Episode #201 - Harpo's Revenge

It’s more fastener industry squawking as 30 year veteran Al Bate of All America Threaded Products flies in to discuss European distribution models, fastener head hunting and an exciting new threaded rod offering (1:37:49).Reporting from a high speed rail car, YFP star Parker Jensen of Atlas Distribution reports on the recent Taiwan International Fastener Show (21:49). AFC Industries VP of sales John Kovatch sits in with newsman Mike McNulty on the Fastener News Report to unpack the startling FDI reading for May (1:00:11). Jake “Valdez” Davis and Francesca Lewis of the MWFA preview this year’s FSTNR Week (39:43). On the Fastener Training Minute, Carmen Vertullo looks at coatings for lock washers (1:28:23). RETRO BONUS from Ep. 161: GHIII of Brighton-Best launches the era of fastener mud racing! (15:38) Brian and Eric wonder if an under reported headline will cause the economy to lay an egg.

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Harpo’s Revenge

Introduction

If you buy, sell, manufacture, import industrial threaded fasteners, this is the show for you. Glad you clicked in. We’re coming to you from semi-rural Northeast Ohio, and the co-host of Fully Threaded Radio is with us as well. Although he may have given you the evil eye when you tried to get a pen from him last month at Fastener Fair, he’s really a nice guy. He’s Brian Musker. Brian, are you doing all right?

I’m very good. I’m coming through from not at all rural Western Chicago.

Burbia.

Yeah, suburbia. When I still have some of the pens left due to my very vigilant eye, okay?

That’s right, we’ve got some for FSTNR Week coming up and then hopefully a few left for Vegas. Actually, I know we do because I ordered boxes and boxes of them, but that’s another topic. It’s predominantly fastener-related talk radio as people know by now. This is Episode 201 of Fully Threaded Radio. This time we’re publishing about June 19th, 2024. It matters not if you’re in the semi-rural outskirts or right in the middle of downtown, we’re glad you’re with us. On this episode, we’ve got people checking in from all over the place as it turns out, Bri.

Yeah, I know.

We’re going to talk to Parker Jensen of Atlas Distribution. He was at the Taiwan Fastener Show and we caught up with him on the high-speed rail zooming across somewhere in Northern China. A first for the show.

A very important use of fasteners, I might say.

They were going like 200 miles an hour. I tell you, the Atlas crew is a great bunch of guys. I think that comes through pretty nicely on this little segment, but we get a good feel for what happened in Taiwan this year. Parker does a good job of running that down. The feature segment is a conversation with Al Bate of All America Threaded Products. He’s got a lot of experience internationally in his 30-year fastener industry career. He spent a lot of time organizing distributorships in Europe and on this side of the Atlantic. Also served a stint as a fastener headhunter.

Both sides of the pond, as he would say.

Yes, he’s no stranger to the nuances of the endless fun you can have pointing out the English view of things. That includes his method of entertaining customers, that being rugby games. Instead of basketball, that’s what they would do over there, which makes a lot of sense. Anyway, it’s a far-stretching conversation. If you haven’t talked to Al before, you’ll find him I think a pretty intriguing guest.

On the Fastener News Report, Mike McNulty welcomes AFC Industries VP of Sales John Kovatch. They pour over the latest FDI numbers and I tell you, Bri, it’s another head-scratcher in a way. I’m glad to see everything so positive, but we’re all looking around saying how does this jive with what’s actually going on the street? Mike and John kick that around.

John has an interesting way of looking at things. Maybe different from our Fed chairman, but we don’t necessarily think the Fed chairman’s totally correct in lots of things at the moment.

Yeah, Kovie is a plain-spoken guy, he gets right to the point and he says it just like it needs to be said. McNulty and Kovach, Fastener News Report. Also on the Fastener News Report, we’ve got our quarterly report from Marco Rodriguez of Mohr Partners. He’s checking in with the latest on commercial real estate leasing. This is becoming a semi-regular feature.

We launch into that with a visit from Jake “Valdez” Davis and Francesca Lewis of the Mid-West Fastener Association. They preview this year’s FSTNR Week, the week with no vowels, coming in August in Chicagoland, right in your back door, Bri.

I know. It’s been in my back door for a while.

I’m looking forward to coming out there and I’ll have to remind myself to get on Amazon and shop around for some parrot sedatives.

Please do.

I really enjoy staying out by you guys, but the parrots, another story.

Perhaps it needs a higher farm to fly around.

That would actually be par for the course if I got the bird stories lately. Over Father’s Day weekend, I’ve got at least four different bird stories that don’t involve chickens by the way, with various fowl running amuck on the farm. Really weird.

I just had one. Just as I was setting my microphone up, a bird flew into the window and is recovering at the moment.

Back to the show lineup. Ahead of all that stuff, we decided to shoehorn in a little bit of a blast from the past and we’ll set this up after the first break. We’re going to hear from GHIII on a snippet that originally came, I think it was like around Episode 160 or so, Bri, and it was the origins really of the Tough Mudder mud racing team and how that all got started. I just came across this, had a lot of requests for some old segments, which I think we’re going to be including in rotation a lot more frequently on the show. We’ll get it all started after the first break.

Of course, we have the Fastener Training Minute. This time Carmen Vertullo discusses coatings on lock washers. He’s digging deep, Bri. That’s the Fastener Training Minute. There you have it, it’s a jam-packed episode. Therefore, not a lot that you and I need to do other than acknowledge the support of our finest partners. Bri, that’s your area.

It is. I’m very glad that we have such great sponsors and they’ve been very good to us and you, because they really bring this allow this whole show to be made. If you think of a fastener, or if you are thinking of them, then make sure you think of these sponsors first, okay? The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are 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. Also sponsoring Fully Threaded Radio are Buckeye Fasteners, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, INxSQL Software, J.Lanfranco, 3Q Inc., Volt Industrial Plastics, Würth Industry North America, and Solution Industries, home of Solution Man.

Let us know what you think of the show, folks, or if you have questions or suggestions, the email address is FTR@FullyThreaded.com. Brian and I are also out there on LinkedIn, you can catch us that way as well. This will be a short first segment but I wanted to take a moment to pay special attention to two awards presented by the ASTM International Committee. I think McNulty touches on this but I wanted to emphasize how impressive it is that Dr. Salim Brahimi has received the Walter C. Voss Award.

This is an award for exceptional contributions and they’re scientific contributions to knowledge and equally important, the transfer of that knowledge to engineering practices. This is really an important link in the whole chain of fastener industry wisdom and Dr. Brahimi is very well known of course and it’s very good that he gets recognition for this by the F16 Committee.

Also honored by F16 was Chad Larson, president of Lejeune Bolt Company. There was a story out there on LinkedIn about this but I caught an in-depth interview with Salim on Fastener News Desk and they actually interviewed him and did a very nice job of it. Get out to FastenerNewsDesk.com if you missed this.

He of course is Director of Engineering and Technology at the IFI and many CFSs, Certified Fastener Specialists, know him as the well, one of the main course instructors for Fastener Training Week. Congratulations Salim and congratulations Chad on the award. We’ll give ourselves a nice pat on the back for making it through this opening segment with no notes and general chaos around us.

This is just normal, I suppose.

Parrots flying around, you name it.

Thanks for reading and keep reading because there’s much more interesting stuff coming up from people who are more organized than us.

Very true. Talk to you in a minute folks, it’s Fully Threaded Radio.

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Wayback Clips, FSTNR Week Preview, And Taiwan Fastener Show Recap

We decided to give up on waiting for Harpo to pipe down and just record and let it be the way it is. By the way, Bri, how’s that bird that hit your window, your office window?

It lay stunned on the ground for a bit and then got its right and flew away.

Well, that’s nice. Don’t know what’s going on with all these flying creatures in the area, all the weirdness going on and won’t divert too far into that but it’s yeah, it’s weird, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with this reputed polar shift that some people are talking about these days, you know? Maybe our flying friends are sensitive to all that.

Yeah, it could be. It could have shifted a few hundred miles actually.

Have to focus in on that in an upcoming segment. Now we’re going to focus on something else that has been shifting a little bit and that’s people requesting or suggesting that we go into the wayback machine and play some clips from past episodes. Might have something to do with this 200th episode milestone, Bri.

People are thinking that might be a good idea, so we figured we’d check two boxes with one. We’re going to play a little clip here now with GHIII, that’s George Hunt the third of Brighton-Best. He joined us back on Episode 161 and this was ahead of the first mud race that we did as an industry, or I guess we had about 11 of us really, you and Lynn were there cheering us on of course, a few other people. It’s a very amusing clip, I think. Figured it’ll go perfect in this slot.

Why don’t you let it fly?

All right, that was bad.

I know, that’s really weak.

Here it is.

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They call that a hook or what do they call that in the radio business? I can’t throw that softball up any easier for you, Eric.

Yeah, well that was definitely on the topic list because getting back to the Naperville Fastener Association meeting, one of the great topics that we spent a lot of time on, this actually harks back to the previous episode of the George because it was Cool Hand and Jake “Valdez” Davis from BTM Manufacturing, now on the MWFA board, strangely enough, but they had signed on to Bob’s Tough Mudder, I think without really fully appreciating what they’d gotten themselves into. That really caused some conversation offline after the show and it looks like this thing is just mushrooming and now GQ is the leader of a movement and you’re a part of it too.

I think I’m just helping Bobby out with all the things that need to go on here but I’ll tell you what, Jake “Valdez” Davis is gold. You should win an award for that. If- if there’s anyone you pinpointed in a nickname, it’s that. That has to stick whether or not Jake likes it or not. We’ve been talking about a Tough Mudder for five years now.

It really started with our appreciation or disdain if you will, when Bobby “GQ” Bear is walking around in his three-piece suits and looking svelte and fit and just talking about some of the things that he does to keep up with his daily regimen. He just threw out Tough Mudders and Warrior Dashes and Spartan races and then it morphed into that. Okay, we’ve got to do an industry one. Now we’ve been talking about it and then this year it was. Okay, we’re doing it. I’m pretty excited about it but you know, what we’re really looking to do is Saturday, August 14th, prior to FSTNR Week, there is a Tough Mudder event in Rockford, Illinois.

You did lock in on that one. Is it the 3K? It’s the shorter, it’s the more manageable one, we’ll say it that way.

It is. It’s the 3K, about 3.1 miles. It’s got 13-plus obstacles. It’s short and long enough to get our industry just excited about getting together and you know rolling around in some mud.

I’m not sure you’ve made it sound attractive enough yet, George, the rolling around in the mud bit, I’m not sure if that’s like the attractive sounding part of it.

I have been told not to scare anybody, Brian, so sometimes I get a little exuberant and when I talk about things like that but my excitement for something turns into scaring the crap out of people, so I’ve been told to tone it down a little bit. I will tell you, it’s a challenge and it’s a team effort and we’re out there for fun.

It’s a fireman’s mentality where we start as a team, we end as a team, and then at the end we drink as a team. I just think it’s a great opportunity for us to just get together and do something that we can tout to our industry friends and try to make it as big as possible and who knows, maybe we can add another tattoo to Solution Man or something like that for accomplishing the Tough Mudder event.

We start as a team, we end as a team, and then we drink as a team. Share on X

I think tattoos are definitely going to be happening. Not for me, but they’re going to be happening. I think you’ve got a lot of excitement already building for this. You caught a lot of attention I think just in drinking at the end. Yeah, you’re going to have a crowd there, at least cheering us on.

Absolutely. We hope so. I hope everybody gets involved. Even if you aren’t part of the team or don’t want to be part of the team, you’re going to be in Chicago anyway for that week, why not come in on a Saturday and make your signs and make the best of it and cheer us on. It’s going to be a great time.

That’s ToughMudder.com. There are pretty plentiful photos and everything out here of the events and everything. I think they did a lot to make it look appealing to a wide variety of people. Little do they know that GQ is busily practicing his electrocution exercises. He’s just upping the voltage every day a little bit so he’ll be ready come August.

You know that that’s how he has to wake up at 5:15 in the morning every morning, just to get out of bed to get- to motivate himself to do a hundred laps in the pool just to get or whatever his regimen is. It’s- that’s for sure.

Stick your finger straight in the end of a power socket, okay?

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All right, GHIII, a little Fully Threaded historical comedy gold there.

There is actually quite a lot of little gold nuggets sitting in the previous 200 episodes, actually.

There are a few of them. We’ll be digging through those and we’ll bring some more to you during upcoming episodes. Looking ahead to this year’s FSTNR Week, of course we’ll be hearing from Jake “Valdez” Davis and Francesca Lewis later in the episode, but this year’s event, and they’ll describe this, is a lot toned down. It’s a 5K race, no mud involved. More importantly, Bri, and you spent a lot of time on this during that little segment, no electrocution involved.

Yes, good. I don’t need that at all, okay?

GQ is probably a little disappointed secretly.

Yeah, and slathering yourself in mud is not really my specialty either, okay?

Anyway, we’ll be getting to that. That was a lot of fun.

The Taiwan International Fastener Show is history now. That took place June 5th through the 7th. It’s a big event in the fastener world. Talked to several people in Cleveland at Fastener Fair who were heading over there, and we decided to get a recap. Reached out to Parker Jensen and he obliged. Let’s play that now.

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Taiwan Fastener Show Recap And Atlas Distribution Global Journey With Parker Jensen

The Taiwan Fastener Show happened last week and Atlas Distribution is an American-owned company but based in Taiwan. Their US operations are up in Winona, Minnesota. Atlas was in Taiwan last week, I think they’re in China this week tooling around doing who knows, we’ll hear in a minute. Parker Jensen is the National Director of Sales for Atlas Distribution. He’s on the high-speed rail as I understand somewhere in China at the moment. Parker, thanks for hopping on with us.

Eric, so good to be on. First time, long time. Big fan of yours, you are the voice of our industry and just so happy to be asked on and hope I can provide some value for the industry.

I appreciate that a lot, Parker. I’m glad that we were able to catch you and get you on here. It was a last-minute thing, but when I heard you were over there and after we spoke in Cleveland at Fastener Fair, got to size you up a little bit. I know you’re on top of a lot of things. What did you think of this year’s Taiwan Fastener Show?

Yeah, it was a very interesting show. Much different than some of our shows in America. Very global. We had people visit us from Australia, South Africa, lots of Germans, Slovakia. There was a really nice couple from Argentina that sold stainless fasteners to hardware stores. It was very global. Not a lot of Americans, but we represented our country and it was very interesting. I was a day late, my flight out of DFW was delayed about a day, and I went straight from the Taipei airport to the show. Always tiring but the adrenaline keeps you alive.

Absolutely, I can imagine that. Set the scene for us if you could. Most folks in the Fully Threaded Radio audience have not made it to that particular show over in Taiwan. What’s it like? What’s the scale of it?

Sure. It’s in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, which is really where 70%, 80% of the fasteners that come out of Taiwan are produced in that area. You know, all of the big factories that people know well are near there. It’s close to the harbor there in Kaohsiung at the Kaohsiung Exhibition Hall. I would say in terms of number of exhibitors, it’s probably similar to the Cleveland show we were just at, Eric. Lots of machinery there, as you can imagine. Lots of fastener machines are made in Taiwan.

It was three days long, a little bit longer than ours because the machinery guys take a long time to set up and get their booth set up so they want to stay there a little bit longer. There are steel companies, there’s lots of manufacturers, there’s several trading companies. As I said, it’s very global. You know, there’s people from all over the world that are attending this.

Folks from India, Russia, Australia. A little different audience but similar people. We’re all nut and bolt heads and I love fasteners and just speak some different languages but yeah, great opportunity for our team too. We have about 40 folks in Taiwan and everyone from sourcing, quoting, accounting, were able to be around the sales team and learn more about how we present our business. The infrastructure here is unbelievable and it makes it fun to travel. It’s easy to work, you can get a lot done, way less stress than airplane travel. Our team is able to get from Shanghai to Northern parts of China in about four hours without much stress and expense.

Let’s hear a little bit more about that in a second. I’d like to stay on the Fastener Show for a minute. The footprint was about the size of Fastener Fair, you said, but in terms of attendance, an international audience, what would you say relative to Fastener Fair or Vegas? How well was it attended?

I would say similar to Cleveland again. Not quite as large as Vegas but it was well-attended and we had quite a bit of foot traffic every day. We’re new to the show, so we didn’t have prime real estate but we still had a nice flow of traffic throughout the day and it was great to see our suppliers too. A lot of our suppliers exhibited and it’s a different world in terms of exhibiting. There are some very small casual booths, there are some extremely large like what you’d see out of lindfast or Brighton. There’s even one- one furniture screw factory, they do a lot of business with Ikea, Eric. About $20 million a year I believe with Ikea. Very rich, very famous factory.

We were speaking to Atlas fearless leader Scott Camp before you guys left and he said you were going to have a pretty impressive footprint over there for this show being a newer show for you guys and sounds like you achieved your mission on that one. This was a three-day show, Parker?

Yes, three days. Wednesday to Friday. We had three booths. Yeah, 2 that we combined and then 1 meeting area where we were able to have coffee or tea with our customer and relax and sit down and have some more formal meetings other than just going by the show. I think we did a good job. It’s our second time exhibiting as a company. Our first time was in Stuttgart, Germany show, which talk about a big show, that’s probably 3 or 4 Vegases.

Right, that’s the monster on the planet.

I want to get to this furniture screw booth though because I think it’s an interesting difference between our show and theirs.

Sure, go ahead.

At this booth, very famous, all of our sourcing managers and folks knew these people and we do business with them. At the show they have spokesmodels, they had cheerleaders, they had famous baseball players doing signings, they serve steak and wine. Their booth was probably 1,000 square feet, very large. The China steel booth is similar to that. The folks that sell steel to most of the Taiwan factories. You can sit down with your salesperson and then there’s spokesmodels that sit down with you too, which I don’t know if it’d fly in America but it was an interesting cultural difference.

I was going to ask you about the cultural differences that you noticed over there. I guess that’s one right off the bat. It sounds like they are serving food and probably beverages in the booths and the giveaways it sounds like are there and they’re very gracious. Is that pretty much it?

Yeah, definitely. Lots of tea of course is served.

Very cool. I have to also ask, is the main hallway carpeted?

It’s not so carpeted and it’s quite uncomfortable. Our feet are always sore of course just like it is in America and we’re tired at the end of the day for sure. Carpeted is key at trade shows.

Right, it takes a lot out of you doing those shows if you’re doing it right. I’m not sure I understood what you said though. Is the hall carpeted or not?

Was the hall carpeted, Scott? The exhibition hall, was it carpeted?

In the booth yes, the outside-

In the hallway the walls were not carpeted. In the booth you had carpet.

Okay, so they’re taking a page out of the Vegas show or maybe it’s vice versa. Interesting.

I guess they don’t want you to be too comfortable in the hallway, right, Eric? It’s about bringing the people into the booth and making them comfortable. We had lots of fun. You know, our team tries to keep things light. We’re- we’re not brain surgeons, we’re- we’re not nuclear scientists, we’re not bolt salesmen and we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We have a member of our sales team, Frank Myer, who a lot of distributors folks know. He’s known for his blue steel. He’s our spokesmodel, so to speak, of our company. Have you ever seen Zoolander, Eric, with Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell?

It’s about bringing people into the booth and making them comfortable. Share on X

Of course, it’s a classic.

Frank hits you with that blue steel and sends people fainting. He was giving the blue steel out to people from all over the world. Few understanding it but everyone loving it and his new nickname, I don’t know if you’ve seen some of our LinkedIn marketing but his new nickname is Screwlander, the man of blue steel. We also came up with a Chinese version of Screwlander and his new nickname is Zhao Blue Steel in Chinese. We had some fun. They’re not so used to seeing blonde hair and blue eyes over there, Eric, and some people are always amazed to see me. Very nice, way too nice. My ego gets blown up a little bit too over here but I get a lot of, “You look like Tom Cruise.”

You did have a lot of fun over there, Parker.

Frank named me Tom Screws. We’ve got Screwlander and Tom Screws on our sales team now, I guess.

I love it. Yeah, you guys belong on Fully Threaded more often. Did you see Anna Lippincott over there from American Fastener Journal? She’s blonde.

I did.

Yeah, she must have had a little fun herself.

Yeah, she stopped by our booth for a while. I had never met her before. It was- it was nice to be with an American for a while and understand the American Fastener Journal a little bit better and what they do. Yeah, I’m sure she had a great time.

Yeah, she was over there with the media pool so that sounded pretty cool. Okay, that’s a great rundown of the show and you now are doing business somewhere in China. Tell me what you’re up to.

Yeah, so over the weekend, we traveled from Taiwan through Hong Kong to Beijing. My first time in Beijing. I’ve been to Shanghai 4 or 5 times where our team, our people, a lot of our factory partners are. We also have a warehouse near Shanghai. Exploring the North is important to us as we aim to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the market and better understand factories up here. We spent some time in Beijing.

It was Dragon Boat Festival in China this weekend. Lots of travelers in Beijing. We stayed close to the Forbidden City. Monday, because the factories were closed for the Dragon Boat Festival, we did a little tourism and we saw the Great Wall of China at Badaling, which was amazing. It’s crazy, the vastness and it took around 1,500 years or longer than that I think over 2,000 years to build. The history of it is truly amazing. Spent some time in Beijing and then now yesterday we were meeting with factories. We met the Jake “Valdez” Davis of China, like a president of the Mid-West Fastener organization and broke bread with him and trying to expand our network as- as well as we can up here in the North.

Did you tell him that he’s the Jake “Valdez” Davis of China or would that not have translated?

I don’t know if he would have quite got it but his English name was Rambo. He was Rambo and he was quite the guy. Very entertaining. We had an English naming convention for some of our partners over there. They don’t do a lot of business with the West up North. In the area we were in, they make about half of the fasteners for the domestic China, but they’re not as experienced working with Western companies.

We gave them some English names and yeah, we had a great time exploring the North. Now we’re on the high-speed rail to look into some castings and forgings and other parts in fasteners. We go to Shanghai tomorrow to be with our team and to meet with some of our factories in the South of China. Lots of traveling but great times.

We’re speaking with Parker Jensen. He’s with Atlas Distribution. He’s on the high-speed rail in China and he just attended the Taiwan Fastener Show. For a young fastener professional, Parker, you still fall into that category, you are on one heck of a fastener adventure. I’m envious.

Yeah, I got really lucky early on in my career. I was still in college at Winona State University, the home of Fastenal, Winona, Minnesota. Our boss, Scott Camp, our fearless leader as you mentioned, left Fastenal after many years of good service to start Atlas. I was his second employee, so was able to learn from him. I call him the GOAT of the international supply chain. Been doing business over here for twenty years and have been able to learn a lot from him. Just truly blessed. Been doing it now nine years and I’m stuck for life, as they say.

Yes, you are. That’s impressive and a lot of people agree with you on Scott being a GOAT in that area. Greatest Of All Time, folks, if you’re not familiar with that one. Parker, it’s fantastic to talk to you. I’m so glad that we were able to catch you because again, this was a little last minute and it’s an unorthodox way to pick up an interview but nevertheless, we pulled it off. I really appreciate you doing it.

I’m sorry if I was blabbering a little bit. Just have a lot of excitement while I’m here. It gives you some new life to see where the things you’re selling are made and meet with the factory bosses and build guanxi or trust and the relationship. Happy and blessed to be able to do this and grateful to be in this industry.

We’re glad to have you and I hope you’ll come back to Fully Threaded when you return, we can explore all this a little bit more. Thanks a lot, Parker.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Eric.

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FDI Update, MWFA FSTNR Week Preview, And Fastener Industry News

It’s the news segment. Mike McNulty will be coming in, this time he’s got John Kovatch on with him with AFC. They’ll be kicking around the new FDI. Noteworthy, well we’ve got quite a bit coming around the horizon and we figured the smartest thing was to look at the next big thing, that of course is MWFA FSTNR Week. The week with no vowels it’s called by some. Jake “Valdez” Davis is the president, he’s here with us now, and executive director Francesca.

How we doing, Eric? As always, it’s an honor to be on and looking forward to discussing what MWFA’s got on and it’s a pleasure to introduce Francesca to the FTR show.

Thank you for having me. Hello. Thank you for having me. It’s my first show ever so very excited to be a part of this.

Welcome aboard. You’ve been with the MWFA now for a little while and I’ve been wanting to get you on, glad you’re finally here. It was great to see both of you in Cleveland at Fastener Fair. Of course we did our special report. Jake, I think you made it on there. Looked like you were having a good time out there walking the hall.

Yeah, it was a really good show. Just a quick trip for myself, just coming out on Tuesday morning and headed back Wednesday night, but I thought the NCFA as others had commented had done a wonderful job with their event on Tuesday night on the Good Time III. I do have questions about the Good Time I and II, what might have happened to those. Just all in all, a real good two days and it’s always just a joy to be surrounded by our fastener family.

Don’t go overboard Jake, but I take your point. Francesca, you were hanging out with Jill Lewis and you guys looked like you were having a blast.

We were having a blast. It was fun. It was my first Fastener Fair ever. I was a little bit of a rookie, wanted a side piece so she kept me around but it was great. It was great to see all of the familiar faces. I am remembering people and names and I’m very happy and excited about that. The show was lovely. It was great to catch up and just start summer, which ends with our show.

That’s right. There’s a lot of firsts for you because you’re just starting off in your role of executive director and so far, so good as far as I can tell, so congratulations on all that.

Thank you.

You’ve been working hard on FSTNR Week. Let’s take a look at it.

Let’s do it. Let’s first Jake, if you want to start with our unofficial kickoff, which is our race day, and then we can dive in to the rest of FSTNR Week.

No, and you know, Eric, we had an impromptu special show back when we were thrown a little bit of a curveball from our friends at Rugged Maniac as they- really without any warning, just posted that they were going out of business. Our- our traditional obstacle/mud race went bye-bye. I do know there’s a Tough Mudder. It just doesn’t line up with the dates that we’ve got scheduled. As soon as we were notified there, we pivoted and found a 5K distillery run. A little bit of both that the fastener industry is used to. A bit of exercise followed by some networking.

Bobby Wagner’s been working really hard on that and just thrilled to be able to do that. It’s going to be a very low-key opportunity for those that are coming into town and those that are in town, the locals, to join up on- on Saturday, August 17th. The race actually doesn’t begin until 11:00 AM, it’s in Skokie, Illinois. I think we’ll do a little pre-gaming, some stretching, some toasting, some swag handing out at around 9:30.

We’re opening this up to all those that want to participate, albeit if you want to try to break the record or you just want to hang back and walk together as a group and catch up on what’s happening with- within the industry and with- with families and that. Like I said, the race begins 11:00 AM and got sign up going on now, which I did. It took about 3 to 4 minutes, very easy. We’ve got a coupon code where we can get in the group. All of that we can share with anybody that reaches out. We do have a group you know an alumni group so to speak of the rugged nuts from the past three years.

Jake, I’ll get that information up on our website and our social media as well, if people want to look there.

Got it. If you want to get involved in this year’s version of the Tough Mudder race, which is actually a 5K up in Skokie on August 17th, get out to MWFA.net. That’s a work in progress, it sounds like.

We’re working on it, just starting to do a little bit more publication of things as we speak. As we’ve done in the past couple years after the obstacle race, we’re going to be heading to lunch following the 5K, so maybe 12:30, 1:00, we’re just going to go grab lunch, sit around. For those that have done it, they speak to it from a standpoint of just the fellowship and the brotherhood that is gained between all participants.

The aspect of it, we’re- we’re thinking we’ll be able to extend that. It’s certainly way different from a challenging aspect of it. There’s- there’s no such obstacles, although we might be able to find some before or after. We’ll just have to wait and see for that but we just wanted to keep the tradition going of the unofficial start of our FSTNR Week.

We’re just adapting to what came our way. That’s a lead off to the next day. Everybody’s going to have a lot of fun after the race, but hopefully not too much fun because we’ve got to get down to work on Sunday.

You do have to pace yourself this week. Was just thinking about that in preparation for the show. It is a lot in a short amount of time and as tradition goes, we’re going to be hosting our third Sleep in Heavenly Peace bed build on Sunday the 18th. That’s going to start at 9.00 and run until we’re done. The board, we had our meeting a few weeks ago, we set a lofty goal of $25,000, which would be 100 beds. This is a fundraising only bed build, so we have to fundraise and hit that goal of $25,000 or hopefully more to where we can get those beds made for the local area kids in the Chicago area.

That is a great goal. Last year, I believe it was 80 and that was huge.

We did surpass that goal. I think we were in the mid-90s. I think we ended up in the mid-90s as far as donations collected and beds made. This year we’re excited about Francesca in her part took it to the Marriott Lincolnshire Resort and they offered us a space to be able to have that on site right there where all of FSTNR Week will be taking place. We’re really excited about that aspect of it. We’ve been fortunate enough to partner you know with previous years with Stelfast out in Elgin and then Abbott Interfast last year. Just awesome to have it on site and just looking forward to that.

Yes, having it on site really helped our out-of-towners that are coming in for the week be a one-stop shop for everything they want to do. As well, we will be having Cheesie’s for our food truck and Kona Ice will be there as well to cool anyone down if we have hot temperature again. It should be a fantastic event. That information is also on our website, so if you’re looking to volunteer or if you’re looking to donate, all information can be found under the FSTNR Week tab at MWFA.net.

We’ll be doing some socials to get that stuff out into people’s hands for the links for donations and the volunteers and that. We’re lucky enough that this will be our third so I think we have a lot of alumni not only of the you know of the rugged nuts, we’ve also got to have a lot of alumni of the bed build. People are- are always happy and this industry just continues to amaze myself come Sunday with how many people show up, how many people in companies donate and it’s just a great opportunity for all of us to help out and give back.

People are always happy, and this industry continues to amaze me—so many show up, so many companies donate. It’s a great chance to give back. Share on X

The momentum’s building behind Sleep in Heavenly Peace, that’s for sure. That’s going to take us right into FSTNR Week proper. Of course, the week with no vowels. Francesca, you’ve got a whole week of activities planned. Why don’t you run down the schedule with us? We can then drill into whatever needs drilling.

This FSTNR Week this year is slightly different than last year. We will kick it off officially on Sunday, August 18th with our bed build. Monday, August 19th, we will have plant tours that’ll be in and around the Chicagoland area. That information, everything will be on the website as well as social media posts. Following, we’re actually moving our mixer to Monday and it’ll be our MWFA Welcome Mixer, which will also be at the Marriott Lincolnshire. That’ll start from 5:30 PM to about 7:30 PM. We welcome all MWFA members, FTI students that’ll be there, Fastener friends and guests. This is a free event, so we just require an RSVP. Come hang out, get prepped, loosen up, and get ready for the next day.

Eric, just so you know, we did have to petition the Naperville Fastener Association to be able to share that evening with them.

They’ve been kind to us, so.

For a monetary donation. They don’t have a scholarship fund. They just had a tab.

That’s how those guys roll. Good job, Jake, always smoothing things out. That’s why you are where you are.

Thrilled to be able to have offered that mixer. We’re excited about moving that to Monday night. I am selfishly excited because with as long as the FSTNR Week, it is for me, I drive in that week from Kansas City. I always head back on Thursday so I miss it. I’m excited to move that to Monday night and be able to be in attendance and really kick things off. Again, I challenge everybody, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Let’s just pace ourselves so we’re functional for the entire week.

Exactly. I also feel it’s a good opportunity moving it to Monday where you really can network. You talk to people, set up meetings for the next day. It just seems to really work out for all parties involved, especially our people who are coming in from out of town, which we have a lot of. The next day, August 20th, we’re going to kick it off with our Fastener Failure Seminar. This will be hosted by Sean Collis and his wife Darlene Collis.

This will go over exactly what it says. Fastener failures and what we do when we have the problem, with just the top-notch educators. I believe between Sean and Darlene, they have somewhere over 25 to 30 years of expertise in this field, so it’ll be a really good education that I feel every member and non-member should take a part of. Immediately kicking that as soon as the class is over, we’re going to our Fastener Show. Our 42nd Fastener Tabletop Show, which we’re super excited about and I want to give a plug that we’re pretty much at 90% filled. If anyone is looking to get a table, the time is now.

No, absolutely. I’m happy to hear those numbers. They’ve just continued to grow as we get closer to the date. Eric, I know that Sean and his wife will probably touch on hydrogen embrittlement for that Fastener Failure Seminar, so you probably want to poke your head in there just to hear some more on that.

Similar to what we did last year with the panel discussion on AI, we are going to have about an hour and an hour and 15 minute presentation for the exhibitors and attendance. Our presenter’s going to be Carmen Vertullo. We’re working on buttoning that up. Probably we’ll have that as far as topic go, we’ve gone back and forth with Carmen and the board to get some ideas that he’s going to be presenting to the board.

Not so much the board but the entire exhibitors and we’re hoping you know some customers will want to come and- come early and hear Carmen as well. He’s done so much Hall of Famer, so much for the industry as far as giving back but excited to have him in attendance and helping out the MWFA with his presentation prior. I think that’s probably going to start around 11:15, 11:30 prior to the tabletop show.

You guys are just piling it on this one. Folks, I think you’re getting the message over here. MWFA.net is where you get all the details on this. You’re not going to want to miss it all around the Midwest. Heck, I’m sure we’re going to get some folks from the West Coast, East Coast. This is it.

Yeah, we feel like it’s the premiere regional show within the country. We all participate in all the other associations and value all of that but the support that we continue to get from our members year in and year out allow us to have that confidence that we do believe that it’s a premier regional show in the country. We’ve got the tabletop running till about 6:00 PM. During that, we will start our- our Fastener Bash, which will start around 5:00. Francesca, talk a little bit about just the theme or what had the theme last year. I’m a little bit bitter, I didn’t take home a- the prize.

Yeah, you were the Breakfast Club as I recall, weren’t you?

It was awesome. It was amazing.

It was awesome. Now how do you top it this year? Is my question.

We’ve got ideas so I’ve got to keep those under wraps until- until we walk in.

Eric, the theme is Game On. Come wearing your favorite sports jersey, your favorite team, whatever that may be, and be ready to have some fun.

I’ll be creative too. That’s the other aspect of it.

All right, I like the sound of this, saving any ugly Cubs Sox breakouts incidents.

Take it easy. Chicago girl right here.

It is the MWFA. If there’s one chink in the MWFA’s unity, that would be it, I would say.

Yes, that’s like the Jets and Sharks right there.

Metric, standard, we don’t really care but man, you get into our baseball. That’s going to be a lot of fun you guys and I’m looking forward to all this. Let’s throw the dates out there once again. The website of course MWFA.net.

August 20th we kick off with our education class in the morning from 8:30 to 12:30. We will have our exhibitor lunch and speaker Carmen Vertullo. 1:00 PM the tabletop show will start going to about 6:00 PM and then our Fastener Bash will be from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. The Fastener Bash, I just want to also remind you, it is complimentary for all of our exhibitors and guests. Come to the show, stay for the fun.

Wrapping up Eric, Wednesday we finish up with our golf outing, which is- always a highlight of the week and very, always packed. If you’re interested in getting registered for that, I would say do that ASAP. We’re always asked to try and find more room and that puts a little bit of pressure on the association because the course can only really allow so many.

Again, the support that we continue to get from our members continues to show out especially within this week and especially with that golf outing. I’d be remiss as a- Certified Fastener Specialist not to mention that FTI will be at Lincolnshire that entire week. You’re one of those as well, most recently so you can speak to that week but we’re thrilled to have them back in town with us. Joe Morris and FTI do a great job of presenting that week-long class. Always enjoy that partnership and always welcome them to FSTNR Week and look forward to seeing all of their attendees at our events as well.

Fastener Training Week, another layer on top of FSTNR Week, which makes it a do not miss event out there in the Midwest. You guys have done a yeoman’s service for the industry by putting all this together you guys, and I know it’s going to come off bigger and better than ever you guys and I’m excited about it. Thank you also for mentioning the hydrogen embrittlement earlier. Now i’m- definitely not going to miss it, Jake.

Yeah, I didn’t think we could win a show without it, so I had to find a way.

We’ll make sure we get that 30 pack of Busch Light out there too for the FTR award. Don’t worry folks, what would a- MWFA golf outing be without that? I just want to say that my guess is there’s plenty of sponsorship opportunities for hole sponsorship, game sponsorships and so forth out there in the golf outing, so if you haven’t got that taken care of yet, contact Francesca.

Yes, please.

The MWFA is known as the best dressed of all the fastener associations, and for this theme of “Get Your Game On,” I can’t wait to see what people come up with. Francesca, you got your outfit set up yet?

Not yet. I don’t know how I can beat last year’s, but I’ve got some ideas. You have all been warned.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. It’s just an opportunity to let your hair down, so to speak, and be creative and have a little fun.

Well, I did a little of that last year. We’ll get into that later, though. Guys, appreciate you being here. Jake Davis, you’re on the hot seat now for the next phase of Fully Threaded Radio, and I think you know exactly what that means.

I do. Thanks, Eric. Always a pleasure to be on with you. Now, with news about screws you can use, here’s Mike McNulty.

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FDI Update, Fastener Industry News, And Industrial Real Estate Insights

Thanks, Jake. 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. In the span of just 18 days, we recently celebrated the 156th Memorial Day, also known as Decoration Day, the 80th anniversary of D-Day, also known as Operation Overlord, and Flag Day in the USA. In just a few weeks, we will celebrate the 248th anniversary of the ratification of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.

While I am feeling patriotic, appreciative of the stars and stripes, and grateful for the innumerable sacrifices made to free millions of people from all sorts of tyrannies, I am still focused on fasteners and ready to deliver today’s Fastener News Report. In this episode, AFC Industries’ Vice President of Sales and Marketing, John Kovatch, joins us to reveal the latest results of the Fastener Distributor Index, also known as the FDI.

Also in this broadcast, we have our top story on ND Industries and HB Fuller, as well as newsmaker headlines from Alabama Aerospace, Portland Bolt, Lindfast Solutions Group, Lockmore, Aline Aerospace, Advance Components, Lajeunesse Bolt, AFC, and more. Also in this episode, we have a quarterly industrial real estate roundup from Marco Rodriguez, Director of Industrial Distribution at Mohr Partners. On the Back Page Report, we’re going to talk about Fastener Fair USA. We’ll get to all of that and the latest FDI results.

The seasonally adjusted Fastener Distributor Index for May 2024 modestly improved to 52.9 versus 51.6 in April. This was the fourth straight month above 50. The forward-looking indicator, also known as the FLI, had an impressive increase of 2.9 points to reach 52.9, the best result in nearly two years since the July 2022 result of 58.1.

Fully Threaded Radio | Taiwan Fastener Show — Taiwan Fastener Show: The seasonally adjusted Fastener Distributor Index for May 2024 improved modestly to 52.9 from 51.6 in April. This marks the fourth straight month above 50.

Fastener Distributor Index data is collected and analyzed by the FCH Sourcing Network and Baird. The FDI seeks to identify demand, pricing, and outlook trends within the American fastener distribution industry. To get some insights on these results, we talked to AFC Industries’ Vice President of Sales and Marketing, John Kovatch. John, thanks for joining us on the Fastener News Report.

Thanks for having me. More importantly, thanks for having me on episode 201 instead of 200. I’d rather be on the hangover episode.

The milestone.

Yeah, exactly. I don’t need that pressure in my life right now, Mike. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Well, 201’s a good number too.

Yeah, 201’s great.

It’s an area code, I think I had one. I’m not sure where, somewhere. Maybe New Jersey. Most importantly, what do you think about the latest FDI results?

I think it’s more of the same that we’ve seen for the last few months. I think what’s important here a lot of people, I think, get hung up on revenue. They get hung up on a sales number when they think of the FDI. They think, “Okay, well, how strong is sales going to be?” if you look at the numbers for the month of May, sales actually came down a little, employment came down a little, customer inventories came down a little. It was that supplier delivery that really drove this thing up.

You have to look at this number not just from a revenue standpoint, but from a total indicator standpoint and really for what the FDI is about. I think it’s about right. It’s not a surprise. I think a lot of people would say that. I know I saw you guys at Fastener Fair activities here a few weeks ago and a very common question that I got from a lot of people. “Are you guys seeing it soft? Are you seeing it slow?” what people are talking about is revenue. That’s what everybody focuses on.

I think if you look at the total market, yeah, revenue, if you look, it’s probably a little blah. We’re certainly not in the ’22, ’23 number where we were really cranking up after COVID and everything was on fire. I think it’s settled down a bit. I think what’s important here, what we pay attention to, is what people are doing and what people aren’t doing.

What people are doing is they’re tooling up right now. Our tooling division’s very busy. A lot of people are developing new products, new product lines. They haven’t slowed that down. They haven’t slowed the spending for those things down, which tells me that the FLI being positive looking forward, makes a lot of sense. We do expect things to turn around. We’re maybe at that lull right now. I think everybody’s looking for a pretty positive rest of the year.

Yeah, that’s a good insight. You pointed out the sales number dropped and employment dropped as well as inventories. You mentioned deliveries going up, and that was a big jump a jump from 45.0 to 59.1. Sending things out the door has a positive impact.

You think about it, it makes sense because if the sales demand isn’t there if, if customers are burning down inventory which they are, inventory’s expensive it maybe gives these manufacturers a chance to breathe and get caught up and improve some of these deliveries. It, it’s tying together pretty well.

The other thing that caught my attention was the increases in pricing. We had the month-to-month went from 50 to 56.1, and the year-to-year went from 33 up to 50.

Yeah, that’s a very considerable jump in the pricing year-to-year, for sure. Again, you got to look at the total picture. Commodity prices it’s the easiest thing for a buyer to look at and say, “Well, pricing should be coming down.” there’s so many other influences, as we know, in this industry that drive that pricing. It’s not a you know, we haven’t seen a huge dip in pricing.

Always a point of contention with everybody. On the personal side, the pricing of everything else that we do is just going up. It’s like we’re almost getting immune to high prices.

Exactly. That does carry over into the industry as well. Everything is more expensive. It’s just an unfortunate part of life right now.

The way I look at it like, it’s four months in a row of above 50, so that’s a good thing. It’s not gangbusters, like you pointed out, but it’s pretty solid. You mentioned Fastener Fair USA. I thought the mood of everybody was pretty good and it was pretty upbeat, and the attendance I thought at the show was good.

It was great attendance. I didn’t go in the show floor, I attended the three days of the after-hours things. Great mood from everybody, great events, of course. To your point, very well attended. The distributor social the North Coast did was just fantastic filled the boat up. The Rock Hall was, was just the same. People are getting out, people are spending money, people are investing in their business. We just need the customers to cooperate with more orders at this point.

A closing point on the show, the show managers told me it was the largest Fastener Fair USA ever in terms of number of exhibitors and floor space. As an anecdotal note, we give out magazines at the show to attendees and exhibitors alike, and we gave out much more than we did in Nashville. It was I’d say a higher-attended event about the location and maybe also people just getting out now.

Maybe so. Nashville was a great event. You know, a lot of people travel from there, whereas Cleveland, a lot of people are more local. Argue for both of them. I hope they keep them both on their calendar because I really enjoy both of them.

Yeah, they’re going back to Nashville next year, so look forward to it.

Look forward to it.

Good. Yeah, we pointed out the FLI was, was up, and I had to go back to July of ’22 to get a better number. That’s encouraging as well. 52.8. That went up. The six-month outlook also modestly improved to 39% of the people responding expect business to be better 6 months from now which 6 months from now takes us to the end of the year and then 42 expect it to be the same and only 18 expecting it to be worse. Over 80% of the respondents are expecting business to be same or better at the end of the year. I think that’s pretty good.

Yeah, it is. I think we were expecting a little more by mid-year. It’s coming around. I think everybody’s very optimistic about towards end of Q3, Q4, things looking a lot better. I would agree with that.

Any other comments on the numbers before we jump into the comments of the respondents?

No, I think we pretty much hashed that out.

All right. Good. The Baird says in their summary, they say the comments reveal divergent economic views and that the election is seen as a near-term headwind. The first comment we have is a quote. “I have read that many sectors are robust, such as electronic components, and many industrial sectors are growing through a recession. As an election year, we are performing with single-digit growth. If this is recessionary time for fasteners, I’ll take it.”

Yeah, I was going to say, single-digit growth welcome back to reality.

What’s wrong with that?

Yeah, growth is growth. I think this noise of an election year, I don’t know, it doesn’t register with me why people make such a comment about it. I think it’s just an easy target. Single-digit growth it’s growth. Take it, go with it.

The next comment they said, “I continue to be surprised by demand coming from various industries. Our customers are willing to wait longer for deliveries while our costs are inching higher.”

We talked about that. Yeah, pricing is inching higher. People are are they just conditioned to wait a little longer? That might be the case. We’ve had a massive conditioning event over the last couple years. Could be.

This is unrelated to delivery of fasteners, but maybe in terms of the ability to make more fasteners, or people to make more fasteners, is machinery. I was talking to some machine builders and lead times for machinery are still well past a year.

Yeah, we had a tensile tester we just got delivered that I think was ordered fifteen months ago. It’s that’s the way it goes.

When you want to really push the button to increase, it takes a while.

That’s a slow faucet to turn on.

All right. Here’s the divergent view. “February and March were slower than expected, but we’ve seen an uptick in sales and overactivity since early April. Slow at the beginning, a little bit better. This person said. “After a year of consistent growth, we had poor sales in May. I won’t call it a trend yet. If it happens again in June, then I will know there is something bad in the brew.”

Look, it’s tough. We’ve got a very diverse end market at our company. We don’t look at one month ever as an indicator. You got to look at every industry, too. There’s a lot of noise. I wouldn’t freak out over a month’s worth of flatness.

Here’s our de facto election comment. “As the election grows closer, the sales and buying will slow down. We’ve seen it in every election year, and it starts about May, June, so we’re due. Once the election takes place, some sense of normalcy will return, barring any other factors.”

I don’t know if there’s normalcy to be had out of this election, but okay. I’ll go with that statement.

This is an abnormal election.

Yeah, let’s hope it doesn’t become a trend.

Yeah. All right. The last comment we have here is. “While April numbers barely hung in there, May slowed down compared to the first quarter. We expect May levels to continue through the summer months, and then it’s anyone’s guess. Stainless steel material is starting to rise again at the same time. Ocean freight has ticked up. The labor market is heating up again with costs increasing while the number of candidates is shrinking. Overall, it’s still better than the good years pre-COVID, but backward trends never make stakeholders happy.”

Every one of those statements is valid without a question. Freight is going up, and that’s a question mark. Freight’s gone up and then you’re going to get into the season where the holiday shipments are going to begin and they’re going to go up more. Freight is certainly something we’re paying a lot of attention to right now. I’m glad that nugget was brought up in that comment.

Yeah, and labor is it’s the perennial struggle.

Yeah, it is. It’s easy to find people, hard to find good people. Always a challenge. When you’re taking a pause right now, I guess if you could say, and you’re going to build up your team, you want to get the best talent that you can. You know what they say. “Hire slow, fire quick.” It’s never been more important.

It’s easy to find people but hard to find good ones—that’s always the challenge. If you’re pausing to build your team, you want the best talent you can get. Share on X

Yeah, that was definitely in some of the sessions at Fastener Fair USA. The, the labor issue was front and center, as usual.

It’s everywhere. Yeah, I don’t think it’s going away either.

Yeah, and it’s not just this industry, it’s everywhere.

Absolutely.

Good. I think that’s it for the FDI. I wanted to give you a chance to tell the listeners what’s going on at AFC, which seems like a lot going on. Last time you were on the show was May of 2023. Since then, you guys have acquired quite a few people. What’s going on?

We did. We acquired some people then, and we’ve acquired some people now. Yeah, it’s exciting. We’re still having a great time growing and adding some things on. We just added Meg Technologies out of Huntington Beach, California, to bolster up our aerospace group, and bought a company in Europe, Superseal to help us out with some technical products there. We also added Globe International here locally, out of the Philadelphia area, to add on some of our overhead door and some of our other industries. It’s been a great year so far with acquisitions. We stay patient, look for the right acquisitions just like hiring the right people. It’s still a great bit of fun we’re having over here and growing customer base, and really having a good year so far.

Yeah, that’s good. You guys are adding a lot. I went onto your contacts page on your website and I saw the, all the AFC logos all over the United States. How many locations do you have right now?

Yeah, we’re up to about 98 globally, 11 in Europe, and then the balance of those are North America. We’ve added a location there in Wales and then again with the Superseal addition. Yeah, we’re up to eleven over there.

What are you going to do when you hit 100, like a centennial celebration?

Well, that’s a good question. There’s always a reason for a beer. I have a feeling that’ll happen sooner than later. It’ll be cool.

Yeah. Keep up the good work. The comment, “Always reason to have a beer,” we had lots of reasons to do that in Cleveland. One of the comments you made is you said Cleveland showed very well at Fastener Fair USA.

It did. The weather certainly didn’t hurt us this year. It was fantastic.

Good. Anything else you want to add before we wrap up?

No, I appreciate the opportunity, Mike, and just hope that the FLI shows through for the end of the year.

Yeah, good luck for the second half of 2024. Keep acquiring people and send us the news releases, we’ll keep reporting it.

We’ll keep you with a social media post every chance we get.

Very good. Thanks for joining us, John.

Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it.

That was AFC Industries’ Vice President of Sales and Marketing, John Kovatch. The FDI number for May 2024 was 52.9 versus 51.6 in April. Visit FDISurvey.com to participate in the process and get a detailed PDF copy of Baird’s monthly analysis. Now for today’s top story. HB Fuller Company acquired ND Industries, a provider of specialty adhesives and fastener locking and sealing solutions serving customers in several industries, including automotive, electronics, and aerospace.

As part of the acquisition, products under ND Industries’ Vibra-Tite brand will be added to HB Fuller’s existing product range. HB Fuller President and CEO Celeste Mastin says, “ND Industries has been a very profitable family-owned business for several decades and has impressively built one of the most extended product portfolios in the pre-applied fastener industry. Their products are a natural fit with our existing market segments and bring new technology to our portfolio, combining the benefits of an adhesive and mechanical fastener within extremely demanding applications, resulting in a powerful advantage for customers.”

Functions provided by ND materials applied on fasteners and assemblies include locking, sealing, masking, lubricating, and noise and vibration dampening. ND also has a network of processing centers providing in-house engineered coating application services. Richard Wallace, Chairman of ND Industries Incorporated, added, “With more than 55 years of excellence and a strong customer base, ND Industries has been at the forefront of technological advancements for decades. Both companies have worked closely over the past several months to ensure a smooth transition and share many of the same values, including close customer collaboration and innovating with speed.”

ND generated around $70 million in sales in 2023, and the new business which includes five USA locations and 300 employees will operate within HB Fuller’s existing engineered adhesives business unit. Founded in 1887 with 2023 revenues of $3.5 billion US dollars, HB Fuller has customers in more than 30 market segments in 140 countries and 7,000 global employees. See the full story on the cover page of the June 17th, 2024, issue of the Fastener News Report and on page 118 of the June/July 2024 issue of Fastener Technology International magazine, both available online at FastenerTech.com.

Next up, today’s Fastener Newsmaker Headlines. In corporate news, AFC Industries acquired Meg Technologies Incorporated, also known as MTI. Alabama Aerospace, a Birmingham fastener company, expanded into California with a new facility. Bumax appointed Fuller Fasteners as its master distribution partner for Canada. Portland Bolt added manufacturing space and it acquired Southern Anchor Bolt Company. Bolt and Nut Manufacturing Limited, also known as BNML, invested in a new thread roller.

Lindfast Solutions Group launched a new e-commerce B2B website. Heron Corporation acquired riveting assets from AKH. Martin Supply won a supplier excellence award from Hunter Engineering Company. Novastone Capital Advisors in Switzerland acquired 100% of Mecavit in Italy. Sunco Industries introduced a newsletter and an English website. Aline Aerospace received a Pratt & Whitney award, and Lockmore launched a redesigned website.

In personnel news, Advance Components promoted Ryan Wakehoff to Director of Business Development. Simpson Manufacturing announced Udit Mehta as Chief Technology Officer. ASTM International Committee F16 awarded Chad Larson, President of Lajeunesse Bolt, its highest honor the Award of Merit recognizing him for distinguished service and participation in ASTM committee activities.

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. Next up and before we turn to the Back Page Report, we have Marco Rodriguez, Director of Industrial Distribution at Mohr Partners, with his latest quarterly industrial real estate roundup covering several fastener distribution markets across the USA.

This is Marco Rodriguez with Mohr Partners. I thought I would do a little something different for this episode’s quarterly update and provide more context and commentary. Not unlike the FDI and FLI, providing pure data without an explanation can sometimes be confusing. I’ll elaborate on the source of my data and what it means for your industrial distributor audience.

Our research department uses a proprietary subscription service which tracks nearly every commercial building in the United States, Canada, and a few overseas markets. This service provides detailed price and rental rate information, analytics, and reports on these buildings. To keep our analysis brief, we’re only reporting on seven major industrial markets. Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Inland Empire, California, Los Angeles, and New York.

In these seven markets, annual rents range from $9.22 a square foot in Atlanta to $20.34 per square foot in Miami. All these markets have shown increases with respect to the same period last year. With the exception of Los Angeles, all are higher than the previous quarter. Now, most industrial distributors don’t purchase warehouses, but we track sales prices because it is one of the primary factors that landlords use to determine how much rent to charge their tenants.

Again, all major markets except L.A. increased over the last twelve months. Prices range from $105 a square foot in Atlanta to $320 a square foot in Los Angeles. Now, this increase is strange because we actually saw a half a percent increase in available warehouse space, called vacancy. Vacancy rates rose from 4.8% at the end of 2023 to 5.2%. Similar to what many people are seeing in the residential real estate market, asking prices haven’t quite come to grips with the uptick in vacancy.

Now, this is absolutely great news for industrial tenants because it means the negotiating leverage pendulum is starting to swing back in their favor. In the last few years, many fastener and industrial distributors faced serious sticker shock when it came to renewing their leases. As vacancies increase, distributors have more options which, if negotiated properly, can lead to better costs or other concessions from landlords. If you have any questions or just want to talk about industrial real estate, I can be reached on LinkedIn. I’m Marco Rodriguez with Mohr Partners.

That was Marco Rodriguez, Director of Industrial Distribution at Mohr Partners. Now let’s turn to the Back Page Report to talk about Fastener Fair USA. My solid incoming expectations for Fastener Fair USA were exceeded this year, and the human factor that I talked about on the most recent Back Page Report was prominently on display in Cleveland, Ohio, last month.

It was found not only in the larger-than-ever exhibit floor and in the learning theater sessions and panels, but at unique hospitality events including ones hosted by the North Coast Fastener Association, Brighton-Best International, the FCH Sourcing Network, and Fully Threaded Radio.

The enjoyable opening night networking party at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame featured live music performed by talented fastener industry musicians. I even found a few vintage pinball machines in the Hall of Fame, all set on unlimited free play. At the end of May, Fully Threaded Radio published a good and enjoyable special report on the show in which it hailed the event as, quote. “a huge success and a boatload of fun.”

Show management had this to say, “A huge thank you to everyone who joined us at Fastener Fair USA 2024 in Cleveland and helped make the show a success. We had an amazing time connecting with all of you and look forward to seeing you again at Fastener Fair USA 2025 taking place in Nashville on May 28th and 29th, 2025. Stay tuned for more info.”

For me personally, it was good to see Northeast Ohio shine in the spotlight and provide a great venue, friendly service, and good attendance. I enjoyed three straight nights of hospitality and networking in some exceptional Ohio weather, as well as two days of walking the attractive exhibit floor and sitting in on the informative educational sessions. I really enjoyed every panel session, and some of my favorite paraphrased comments included but are not limited to the following ones that made it into my notebook.

“Population and transitions drive growth and investment, which means more fasteners,” from John Zu, Brighton-Best International. “The electric grid is a fuse that is going to blow,” from Charlie Kerr, Kerr Lakeside. “As a distributor, you can’t have enough suppliers,” from Robbie Gilchrist, Gilchrist Associates. Finally, one more also from John Zu of Brighton-Best International. “Find me another country like the USA. There’s no place like it.” to that, I will simply add. “Happy 4th of July, 2024, to the United States of America.” 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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Lock Washer Coatings, Hydrogen Embrittlement Risks, And Proper Specification Guidelines

This is Carmen Vertullo with the Fastener Training Minute, coming to you from the Fastener Training Institute and from Carver Labs in beautiful El Cajon, California. Today’s topic is about lock washers and specifically coatings or finishes that we put on lock washers and some of the things that can get us into trouble when we don’t adequately specify lock washer coatings.

We’re talking about lock washer coatings, and when I say “lock washers,” I’m specifically talking about split lock washers, tooth lock washers. I would even go so far as to say, even though it’s not a lock washer technically, conical hardened washers. Basically, when we say split lock and tooth lock and conical washers, we’re talking about hard steel washers.

As you know, when we deal with any fastener that has a load on it that has a hardened steel material, we need to be concerned about hydrogen embrittlement whenever we put them into an application that could be detrimental in that regard. We typically think lock washers are under compression, or all washers are under compression, and they are. Flat washers are not so much an issue as lock washers are.

The reason is because lock washers actually do see a change in their shape. They go under stress and strain in minor amounts of bending. Compared to the amount of bending that a bolt goes through or, I should say, the stress and strain that a bolt goes through it is relatively significant because a split lock washer, for example, goes from a coil to flat. That metal moves around a lot and it’s under stress. For that reason, we’re going to talk mainly about inch standards here, but it also applies to ISO metric standards.

ASME B18.21.21 is where these lock washer standards are referenced, and they specifically warn us against electroplating hardened helical spring lock washers and tooth lock washers because they both will suffer some amount of distortion on installation. Now, it’s very common to see both of these types of washers electroplated. It’s better to use some non-electroplated finish, which is very common for split lock washers, which would be mechanical zinc.

Also, for conical washers we see mechanical zinc. Not so much for the tooth lock washers, we still see those primarily electroplated zinc. They’re nice, shiny silver or shiny gold if it’s yellow zinc which, by the way, those very nice-looking spangly tooth lock washers make great earrings, and they also make great Christmas tree ornaments in the larger size. Ask me how I know. I’ve worn those earrings and I’ve hung those Christmas tree ornaments. They work out great. You have to be careful that you don’t end up with hydrogen embrittlement if you choose to electroplate them.

The standard the B18.21 standard is very clear. It warns us against this. It says this specifically. “Electroplating carbon and boron steel lock washers and I would say any steel is not recommended because of the possibility of hydrogen embrittlement failures. When the purchaser specifies electroplated lock washers, they must be baked after plating using times and temperatures suitable for relieving potential trapped hydrogen.” Goes on to say. “All lots of electroplated lock washers shall be tested by compressing them to the flat condition for a minimum of 48 hours, within which time they must not fracture. Compression shall be accomplished between parallel flat surfaces.”

That is about the simplest, most effective hydrogen embrittlement test you will ever see. It’s very easy to do. You just stack them on a bolt, 8 or 10 at a time, and you snug them down with a nut until they’re flat. We also see, often times, we may run into corrosion issues with the coating that we choose for these washers especially if we choose mechanical zinc, which, in its thinnest form, we would use ASME B695 for that coating.

That coating comes in lots of thicknesses, and it can be very thin in some cases. We should be using Class 55, which adds adequate corrosion resistance if we also include a top coat. Be very careful because, especially with our conical washers, they may come from overseas already coated with the B695 mechanical zinc, but no top coat.

Better to use, possibly, a dip spin coating on those. Often times they’re actually even painted, because they want them to match whatever they’re going to be assembled with. There are other things to say, but I think you get the gist of it. You need to be careful when electroplating high-hardness metal or fasteners of any type, but be aware it also applies to lock washers even though they’re in compression. I would extend this to hardened flat washers, such as ASTM F436 washers, even though those are not subject to bending.

However, if you happen to put them on a larger hole or you put them across a slot, they can experience the bending that could cause hydrogen embrittlement failures to occur, and I’ve seen it. That’s why I’m telling you about it. That’s about all there is to say and possibly all there is to know about the cautions you need to follow when putting coatings on hardened steel lock washers and flat washers. This has been Carmen Vertullo with the Fastener Training Minute. Thanks for reading.

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Global Fastener Insights With Al Bate Of All American Threaded Products

It’s time for the main event. This time, we’ve got Al Bate with us. He’s the Vice President of Sales over there at All American Threaded Products. They’re a prime manufacturer of a wide range of quality threaded products based in Denver. Al, how are you?

I’m really good, my friend. A pleasure to be on.

It’s our pleasure. Okay, we don’t usually have people with true accents here.

I detect a Kiwi. We’ll get onto the subject of rugby shortly.

No. We’ll leave that for a while.

Yeah, I was wondering how long all that was going to take to unfold. Happened right away. We’ve talked with you a little bit off and on here. Finally got you on. Please, for the folks who haven’t met you yet although you’ve been in the industry going on 40 years give us a thumbnail, then we’ll dive into some conversation.

Sure. As you say, been in the fastener industry for about best part of 40 years. As you can tell from the accent, originally a bit further east, all the way across the Atlantic. Worked throughout the UK in the fastener industry, and then spent several years managing teams across mainland Europe. In 2008, my family and I emigrated to the US. I’ve stayed in the fastener industry ever since, in one shape or form or another. Currently, as you mentioned, I’m VP of Sales for All American Threaded Products, and I’m based here in Lancaster, PA.

You’ve had quite a breadth of experiences in the fastener industry. It’s one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you. Of course, we’ll hear all about what’s going on over at All American as well. As we talked getting everything warmed up, we were thinking about the distribution model in the UK versus what happens here in North America. I think for a lot of people, there’s a misunderstanding of the way fasteners get sold around the world compared to in the US. You’re probably someone who can comment on that pretty readily.

Obviously my points are reference up to 2008 and before. Yes, I noted a number of different changes. The first being there is a significant number of fastener distributors in the UK. To put it into perspective, England, geographically, is about the size of Alabama. I always like to tell my American friends, you can take a map of England, you can put a pin in it, and it’s geographically impossible to be more than 76 miles from the coast.

This is a small country. There are, certainly with the company I was with at the time, we were trading with just under 2,000 fastener distributors in that small country. Most distributors do what we used to call running with the hair and the hounds. They will either sell to other distributors or end users. Whereas I what I found here was the companies we were selling to tend to stay in their own lane. They’re either a master distributor selling on to smaller distributors, or they’re a distributor just selling into an end-user customer base.

The geography thing was a real challenge for me, personally. Something as simple as doing a marketing campaign. I could do we would do a contact marketing campaign where we’re reaching out to new potential customers. I knew I could pop a mail shot in the post on a Monday and, first class mail, it would get there the very next day because it’s such a small country. You just can’t do that here. This country is as wide as the Atlantic Ocean. The those were huge challenges.

Obviously, the products are pretty much the same other than as tend to be majority be metric, whereas here it’s still inch or imperial as we used to call it. The geography and also, I think, the way the business the fastener industry has developed here, in terms of that fit, that comfort level. People have their own lane and they stay in it and very successfully, I might add.

Whereas I think and because of the necessity of working in a much smaller country, and so your competitor, your next competitor, is literally three miles down the road. It tends to be I don’t know what the word is, certainly in the UK, we were happy. Our view was everyone’s pound is as good as the next one, or everyone’s dollar is as good as the next one. Our customer base would be far more varied.

Have you found it easier than working within the American distributor model, that everyone stays in their own lane versus the one you’re used to, say, in the UK?

I don’t know if easier is the right word, nor is it more difficult, it just takes longer. For example, when I first came to the States, I was working for the company that I had been with the group of companies for 25-plus years. We were trying to set up a network of distributors. Now again, because of the geography involved, it’s neither process, be it in the UK or here in the States, should be complicated. It’s hard work, not complicated work. It just took longer because it’s so much, a geographically a bigger country. It’s a far bigger industry, of course, in terms of revenue generation.

It wasn’t that it was different, it just took longer. A bit more investigation to work out who your target lists were. I’m a bit of a dinosaur, so in terms of sales development, I always work on the prospect, suspect, customer process. To find those suspects took a lot longer here, because you’ve got it’s a so much bigger than the industry that I’m used to. The fastener industry is a niche industry. It’s a small industry wherever you go, it just, it’s all relative.

The fastener industry is a niche—small wherever you go; it’s all relative. Share on X

Did you find the same if you’re organizing groups in Europe? Was Europe the similar model to United States or to UK?

No, to the UK. Again, geographically, Europe is much bigger than the UK, but once you go into the individual countries and it varied from country to country. What was formerly known as Western Europe was very similar to the UK. I’m going back now to when the wall came down and the former Eastern Bloc countries opened up. It was quite a humbling experience, actually. We were trying to be very progressive, so I came out on a fact-finding expedition trying to work out what potential there’d be for new business.

It was humbling in terms of you would meet people who had just started up a business selling nuts and bolts, screws and washers. They’ve been in a environment a communist environment for post-since post-war, post-World War II. The enthusiasm and the passion and the drive to make their new businesses work reminded me very much of what I found here in the States.

There are reasons this is the largest and most dynamic economy in the world, and it’s not just about size. It’s about there is a real entrepreneurial spirit here. It’s encouraged, I think, from the I’m generalizing now from the finance sector. Whereas in the UK, and to an extent Western Europe, certainly my experience was, yes, that funding was still available, but there is a lot more questions asked, a lot more hoops to jump through.

Whereas here, the whole system, believe it or not it may seem not, seem like it to you guys, or, Brian might be a little bit separate, I mean, he’s an immigrant like I am but it was far more geared up to. “Do you know what? Let’s give it a go. Let’s see if we can make it work.” That reminded me very much of the types of companies I started dealing with when the wall came down in Eastern Europe.

That’s really interesting. That entrepreneurial spirit was there. I know you’re a few years removed from that work, but do you have any feel for that, if it’s still continuing to this day or is it ebbing a little bit?

I would say it is ebbing a little bit. I was going to say which is probably unfair sadly, it’s becoming more like the former Western European, UK countries. Of course there’s going to be a natural progression. They’re progressing very quickly. When you look at in the UK and I don’t mean individual businesses, but the industry had had decades to develop. Centuries, in fact. Whereas in Eastern Europe, no, it was like 20, 30 years. There was a real, a real accelerated pace.

When I left in 2008, definitely things were settling down as, as businesses became more successful, they have to focus on all the checks and balances and making sure they’re doing their due diligence, etc. That initial excitement and, “Wow, this is really taking off” I mean, I remember, and obviously I’m not going to mention company names but I remember going to Slovakia and then going to now I got to get this right to the Czech Republic, so obviously, formerly, it would be Czechoslovakia.

Literally, it was people, husband and wife teams, or a family had said, “We want to get involved in this.” I can’t remember how they’d chosen the fastener industry, But they literally just got together some money, started buying nuts and bolts and selling them on as a distributor. When I was looking for distributors, I invited these people over to a conference in the UK.

I was amazed at the turnout in terms of the response. If I asked 20 companies, for these new companies, 19 of them turned up. They were so driven to see if they could make this work. It was fascinating, and it was quite humbling in a way when you see this, realize what they’ve had what they’ve come from. It was a fascinating experience.

Yeah, that was a really exciting time, and there was a lot of entrepreneurship going on. Getting back to that first question that I launched at you, I was really wondering about the master distributor model and how you could compare that to what’s happening in Europe versus here. It’s quite a bit different, isn’t it?

It is. My own personal experience. One of the first things I did when I came to the States. The company I was working for in the UK was a global fastener company, they had manufacturing and distributor arms, and they were at the time about $250 million. This was back when there was almost $2 to £1. Boy, has that changed. Their US operation was the smallest part of that global organization about $10 million and it wasn’t doing too well.

That was the catalyst for me to come over and see if we could turn things around because of my experience with setting up distributorships throughout the UK and Europe, that’s the first that’s where my comfort zone was. It’s called a comfort zone for a reason. I’m comfortable in it. That’s what I set out to replicate here. There was a real resistance to just going out to distributors. Here I could people said, “No, I want to be a master distributor. I want you to heavily discount the product to me, and I’ll then sell on to the second and third-tier distributors.”

That was relatively alien to me from my experiences, particularly in the UK. Again, because it’s such a small country and because there are so many distributors. Now, there were certain products and I can mention some names because they no longer exist but Tucker Rivets, back in the day, did have a master distributor model. That was very unusual. When I took over the operation in 2008, very quickly learned that if you’re going to try and sell to all distributors, you’re going to have a battle on your hand because some people are going to, “Well, right, we got a new competitor.”

Whereas in the UK, it wasn’t viewed as that. It was just, “Okay, somebody else in the marketplace. We trust in our process onward and upward.” that wasn’t here. We had to follow the master distributor model, and it was very successful, I might add. It was, just took me a little while to get my head around it.

Did you experience over there the same exodus of manufacturing that we did here in the States during the ’80s, ’90s when everything went over to Asia? Did the same thing happen there?

It was, yes, you know? Globalization. It’s progress, I guess. No, I know it’s progress. We saw the manufacturing industry or the economy in general in the UK change rapidly in the space of about twenty years. It went from, certainly in the UK, relatively heavily industrialized manufacturing. Now, of course, it’s probably predominantly a service industry. There are very few major manufacturers left in the UK.

In fact, certainly the biggest when I left in 2008, the biggest automotive manufacturer was Nissan. There was other than even companies like Rolls-Royce and Bentley, Land Rover but they were no longer British-owned. They’re relatively small operations. Even the major electronics manufacturers, Thorn EMI, ibms of the day yeah, they were absolutely exporting a lot of their manufacturing or their assembly overseas.

You must have done a lot of entertaining in your quest to bring on new distributors and stuff. What did you do? Did you take them golfing? What’s the big thing in Europe?

For me and I know we’re not supposed to talk about rugby, but being a rugby man, I would take people to the big rugby internationals. You’ve got to remember the UK, Europe. Football, soccer, as you guys call it, is by far and away the biggest sport. I’m going back as far as the ’70s it wasn’t too pleasant to go to some games. It could be, to the point of violence. There still to this day, when you compare the two football or soccer is very tribal. Certainly not aggressive. It is aggressive. It’s not violent anymore, but the fans are kept separate. You can be, you’re literally physically exhausted if you go to watch a soccer match.

The energy levels are huge. Whereas rugby is very different. It’s about we always used to joke that soccer is a game played by gentlemen watched by hooligans, whereas rugby is a game played by hooligans and watched by gentlemen. Taking customers along to sit, have a few beers. We have a national stadium in the West of London that’s just for rugby. It’s about an 80,000-seater. There’s a couple little almost cubbyhole restaurants.

One was a former detached house, and on game day, it would appear the business is locked up. If you went round the back and knocked on a door, they’d open a little shutter. It was almost like a caricature of some 1950s spy film or something. You’d be let in, and of course customers thought this was wonderful. Consuming even more alcohol until the crowds died down.

I’m not a golfing man. We used to hold golf tournaments for customers. I’ve always played sport or not anymore, but certainly up played rugby to my late ’80s, late ’30s sorry, late ’30s. As a kid, played footy. My wife had said, “Mike, you’ve always wanted to take up golf.” I said, “Sweetie, you’re never going to see me. If you give me a set of golf clubs, what with the rugby and the training and the, and then soccer.” no, I never got round to playing. Maybe I will one day when my knees and hips finally allow me.

All right. You need to get hold of Rick Rudolph, then.

Yes, I know Rick.

Another very keen rugby enthusiast, as is son Morgan. In fact, Lin and I have joined them at a rugby match. New Zealand playing the United States in Washington, DC.

That wasn’t quite recent, was it?

A few years ago.

Five years ago. Something like that, yeah.

No, I know Rick, yes. He and I have met, crossed paths. Normally when beer is being consumed. Again, I won’t go into detail but after several pints we were comparing rugby injuries and scars, and my wife looked at me with disgust and just walked off. I had to curtail that conversation fairly quickly.

Rick Rudolph is a machine. He’s rugby personified, if you ask me. I think he played until like his late 50s. Semi-professional too, if I recall correctly. Isn’t that right, Bri?

Yes. Major state, yeah, within Massachusetts.

How did you get to meet Rick, Al?

Really through a friend of a friend. It wasn’t, actually, through the fastener industry. He was friends with gosh, I’m trying to remember their name now. We had a couple we were very friendly with. Eric and Nina. He knew, Rick knew Nina’s father, he played rugby with him. Not as you would imagine, through the fastener industry. I met him at again, over a beer and a plate of sandwiches sitting in the sunshine down on the coast in Massachusetts having some great fun. “I’m in the fastener industry too,” and hence the conversation. Of course, then the conversation got onto rugby and I thought. “Good grief, this is like a mirror image of me. This is fantastic.”

Now you’re out looking for a cricket match.

Did you know the cricket, one version of cricket, and there’s several, the Cricket World Cup is currently being played here in the States? As we speak.

I know you would, yes.

I doubt if Eric does.

No, I didn’t know that. Let us know and then we’re going to get back to fasteners.

Cricket’s like watching paint dry for me, so I’m not a cricket fan, unfortunately.

That’s the classic way of sitting out on a Sunday afternoon with a few beers and just sitting there for 5 or 6 hours.

That’s more of a G and T, I think.

Yeah, absolutely.

All this experience in wining and dining your customers and moving around the UK and then coming to the States and doing similar things it set you up for one of your other roles in the fastener industry. That’s something that we want to touch on too, because you spent about five years as a fastener headhunter, didn’t you?

A little bit less than that. About three years. I was working as a Director of Sales for a fastener manufacturer and distributor headquartered out on the West Coast. After about five years, for various reasons, it wasn’t as productive as I wanted it to be. We parted ways. This was in 2016, I believe. Now my wife back in 2011 she was a recruiter and she wanted to start up her own little agency which she did, and because she and I have been together since the early ’90s, she knew the fastener industry. She started up a recruiting agency headhunting agency just for the fastener industry. I then joined her for pfft yeah, probably four years. Which was a really interesting experience. We were talking earlier offline about some of the challenges we had.

It’s a niche industry. The talent pool genuine talent pool is small, but it’s getting smaller. It’s because everybody wants, particularly here in the States and I’m generalizing now but in the, in the fastener industry in the States, everybody’s looking for a plug-and-play option. We want to get somebody who’s got 20 years of sales experience and can bring me in lots of business within three months. They’re going to pay relatively high wages to bring those people in.

Whereas my experience in the UK and in Europe was companies were more, again, a generalization more interested in trying to start this cyclical process where you bring people in at a lower level and train them up, so you’ve always got a replacement for a succession for the next senior role. It’s true, I would say, most of the fastener industry, certainly in the UK, Europe, and here in the States, tend to be entrepreneurial. Originally were entrepreneurial businesses. There is a need. If we’re going to pay X amount for somebody, we want them to earn their corn, we want them to generate business for us.

The consequence of that is. The talent pool’s getting smaller and smaller, the wages one has to pay to entice these people to come over are consistently getting higher. That hasn’t stopped. My wife is still in that industry, and I jumped out at the end of 2020 to come work for All American Threaded Products, but my wife is still there and she said it’s not stopped. Some people can be quite shocked. They’re looking for a somebody who can grow sales for them so a true “hunter,” not a “farmer.”

They both have real value in any sales organization, but particularly in the fastener industry. I’m not going to go into specifics, but when it’s, when you compare it relatively to other areas of general industry, manufacturing, the wages are much higher. The demand for these people or the, the money you’d have to pay to get these people on board is generally a lot higher because this talent pool is shrinking at a rate of knots.

Since these people are so hard to find, where would you prospect for them? Inside the industry? Are you a poacher, or are you looking outside and trying to bring people in?

Eric, poacher is a bit strong. I prefer the term headhunter, my friend. We would headhunt and it is a huge generalization. The good people are already gainfully employed. If you’re going to persuade somebody to come along and one of the challenges we had with some of our potential clients was saying to them.

“Okay, so this is the going rate for X, for this, for that position. We’ve identified 3 or 4 really good people, we think, and they’re not going to move to the unknown for exactly the same package.” Now, it might be a salary increase, it might be extra vacation, a better health plan I mean, there are lots of different things. Getting clients to understand, “Well, okay, but if it was you, would you move to the unknown for exactly the same package?” the really good people tend to have been with their organizations for at certainly at least 4 or 5 years now. Some people much longer, much like myself.

They might have done different roles within that group of companies. Or there are people who stay with an organization for 4 or 5 years and then want to progress. They understand that, to do that, the next stepping stone, you’ve got to leave and move on to the next company. The talent pool is actively engaged. It’s actively employed. If that’s what you’re looking for, if you’re looking for a plug-and-play option, you got to go headhunt them. Simple as.

There are a lot of people we’re told that are looking for good people, but on the other side of the coin, I know at least a small handful of people who are looking for new opportunities at the moment. I always scratch my head. “Why can’t these people find each other?” What advice would you give them in today’s market?

Well, so another observation and this genuinely isn’t a criticism, it is an observation. It is very difficult here in the States. A lot of companies the companies that we were involved in, which by definition are, tend to be fastener companies or distributors have taken to subcontracting out the hiring process. Now, that might seem strange for me to say, because that’s how my wife and I earn our living. I’m talking about some of the big-ticket agencies that you or organizations you know, Indeed and people like that, Glassdoor, etc.

Actually finding your point about, “Well, why can’t we marry the two up? If you got somebody, he or she’s got this talent set, this skillset, and we know this company is looking for those people.” That is what we would do, our role was to facilitate that. For them to do it on their own is very difficult. Also to get feedback. Something that was a bit of a culture shock for us when we moved to the States is you can, you, we would have candidates who have applied for, let’s say, they’ve sent out their resume to 30 companies.

It would not be unusual to have absolutely no response from all 30. Whereas in the UK and Europe, now, it’s just a standard letter, but somebody’s hit a button on a computer and it says, “Dear, dear sir or madam, unfortunately on this occasion you weren’t successful.” at least you know you can move on. Here it’s very difficult. As these new electronic job boards have become more popular, people are subcontracting the process because it’s much cheaper than headhunters, subcontracting the whole hiring process out. Actually, it is very difficult for these people who have got a skillset and think, “Well, even if they see a company’s advertising for it.”

I know lots of companies will say, “Well, that’s fine, but you’ve got to go via that job board or this job board. We don’t get involved in the hiring process.” I think the process of onboarding people and this is a generalization, but it applies not just here in the States, but in the UK and Europe is a skill, a talent, that is receding, is disappearing. For example, in the headhunting industry, we would have customers say to us, “Yeah, but what’s your guarantees?” “Well, what do you mean, what’s my guarantee?” “If this guy or girl doesn’t work out, are you going to give me a free candidate?” we would say, “Our job is to identify.”

This was just my wife’s agency but we would go through quite a rigorous filtering process, because our objective wasn’t to try and find you, the customer, a candidate you’d like out of 4 or 5 we presented. It was to present and we tried to keep it to 3. Present 3 candidates that we thought every single one of them would be a perfect match. Our role was to present candidates who were so good that the client wanted to offer them a position. When it comes to onboarding them, that’s out of our control.

I do think and that’s the same in the UK and Europe when I first started in the industry back in the ’80s, a lot of time and effort was spent on onboarding people. I started in the warehouse sweeping up nuts and bolts, and there was an onboarding process for me. I can remember the company, the group company I worked for in the UK, if somebody joined the accounts team or finance team, they would have to spend a week out in the warehouse seeing nuts, bolts, screws, washers, so they understood what they were collecting money for.

I’m not suggesting that’s either good or bad but that onboarding process is not something that, and again, a generalization, that a lot of business particularly smaller ones because they’re in a hurry spend a great deal of time. Hence the push towards having a plug-and-play option in the fastener industry when you’re looking for a salesperson or for a technical engineering manager or whatever it is.

The consequences of that are well-known. There are some very extensive surveys that have been done that when you look at the numbers of candidates that are hired and then let go 2 or 3, sometimes just a few months later because, generally, because of a poor onboarding process. Again, that’s a generalization, but that’s certainly our observation.

You’ve obviously got a lot of acumen in that department, and I’m sure you could spend a long time giving us some specific advice beyond all that in terms of the employment scene. It’s a big issue right now in business in general, but in the fastener industry for sure, as we’ve seen in the Fastener Distributor Index. You’re a hunter these days of a different kind. Now you’re looking for sales, and that’s for All American. Tell us how that’s going. What are you seeing into the market, and who are you hunting for?

I joined All American Threaded Products, or AATP, in October 2020. Initially as the National Sales Manager, and then now I’m the last year was promoted to VP of Sales. My role is, unsurprisingly, sales and margin generation. I would say this, of course, but one of the things that’s rather exciting that we’re doing at the moment is we’re launching a new product range into the marketplace in July called Great Rod.

It’s a range of high-tensile threaded rods a full range. One of the challenges with high-tensile threaded rods is over a certain length, it’s very difficult to get the heat treatment process to the point where it doesn’t warp the rod. We know we’re not the only people selling high-tensile threaded rod. We believe we’re the only people who will be selling a full range, particularly with longer lengths, all the way up to twelve-foot.

We’re launching that in July. We’ve just started doing an extensive marketing campaign. We’ve got we’re, as it’s an extensive range from 3/8″ in diameter all the way to 1″, and from lengths 1, 2, 3, 6, and 12 feet. We’ll expand on that as we see where the market demand is and what, what customers are looking for. The catalyst for this was about two years ago-ish. We were getting a lot of inquiries for Grade 8 which, you’ve been in the fastener industry, you know that’s a generic term for, I believe it’s JS429, it’s a high-tensile spec. We, like every other manufacturer out there, simply couldn’t do it.

We originally looked at, “Could we work?” we have a very small number of global manufacturing partners, and we talked to them about “We’d be willing to work hand in glove with you, import a range of these.” of course, they were very enthusiastic to start with, but encountered exactly the same issues that we did when we were tried to make it. That didn’t work. We’ve now got this range of high-tensile rods. Our fully certifiable to ASTM A354, Grade BD. It is a comparable, and a genuine comparable, product to Grade 8. It is as strong as Grade 8 and we think gives us an opportunity that, or fills an opportunity, a demand, that currently isn’t being filled.

Again, we’re not the only people doing it, but as far as we’ve done quite a bit of research on this as far as we can tell, the other companies are either importing extensively. All ours is manufactured here in the U.S., so it’s DFARS compliant or they tend to be just supplying the, the shorter lengths not up to the twelve-foot in length. That’s exciting. Just one of the things we often talk about, not just in the fastener industry but in any industry. “It’s great when you launch a brand-new product.”

It’s very rare to have something that you can genuinely say, as far as we’re aware, nobody else is doing this in terms of a full range. With my salesman’s hat on, that is quite exciting. I’ve been doing this a very long time, and it’s only the third time in my career that I’ve actually had the opportunity to be involved with genuinely launching something that will be filling a demand that previously couldn’t be filled. That’s exciting.

What markets are you selling into, Al?

Predominantly the distributor trade. We have a very small number of end-user customers, but the vast majority I mean, in up into the late 90% and certainly in terms of revenue, it’s almost 100% of our business is distributors of all shapes and sizes. We tend not to deal with the true end user. You know, if you’re a DIY-er looking for a piece of threaded rod, that’s not something we get involved in. Hence why we’re dealing exclusively with the distributor market in the US.

Are your distributors requesting more and more American-made product, or are you seeing them come to you because they’re on that quest?

It depends on the product. This particular instance I’m referring to, where we’re launching this new Great Rod product, we did a survey. We kept a database of all the inquiries we got. Now, it was a relatively small survey. We had a database of just over 300 companies who’d inquired in a six-month period for, back then, Grade 8 threaded rod. When we did the survey, what I was really surprised by was, I’ll get this right, it was something like 280 responded. Now, normally, typically pfft sure you’ve done these sorts of things. If you get a 20% response, it’s pretty darn good.

We knew, “Okay, we’re onto something here. There’s definitely a demand for this.” It took a lot longer than we two years than we’d hoped for to get to the point where we have a viable product that we know is going to satisfy that demand. In matter of fact at the start of next week an email letter is going out to those original survey respondents just to update them so I don’t want them to think we’ve forgotten them and just to let them know. “This is, this is what happened. This is what… You know, we were trying to do originally, that didn’t work out. I’m delighted to say we’re going to be launching this in July.” I just then, out of courtesy, I’d like to make them aware before we start our blanket marketing to all our customer base.

It’s an interesting question here. What are people specifically requiring Grade 8 rod for? What requires Grade 8 rod?

I’m going to be flippant now and say, “Any application that needs a high-strength rod,” because there’s not one specific industry. Bear in mind, look. Threaded rod is, is heavily used in the construction industry. This is not a precision engineering product, most people whack a nut on it and stick it in concrete. The answer to that question is, I don’t know, but we know there is a significant demand. It’s not like, for instance, “This is predominantly used in the automotive industry,” or, “This is predominantly used in aerospace and defense.”

I’m not too sure I’d want to get involved in that, that marketplace. The initial catalyst was that response to that survey was. “There’s a real demand for this.” that hasn’t gone away. We still, routinely and I mean daily get inquiries for. “Have you got a Grade 8-type threaded rod, all lengths, all sizes?” from distributors. When I mentioned earlier, when I worked in the UK, we, we called it “running with the hair and the hounds” about 50% of our business was distributors, 50% was end users.

What it did give you was almost an instant insight into true market demand. Dealing with distributors is a bit more of a challenge because they’re trying to run a business. If we ring up a distributor and say, “You know, is this an order to place, or tell me what industry is this going in?” they just want to get it off their plate. They got a shopping list of products, they got a price and delivery, they’re going to use that. Again, a generalization. They don’t have the time to sit there and chit-chat about where this is or isn’t being used, and probably wouldn’t want to divulge that anyway. It’s more difficult to tell when our customer base is almost exclusively distributors. We just don’t have access to that information.

Yeah, it’s an interesting question to me. Does it matter particularly? No.

We’re speaking with Al Bate. He’s VP of Sales over there at All American Threaded Products. In your quest to hunt down distributors for this material, Al, I see you guys at the shows. Are you personally going to be out there in Chicago or Vegas or anybody people can meet you in person?

I may be out in Vegas. I don’t want to dwell on this, I had a few health issues recently and it ended up with blood clots in my lungs. It’s all under control and not a problem, but you just got to be a little bit careful about getting on a plane. Assuming that’s under control absolutely. We are going to be doing an official launch of this at the Fastener Show in Vegas. We’re looking forward to that.

See those old rugby injuries, probably.

Actually, it did. It started I’ve got to have both my hips and both my knees replaced for that very reason. I had one hip done in June last year, the next hip done in September. That got infected, I had a third hip operation, and that’s what started the blood clots initially in the leg. Anyway, one of those challenges we have to deal with. Absolutely fine, it’s just I don’t intend jumping on a plane that could cause me some issues.

I got it. This is major-league stuff, although nothing compared to Rick Rudolph, but still. Folks can get a hold of you, I guess, through your website at AATProd.com. Who came up with that, Al?

AATP, All American Threaded Products.

Got it. That’s where it comes from. Sure do appreciate you hopping on with us.

I really enjoyed it. To those out there who don’t know anything about rugby, Brian, being a Kiwi, a New Zealander, I’m sure everybody has heard of the All Blacks. England are playing them this summer in two games. As Brian mentioned offline, for the first time in probably 30 years, the All Blacks are, are running hot and cold. I’m hoping we get the chance to take advantage of that and maybe record at least one win. We’ll see.

We might say that New Zealand lost to the UK in the last World Cup.

I was being gracious and not mentioning that, but yes.

It was a very somber day around much of the world who knew about rugby.

I bet much of the world. I promise you, the rest of the world was celebrating, my friend. Somebody had finally beaten the All Blacks.

I sense a rugby roundtable with our friend Rick in the near future, guys. Al Bate, All American Threaded Products.

—

Fastener Talk, Rugby Laughs, And Harpo The Parrot Wrap Up

Bri, when you and Lin and Rick Rudolph went to see that rugby match in Washington a couple years ago, was Rick just an absolute animal in the stands, or was he well-behaved? How did that all go?

He was very well-behaved. Makes you, Rick and Morgan both. We met them both. It was a bit of a try, actually.

It was okay getting to the stadium, it was like a nightmare getting back from it because, like, 60,000 people all wanted Ubers.

Yeah. Plus, they probably all had, like, nine beers each.

If they were lucky. Okay, they could have had, been drinking harder drinks. Okay, there was a degree of alcohol available.

Is it a little more hoity-toity in DC?

No, I don’t think so. It was just a fun place. Just that the stadium, I think it’s in Maryland, or just on or near the border somewhere like that. It’s a bit of a way to get to. We had a lot of fun, though. That was true to say. In that event, Rick had not had his fixed-up shoulder. He was, was not quite so easy for him.

It will be fun to get Al Bate and Rick on a segment sometime coming up and listen to those two go at it and mix it up with rugby and fasteners. I’m thinking that might be a pretty fun segment to put together. I’d like to thank Al Bate with All American Threaded Products, he was our feature guest. Very interesting guy. Hope he makes it out to Vegas, his recovery goes okay. Also, I’d like to thank Parker Jensen with Atlas Distribution. I saw a post that he put up shortly after we recorded that segment of him standing on the Great Wall. It’s out there on LinkedIn. Your YFP in action, folks.

Jake “Valdez” Davis and Francesca Lewis introduced the news for us. Fastener Week 2024’s coming up in Chicagoland. Get out to MWFA.net. Bobby Wegner is organizing the 5K race this year. If you want to get in on that, as we’ve mentioned a couple times during the episode today, it’s a little more inclusive, shall we say, this year. You’re welcome to, so don’t hesitate. John Kovatch of AFC joined Mike McNulty on the Fastener News Report. Thank you, gentlemen. Still a little bit of a mystery to me, Bri, but you can’t argue with what’s actually being reported, and they did a good job of handling that. Of course, Carmen Vertullo had the Fastener Training Minute. Thank you, sir.

The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are. Brighton-Best International, Tested, Tried, True. Brighton-Best, Goebel Fasteners, Quality the first time. Go Goebel, and Star Stainless, Right off the shelf, it’s Star. Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by. Buckeye Fasteners, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Fastener Technology International, inxsql Software, the International Fastener Expo that’s the Vegas show, folks, J.Lanfranco, Solution Industries, 3Q Inc., Volt Industrial Plastics, and Würth Industry North America.

These great partners bring Fully Threaded Radio to you, plus all the other stuff that we do with FCH Sourcing Network. Couldn’t do it without them. Let us know what you think of the show. The email address is FTR@FullyThreaded.com. Brian and I are also out there on LinkedIn. So much going on, Bri. During this closing segment, I’m glad that you were able to get Harpo the parrot to give us just a little bit of peace. It’s been a challenge on this one, but we’ll take it. Are you buying into this whole polar-shift theory, or what is it with him?

No, I don’t think so. Harpo squawks away or whistles or sings on some prompt that we don’t really quite understand.

Maybe he just digs fastener podcasting like everybody else in this industry. I don’t know.

I suspect not. I don’t think it’s based on that, okay? It’s just when you happen to want some quiet, then that’s when it doesn’t get quiet.

Closing this one out, I noticed, Bri, at the top of the episode you made reference to the Fed Chairman. You were making a comment and threw that in just offhandedly. The NFDA had their ESPS meeting, which was a little bit of a different format this year. I heard from several people that it went really well. Instead of using hotel room suites to do the meetings, they did it more speed-dating style, in just a giant ballroom setting. A few people at first were a little nervous that maybe it would be a little less private, but I guess it went really well and the tables were spaced out, well attended, and so it sounds like a great success for the NFDA.

ITR Economics did a presentation there as they frequently do for the NFDA and I asked a couple people who attended that presentation about the overall tone. I’m not going to go too much into it because there’s not a lot that you don’t know already if you’ve been paying attention to all that. They haven’t really made any major revisions to their overall forecast of this late ’20s or 2030 great, great depression setting in. What I found particularly interesting was no mention was made of the big headlines and this goes for the mainstream media as well that are speaking about what’s happened with Saudi Arabia and the so-called petrodollar agreement that has been ongoing for the last 50 years.

Correct. The whole BRICS thing.

It’s connected to that, Bri. Bretton Woods is, I guess, not a thing anymore which doesn’t mean that Saudi isn’t going to use dollars to resolve transactions. It’s just that they’ll be going via the Bank of International Settlements using a variety of currencies now, which is a departure from Bretton Woods, that agreement that’s been or that was signed on June 6th, 50 years ago. My question would be, Bri. Why do you think ITR and the rest of the media are not really mentioning this? Why is that, when it would seem to have pretty big implications for our overall economic health?

It’s possible they haven’t thought through the implications of it. They’re not frightened to say things. I’m not sure, myself, what the real impact is, actually. It’s like the whole, the group of people all decided they want to deal in currencies other than the US dollar. As a group, it still doesn’t amount to much in the way of dollar equivalents, okay? They could be large, but they’re not large yet. Now, if Saudi Arabia decides to completely abandon the dollar, then, then it would be more of a problem.

No evidence that that’s even being contemplated, but the exclusivity is no longer a thing. Here’s what it speaks to. It speaks to the longer-term ability of the US to print its way out of the overspending habit that it has. If that does set in, that effect, then that would change things very drastically. As Hemingway said in one of his great novels, inquiring about the bankruptcy of a very wealthy person. “How did it happen? How did you lose it all?” “Well, gradually at first, and then all at once.”

I should have checked with ChatGPT exactly what I’m referencing, but I didn’t do that. There you have it. Hopefully, this isn’t a bird-brained idea, and I think we’ll cut this one right there as long as we’ve still got Harpo asleep, or whatever Lin is doing to keep him silent. Just be glad that we were able to get this in. We’ll call this one Harpo’s Revenge. It’s been a lot of fun over here, folks, recording this one for you, as it always is. Hope you’re with us for the next one. We have a lot of interesting events coming up in the fastener industry. We’ll do our best to bring you the Fully Threaded brand of coverage you’ve come to expect.

Without the animals and birds and things.

I’m not making any promises.

I wouldn’t, either.

Get out there, sell some screws, watch out for low-flying birds, will you? we’ll talk to you next time. pick them up and keep them comfortable if they do bang into the window. See you next time, folks.