a couple of fastener operations. In addition to that, he’s the current president of the Midwest Fastener Association, former president of the Southwestern Fastener Association. Where you president of YFP once upon a time, too?

That would have been long ago.

Pretty much everything you could be a president of. These days you could be president of WIFI. Maybe that’s next for you. I don’t know.

It’s all depending on how I feel when I wake up. Things have certainly slowed a little bit, both on the distribution side and manufacturing side that we started to see in the fall. With BTM, not much changes on manufacturing a bent wire product. We’ve been blessed with continued business. Our lead times are improving to a point where we’re basically probably just on a commercial plated part anywhere from 4 to 5 weeks. That puts us in a pretty good spot. Stainless steel, maybe a little bit less, just because I don’t have that additional secondary operation. Trying to keep customers happy and lines running.

You mentioned the Midwest. I’m honored to be able to serve with the Board. As president for 2024, looking forward to a great year. Certainly, a year of transition for us as an association and as a Board with Nancy’s retirement. We’re thrilled with Francesca and where we’re at with her. We’ve got some things coming up. Our first event is February 22nd. We’re going to be at Puttshack in Oak Brook. We’re going to have an opportunity for the Chicago Federal Reserve to speak on the economy.

Can you ask him to fix everything?

We’re certainly going to try.

That will be helpful.

You might not like his answer. We did that wine tasting in 2023. We’re going to do that again in March 2024. I don’t have a hard date for that yet.

You just got Brian’s attention.

It’s a great time. We’re thinking about trying to have that maybe on a Friday night as opposed to a Thursday night. Maybe encourage a little bit more drinking. I wasn’t going to go there, but more of bringing a significant other, your spouse, and making it more of a date night. As Brian can attest, a very little fastener talk was had. A great time.

It was a fun night.

That’s definitely some bold thinking.

I’ll come to that.

Come on in. Now that you got screws, you can come a lot more often.

I’ll mention this. I was talking to GQ. We were setting up for the whole FDI thing. I don’t know. He might’ve mentioned this when he was talking with Mike. He’s got us locked in for August 17th. It will be the Tough Mudder race or the Rugged Maniac. The mud race is on August 17th. The following day, on the 18th, is the Build-A-Bed, which that’s your baby. It kicks off the week with no vowels FSTNR Week, the MWFA Extravaganza week. We’re rolling through the year at that point.

That’s what I was just going to throw out to save the day. You did it for me. We’re moving FSTNR Week up all the way to Saturday with the Rugged Maniac Race. We’d love to get 40 to 50.

Do not ask Jo to do it, Jake.

I said no four times.

Don’t ask her.

I’m going to ask her a lot.

Nobody’s listening to this. Ask Jo. It’s just not in the cards this 2024. Don’t mention it. She’s in great shape. She’s got a great personality, great smile for this, very photogenic.

She doesn’t get dirty.

She’s not doing it.

I have a good reason. It would require me to spend two extra days away from my family and that just hurts my heart.

Carmen Vertullo is doing it this 2024. I already talked to him. He’s training.

I know. Carmen is doing great. He’s pumping it up.

Dan Zehnder was there in 2023, the Zen Master.

We had a great group.

Interesting field.

Each year, it gets more popular and more fun. Again, we talk to the brotherhood of it all. That’s not a sexist thing. It’s just a very fraternal thing for that group. Once you do those obstacles together, pregame, the event, and then the lunch afterwards. It’s just a great 7 to 8 hours together that just makes you a little bit closer than a tabletop show.

It’s like this segment.

I’m proud of you guys for doing that. You’ve built that up. It does look fun.

We’ll get you there. The year’s not over.

You can be a spectator like me.

No, Brian. We got to have Jo do it.

You’re in a gray zone, Brian, because you probably do just as much running around that course. You and Lynn, too. Lynn’s right there with you and all the stuff you do, you get all muddy. Anyway, GQ will be putting together that highlight reel. He just told me he’s got that on the list.

We need our hype video out there, for sure.

Appreciate you guys rolling in with us for this. We’ll have to continue the dialogue on the other topics we had lined up at a later point because we burned through this one. It’s been fun.

You know what, Eric? That just means everybody will have to come back in February and see what we left off.

There you go. Not only that, we did a good service for the Fastener Training Institute because that’s an important subject. You guys are doing wonderful work. We have been very pleased to support it for a while. We look forward to getting you back on Jo with your promos that you used to do. We talked about that.

We will do it. I cannot thank you enough for your support for us and our industry. You do a great job.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Jo Morris, Fastener Training Institute, Desert Distribution, Jake Valdez Davis, BTM Manufacturing, and many other things. Who knows what’s coming down the road?

Thank you, guys. Take care.

We’ll be back with more Fully Threaded Radio.

—

AI Trends, Aviation Headlines, And Fastener Industry Insights To Start The Season

Brian, I’m sure you noticed that when Jo Morris was discussing her expectations for 2024 in the fastener industry, AI came into the conversation.

It creeps into lots of conversations.

GQ also mentioned it. That Link article came out in the new issue. AI, the sub theme, seems like that’ll probably be for 2024, maybe even beyond. I don’t want to throw cold water on yet another episode. I had to point it out.

At a certain stage, we’ll be flogging a dead horse because it’ll be everywhere.

In 2016 or a little more, all we talked about was smartphones, our new iPhones, and all that, if memory serves. Here we are. There you are folks, helping us wind down the first episode of the 2024 show season. Hope you enjoyed it. It was a pretty strong episode, a pretty good way to get things started for the new year.

I’d like to thank all the guests who joined us, Jo Morris of the Fastener Training Institute and Desert Distribution, plus Jake Valdez Davis, BTM Manufacturing, one of the newest Certified Fastener Specialists in the industry. They joined us for our feature. Leading off, should I say. We’re led off with the Clean Up man, Dee Ward of Würth. He’s probably on a plane somewhere over the Pacific. I don’t want to jinx that.

We’ll be winding things up with an aviation-related conversation. We’ll just say, thanks Dee. Good luck on all that. I’m sure we’ll be talking to him in the near future. Mike Robinson helped us kick off the news report. Bob GQ Baer joined Mike McNulty with the fastener news report and that FDI Roundup. Overall, I’d have to say those guys have a pretty optimistic outlook.

That’s good. We’ve had it. We had a year of people telling us that the economy was going to collapse and the fastener industry, steadfast, believing that it wasn’t going to collapse. It just wasn’t going to be marvelous.

We are where we are. Still here a little bit of a dip, but they’re predicting some strength coming up. We’ll all have to see. It sure feels to a lot of people like we’re holding the wolves off. I don’t know if we get to do a victory lap on this yet. We’ll take it for now. Let’s not forget that Carmen Vertullo had the Fastener Training Minute. It looks like we’ve got another season of excellent training coming up with him as well. Appreciate it, everybody.

We’ve got an amazing group of partners that help us bring Fully Threaded Radio to life every episode. Couldn’t do it without them. 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, should I say, right off the shelf, right off the web. Don’t forget they’ve got their new eCommerce platform.

Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Fastener Technology International, INxSQL Software, J.Lanfranco, Parker Fasteners, Solution Industries, 3Q Inc, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Würth Industry North America. Let us know what you think of the show folks. The email address is FTR@FullyThreaded.com. If you’ve got suggestions for what you’d like to hear this upcoming season, fire away, or pretty much anything else. We’ve heard it all over the years. It’s always a lot of fun.

We do pay attention to them. Might be surprising.

We watch them come in. We try to keep abreast of what’s going on in the fastener world and in the wider world as well. We saw an example of those two worlds colliding as the new year started, Brian. I think McNulty alluded to this in his warmup for the news report, but he didn’t dive into it. The 737 story is what I’m talking about. I know a lot of you caught this. Another one of these head scratchers we thought to wind down the episode. We might be able to have a little fun with it, but that turned out to be not such an easy thing.

The people in the plane wouldn’t have thought it was too much fun either.

I tried to get Carmen involved in this windup. He originally said, “Yeah, I’ll jump on.” When I told him what I had in mind, in his position, I can see he’s got to treat things pretty seriously. I was just going to joke about it. I sent you a link to this story that came out on January 9th, 2024. There are a million of them. This is the one that caught my eye.

It came out from the Wall Street Journal on the 9th. It had this animation of an assembly that went into these emergency doors. The headline talks about loose bolts as the cause of this problem. That this big blowout at 16,000 feet freaked everybody out. The headline makes it sound like it’s the problem with the fasteners.

I have a different take on this. This problem only has occurred on one single model of the 737-900. Only two airlines in the world have ordered this model. It’s a special model that specifically has the last two emergency exits blocked up. If I was flying on one of those, and that’s Alaskan and United, I might say. Why would you want to fly on a plane that especially had an emergency exit blocked up?

I can’t imagine what the reason is because there are seats behind them. An ordinary 737, it has a continuous sort of fuselage. It’s glued in places, but this has a specific big cutout. I’m surprised they used some fasteners rather than just gluing because that’s how the rest of it’s all fitted together. Anyway, they did.

You’re just confused by the design.

I’m sorry that the fasteners were clearly not good enough. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have blown. I think the design is a terrible idea. I just cannot imagine why as an airline you would even think that it was worthwhile putting rear passengers in a position where they might not get out of a plane in an emergency. That’s what essentially it is.

In this case, they were able to get out without wanting to.

Fortunately, none of them got out. There were a lot of things that were very lucky about this whole thing. There was no one sitting in the seats just next to where it blew out. Otherwise, they would have gone out too.

One of the stories I saw said that people were afraid of getting sucked out like that gold finger getting blown out of the jet. It’s probably an ancient reference. Most people don’t get it. Anyway, that’s no big surprise, Brian. As usual, you and I see the stories in completely different ways. I’m thinking just in terms of, that’s the design. It’s got fasteners in it. The fasteners are being blamed almost in the popular media.

On top of it, to make matters even worse, they’ve got this foolish animation on this Wall Street Journal story where the artist who did this must never have seen. To me, it almost looks like a plow boat. It’s going through in this way that you would never be able to do it. I’m thinking, “Who is this supposed to convince?”

They’re trying to appear very authoritative. Without knowing anything about it.

In the end, Carmen said, “You guys just don’t touch this. Leave it alone.” He didn’t want to come on and talk about it with us, which I get. He’s a professional. He’s asked to diagnose these things. By the way, he did point me in the direction of a very serious aviation blogger by the name of Blanco Lirio. He’s a YouTuber.

Carmen said that whenever there’s an aviation fastener story, he always goes out to this Blanco Lirio channel. Sure enough, he’s got several videos that deal with all this. I got to say, in our own defense, he throws up his arms in the end too. He says this whole thing might’ve been rather futile because it might’ve just been a maintenance issue. In the process of trying to diagnose it, the sad part is they found all kinds of cases of loose bolts, loose nuts, and things on this new design. They’re getting more than they bargained for by getting the NTSB involved with it.

The last thing Boeing needs is having them breathing down their necks all the time. By the same token, we expect Boeing to be making planes that don’t have bolts that loosen, or nuts that loosen, or fasteners that loosen. They have been making planes for a long time that don’t regularly fall apart because bolts come undone.

Thank goodness we don’t see jets falling out of the sky on a regular basis. I’ve often wondered why we all take it for granted. Thank goodness that’s the case. Obviously, fasteners are designed well. By and large, jet planes are designed well. I don’t think anybody’s going to argue that. It’s good that we have regulators. It’s good that we have this oversight, but in cases like this, it proves that it’s not a perfect world. You put anything under a microscope and you’re going to find potential areas of concern.

It’s not good to look too closely at any of these mechanical things. You find places where there could be problems, but they just don’t happen to be right.

That’s almost what this blogger seemed to be saying at the end of one of the videos I watched. In any event, this is a big story to kick off the year that involves fasteners that a lot of you saw. There’s the FTR treatment of it. Fortunately, next episode we’ll have Jason Baines of J.Lanfranco on with us. I don’t know what we’ll be talking about, but J.Lanfranco does a lot with railroad.

In fact, they do almost only stuff with railroads. You’re right.

A completely different animal. Who knows what kind of adventures we can discuss on that one. Jason’s a fantastic conversationalist. Look forward to that one. Look forward to having all of you on board with us. Appreciate you being here for this one. Good way to start the season, Brian. In the unlikely event of a water landing, for Brian Musker, this is Eric Dudas. Get out there, put your oxygen mask on first.

Set up the front of the plane.

Sell some screws. We’ll talk to you next time.

See you next episode.