Episode #217 – SW Threaded

 

MW Components VP of sales, Kara Bosse sees the exciting side of the fastener sales game as she works to make manufacturing an attractive career for the next generation (8:07). Meanwhile, pitmaster Rob “Big Country” Reynolds of INxSQL Software explains how his ERP platform has expanded to support fastener manufacturing as well as distribution (1:40:25). On the Fastener News Report, Baird analyst Dave Manthey joins senior editor Mike McNulty to examine the latest surge of the FDI reading (50:23). Carmen Vertullo highlights conical spring washers on The Fastener Training Minute (1:26:20). PLUS: Ed Smith of Würth Industry USA takes the lead at the NFDA (40:10). Southwest gets Eric to the southwest, but high and dry. Run time: 02:10:10

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Listen to the podcast here

 

SW Threaded

Kara Bosse (MW Components): Problem-Solving & Industry Trends

It is Fully Threaded Radio, the voice of the FCH Sourcing Network. If you buy, sell, manufacture, import, distribute, or are otherwise involved in the industrial fastener industry, this is the show for you. Everybody, Eric Dudas with you, this time coming to you from the extremely warm climbs above the Sonoran Desert, courtesy in a way of Southwest Airlines. I’m in the Southwest. What a story, that whole thing, that I’m not going to get into.

All my regular gear is not with me. I’m going to keep this piece of the episode pretty brief. It’s episode 217 of the Fully Threaded Radio show. I appreciate you tuning in. This will be a little bit longer of an episode than we have been doing. It is a throwback because there’s so much to jam in. I hope you’ve been enjoying some of the shorter special episodes we’ve put out. This one is several segments smashed together.

We’ll kick it off with Kara Bosse. She’s with MW Components. We’ve done a soft launch with MW. They are our newest show sponsor. It’s high time we had Kara on the show. She makes her debut on our opening segment. We’ll kick off the Fastener News Report with a discussion with the elected President of the National Fastener Distributors Association, Mr. Ed Smith. He is with Würth Industry USA. Ed will be leading the National Fastener Association. You’ll get to size up his platform.

This is leading us to Mike McNulty, this time joined by Baird analyst Dave Manthey. I tell you, the FDI has been a roller coaster. We’re on the upswing again, at least the main FDI number. Mike and Dave will kick that around. That’s the Fastener News Report. The second feature is a conversation with Rob “Big Country” Reynolds of INxSQL Software. He’s fresh off a huge brisket cook-off that he did with some of his non-fastener cronies during this conversation. He talks a little bit about barbecue, but also what’s new at INxSQL and how they’re reacting to current fastener industry market conditions. Good conversation. Plus, as always, Carmen Vertullo will bring us another Fastener Training Minute. A lot is jammed in this one. It’ll go by fast. I’m not going to prattle on too much myself.

The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Star Stainless, right off the shelf. It’s Star. GOEBEL Fasteners, quality the first time. Go GOEBEL. Brighton-Best International, tested, tried, true, Brighton-Best. Fully Threaded Radio is also sponsored by Buckeye Fasteners, BTM Manufacturing, Eurolink Fastener Supply Service, Fastener Technology International, INxSQL Software, the International Fastener Expo, J.Lanfranco, MW Components, Solution Industries, Volt Industrial Plastics, and Würth Industry USA.

Let us know what you think of the show. If you have comments or suggestions, the email address is FTR@FullyThreaded.com. Before you ask, Brian is fine. Lots are going on behind the scenes here at the FCH Sourcing Network if you only knew. My little mishap with Southwest Airlines is the tip of the iceberg. I got to tell you. He is fine. He says hello. He’ll be back with us for an upcoming episode soon.

One other thing before we get to it. The new Link Magazine came out. It’s the Summer 2025 edition. I’m going to congratulate Brighton-Best International. Rosa Hearn leads the marketing team over there. On the Link side, it is Tracey Lumia. Great work, you guys. The cover is a celebration of the Brighton-Best’s 100th anniversary. BBI is making the most out of it. When you see the cover of this Link, it does a great service to celebrate that momentous milestone. Good job, everybody. When you pick up the issue, don’t forget to look at page 14. Thanks, Leo, for the great placement. It’s a quick one. We’ll drop here, play a couple of messages, and we’ll be back to put a wrench to this one. Thanks for tuning in to the Fully Threaded Radio, everybody.

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Kara Bosse, you’re with MW Components. You’re on Fully Threaded. Thanks so much for being here.

Eric, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Given all the esteemed guests you’ve had on this show, I’m not sure how I snuck in, but I certainly appreciate you having me on.

Anytime. You’re another name on that list. You’re with MW Components. You’ve been there about thirteen years. Let me ask you this. What do you tell people when they ask you what you do for a living, especially folks who are not in the fastener industry? I’m always curious about this answer.

It’s such a great question because it’s hard to explain how exciting it is to design something, work and manufacture or procure it, and then iterate with the customer to solve the problem that they need and that they need to solve. Sometimes, it takes a few iterations to get there. I explain to a lot of people who aren’t in the manufactured economy. A lot of folks, especially of my generation, don’t understand how much is manufactured here in the States until they start opening their eyes to it.

I certainly went through that same transformation myself to say, “There’s a lot here.” What I explain is that we’re problem solvers. We provide fasteners and hardware for a variety of applications. What brings it to life for people is talking about where these parts are used in their everyday lives. From the youngest to the oldest generation, it helps them picture what you actually do. I tell them we make screws, nuts, bolts, and standoffs for applications that go into the Boeing airplanes, to the lawnmowers out there available that you’re using every weekend, and to medical device applications.

 

It’s incredible, the fastening and joining of things, and how many applications are out there. Bringing those applications to life for people gets them excited about manufacturing, as I am. I always say I’m a manufacturing professional. I love my job. The best part about it is getting out on the floor and helping customers solve those problems, from bringing a design to life or procuring that design and working through those challenges. It’s a real fun place to be. As you all know, you get stuck in manufacturing and distribution, especially in this fastener world. It’s hard to get out of it. That’s for sure.

When you tell people generically, “I’m in the fastener industry,” they give you a blank stare. Those specific examples help make it exciting and spice it up. Imagine you’re at a little kid’s birthday party. “I make the screws that go on the rocket ship on your birthday cake.”

It’s funny, Eric. My husband is at Sikorsky Aircraft. It’s hard to compete with, “I work on Black Hawk helicopters.” What we tell my two-year-old son is, “Mommy solves all the problems that you deal with every day.” We even got him a little fastener kit. He is screwing his own screws together. You’ve got to teach him young.

It sounds like you’re doing a good job on that. You are doing a lot of engineering support, but you’re playing a sales role with MW. Let me ask you. Did you come at this from the technical side, or did you come at it from the sales side?

I was a salesperson. That’s how I started with MW. I’ve had the privilege of working there for thirteen years in multiple capacities. I don’t have enough wonderful things to say about them because they’ve supported me through my MBA and all my personal life transitions. It’s an awesome company. They do a ton of hiring from within. Honestly, I started working the phones. I started on the floor with setups and things like that. I was learning from the ground up.

Although I started on the sales side, I say a lot of my learning came from spending time at the end of the day with folks on the shop floor. There are such great resources in this industry, like the IFI training. I took that a few years back with Carmen Vertullo. There are so many great experts in this business, even some of our sales reps who have sold for us for many years, like Marty Nolan. I constantly pick up the phone, trying to call them and say, “Have you come across this problem?”

To your point, there’s a bench strength at MW, 100-plus engineers that can support me. The folks I learned from the most are within the industry. Probably worth mentioning, too, is my background in Physics. I’m a huge Physics nerd over here. I am finding some practical ways to actually use my degree some days. It’s a lot of fun. It’s the people you talk to and rely on who you get the most learning for sure.

That’s very interesting, Physics background. That makes a lot of sense. I’m sure you’re doing a good job with your technical support. What areas are you concentrating on? What have you focused on during the course of your career? I’m sure you’ve expanded the commodities that you’ve been supporting.

I started at MW on the spring side, which is not too far from the fastener side of the business. As you know, MW provides a lot of products for this space, but I then dove into more of our screws, nuts, bolts, the bread and butter of what this industry is, which is fun. Most of my learning has been around the material side, especially because materials nowadays have been harder and harder to come by. I am helping folks with engineering out alternative materials or even better designs for their applications and things like that. It has been fun. I’ve learned a lot about a lot of different products. It’s amazing how a lot of these products tend to complement each other as you learn more and more about them.

Before we were recording, you were telling me that you were focused on springs for a while. I was looking at the MW website a little bit before we connected. It’s the only fastener site that I’ve looked at that actually has a spring calculator on it. Like everything else, when you look closely at it, there are so many details that you have to be aware of. It is very impressive. You’re now more into the threaded fastening areas. Did I get that right?

Yes, externally and internally. Some of our machining side of the portfolio addresses some of the internally threaded components. It is mostly externally and internally. You’re right. Same as fasteners, these springs go into everything from NASCAR to SpaceX. You name it. It’s a ton of fun applications in that space. It is very similar to fasteners. There are some key parameters you need to know. The key is making sure that you can design it repeatably and reliably. Coming out of engineering school, they don’t teach you how to design a fastener or how to design a spring.

Just because you can draw it doesn’t mean we can make it. That’s where we’re working a lot, whether it’s with our distribution customers or directly with some of the OEs. That design piece and teaching folks what can be done is a big part of our job. Frankly, it is an area, given supply chain issues we’ve had over the years, that is critically important to say, “You can do this, but here are the alternatives.” We’ve run into quite a few situations over the past years where we’ve had to say, “Here’s a substitution. We’d be happy to help you sell that to your customer.”

I could see that. I could go a million directions. I want to ask you about your experience out there in the field with supply chain and what effects you’re seeing from all the disruptions. I got to backtrack. You also mentioned NASCAR. MW is providing Hyperco to NASCAR. Tell us about that. That’s an exciting thing. I bet your young son is very excited when you mentioned that.

He certainly is. We call them our blue spring offerings. These springs are intense in terms of the requirements, as you can imagine, with these cars’ demand. We landed that contract a few years ago. It’s exciting because I don’t know if you know this about NASCAR, but every part in that car has to be the same or within a few options. They only give you a few options. The reason they do that, though I’m not an expert, is that they don’t want any one driver getting the edge on the competition.

MW was able to land that spring contract. I had the opportunity to go down to Daytona. It was in 2022, the peak of COVID. If you can imagine, there were 150,000 to 200,000 people in the stands, no masks. It was amazing. It was quite the experience. They got lots of pictures. We had a blast. That’s the more fun part of my job, with some of our sexier product offerings and product lines. The Daytona 500 was a real experience for me, especially peak of COVID.

It’s always nice to have a few of those exciting products in the line to talk about. Thanks for mentioning that pocket of sanity. There were a few of them out there. I survived during that time period by hanging out at the Hillbilly Taco Shop quite a bit. Same went there.

We’ve got to find our people and enjoy it.

Fastener Industry: Supply Chain, Consolidation & Reshoring

You’ve got to do it. Fully Threaded was there for the whole thing. Getting back to sales, what are you seeing out there in the market when you’re talking to people these days, because everybody is impacted in one way or another with the supply chain? You know this, Kara. We speak to lots of distributors on the show. You’re heavily weighted on the manufacturing side. I’m very curious to see whether or not the market is demanding more domestically manufactured products. If that’s something in your area that you’re seeing, tell us about it.

Even some of our distributor partners are out there trying to find that alternative, and they have over the years. During COVID and all the disruption, we had a tremendous amount of gap buy opportunities for many of these folks. I’ll say some of those gap buys are stuck. In terms of 2025, there are a few things we see. The first is, and we’re going to talk a little bit about it, this space is consolidating. It’s consolidating quickly.

This space is consolidating, and it's consolidating quickly. Share on X

Frankly, there are a lot of markets out there consolidating, like healthcare and so on. One of the reasons that this business is consolidating is because of individuals who own these companies, wonderful individuals who are the backbone of the economy, or private owners. I grew up in that environment, working in a private business. There’s nothing better than a family business, for sure. The next generation is not all that interested in every case in taking over these businesses. You’re either selling to somebody like an MW or otherwise, or you’re seeing them come out of the space.

There’s actually some capacity that’s being pulled out of the space that I’ve seen over the past few years. It’s shrinking the overall landscape. Part of it, to your point on the spring side, where I started my career, I sit on a springboard here in Bristol, Connecticut. Born and raised, I didn’t make it too far. Being in a small business nowadays, the costs are high, like healthcare and electricity. It’s making it hard for these folks to operate.

That’s one of the things I’m seeing. It’s creating some level of gaps in the manufacturing space, especially. We are seeing some reshoring. I certainly have to talk about that with tariffs, the dreaded tariff word. We are seeing some opportunities through the tariffs. We have seen some reshoring. This is my point of view. I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact on us because manufacturing here in the States has been outsourced for 30 to 40 years.

Manufacturing here in the States has been outsourced for 34 years. So, bringing back all that skilled labor is really tricky. That's not gonna happen overnight. Share on X

Bringing back all that skilled labor is tricky. That’s not going to happen overnight. There are other reasons why people are reshoring, whether it’s tax benefits, they’re closer to their consumers, or strategic control of the supply chain. I don’t know that it’s all tariff-related. I don’t know how long-term that’s going to impact it. I suppose if I did, I’d be retired on the beach somewhere. We’re hearing reshoring out there. That absolutely continues to be a trend.

The final thing that I’m hearing a little bit is about trying to find a supplier with strong contingency planning, because we’ve had so many disruptions. These parts were stuck in a port out in New York or California, not moving. People are looking for more and more Plan Bs where they have only a Plan A. We’re seeing some more opportunities there. Long-term, domestic manufacturing has some potential upside, especially in given markets like aerospace defense that require domestic manufacture. They have taken off in the past years.

I still see continued use of overseas sources. That’s strong and healthy for the competitive landscape. There’s good technology over there. There have been good investments. We’ll see a little bit of both. What domestic manufacturers need to focus on, and I know what MW is focused on, is matching that investment to the level we’ve seen overseas. It’s long overdue. It’s exciting for all of us who participate in domestic manufacturing.

The War On Talent: Attracting The Next Generation To Manufacturing

I’m hearing you say that there is, if nothing else, a lot of conversation around that area. I heard you also say that one of your doubts that it will greatly expand domestic manufacturing is due to the lack of the labor force. You’ve told me in the past that you have this concept that you refer to as the war on talent. Is there any connection to this and that?

Most definitely. It’s a topic that is a little taboo to talk about with customers, like, “There’s an impending issue here.”

What do you mean by that term, first of all? What do you mean when you say war on talent?

I mean, we have an aging workforce, especially in domestic manufacturing, that could create a gap in the next 5, 10, and 20-year timeframe. I’m saying that we’re not filling the funnel of candidates up enough to deal with those that are falling out of the bottom. We’re all trying to convince young people, especially, to get more and more involved in skilled trades. We’ve been focused on sending kids to college instead of educating them on all the potential opportunities to participate in the economy that can be lucrative, especially a skill that commands a very high wage.

 

I always say if you drive down one of your manufacturer’s parking lots and you see all the Ford F-150s and the Dodge Rams, you certainly have to work hard to get there. Don’t get me wrong. That’s the truth in all of our lives. These folks make good careers for themselves and good wages for themselves. There’s a lot of stability in these places. We, domestic manufacturers, are all facing this crisis of the aging workforce because we’ve done a poor job, all of us, in educating young people on alternatives.

I even think about my brother-in-law. He hated school. There are so many other options for these young folks to go out there and get a trade. There are tech schools. We spend a lot of our time. All of us in the associations talk a lot about this. That’s one topic that brings us all together. Although we’re competing and all having fun with each other, here’s a topic we can work together on. It is getting into the schools, getting into sophomores and juniors, and starting to educate them on, “There are alternatives here.” If we don’t do a good job at that, it’s going to be a challenge.

The more we talk about domestic versus overseas, it’s going to become more and more of a price gap that we can’t overcome if we get stuck bidding on the same associates and driving up overall wages instead of bringing in capacity into this space. It’s a tough one. It’s one that MW is doing a lot of work on. I know a lot of our competitors, too. We talk a lot in the associations and otherwise, “What can we do?” This is a topic we’re all united on. MW is doing some unique stuff that I’d love to talk about. Even getting out here and talking to you about it, it’s important because we all need young people in order to continue to do what we do here.

It almost sounds like the way you’re describing it, we need to do these things just to maintain. Forget about expansion. We do want to expand. Don’t get me wrong, but the situation we’re facing, the way that you’re describing it, and I’ve heard it from others, we definitely need to attract younger people. We can make all these promises and tell them that this future is ahead of them if they go in the direction of CNC, cold header man, you name it. Are the things we’re promising them possible? Can that life be available to them? What is MW doing? I got another question for you, too, before you jump into that. What associations are you connected with? You’ve mentioned them a couple of times. IFI is one of them.

It is most definitely. Because our footprint is so broad, we’re all over the place. I was at the golf tournament at the NEFDA. We are associated with a lot of the local associations. We try to get a lot of our local folks involved in it. IFI is a nice backbone. We use it all the time. I speak mostly of IFI because we send folks, especially those young folks who need to be trained on the fastener world, to the training all the time. There is MWFA. We’re all over the place. We’ve got quite a few because our footprint is so broad in terms of Connecticut, Chicago, and all the way out to California.

MW Components: Investing In The Future – Addison Facility & Apprenticeships

I split you on that one. We are getting back to MW’s punch list of things they’re doing to address this problem.

There are a few things. There are lots of smaller things we’re doing, too. One of the biggest investments we’ve made in the last few years that has come to fruition mostly in 2025, which has kept me pretty busy, is that we have a facility in Addison, Illinois. As you know, Rockford and Chicagoland are the cradle of cold forming, where it was invented, and the epicenter of where a lot of the vendors are. Thankfully, we’re doing business in the right place where the right existing talent is. We made a multi-million dollar investment in a brand new facility in Addison, Illinois.

The investment thesis behind it was, “Let’s create a cold heading center of excellence that we can ensure we attract that next generation of talent.” It is beyond the financial piece, which cannot be overlooked, given that my husband and I paid off our student loans at the ripe age of 32. That’s a real thing. The other thing they’re looking for is a nice place to work. For them, that means a clean environment that’s well-lit with locker rooms, break rooms that have microwaves, and all of that stuff. I’ve been into competitors that have TVs up on the wall so folks can catch the game during lunch. It’s some of those fringe things that they’re looking for.

What MW has done is recognize that that’s critical. They don’t want to work in a dark shop. There are a lot of misconceptions that manufacturing is done in a dark and dingy place. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity of going to see a lot of shops, both competitors and MW shops. That’s certainly not the case. Being in a state-of-the-art facility with state-of-the-art equipment, labs, and measuring techniques, that’s where young people want to be. It is almost a CNC machining environment, but more on the cold forming side. That has been a huge investment for us. It has been a consolidation of our existing footprint as well.

Prior to the Addison facility, we had three facilities. One was Holbrook Fasteners. One was Hi-Performance Fasteners. One was Allstar Fasteners. They are all within roughly twenty minutes of the Addison location. Thankfully, the critical talent that we’ve been talking a lot about, we didn’t lose any of those associates based on general proximity. That’s why we chose to place the building there. It has been a fantastic investment from my perspective.

Whenever you transition and consolidate, there’s always a little bit of chaos in systems and people. People are the hardest thing. We all know this to change and work in new environments. It hasn’t been a perfect straight line in terms of that. Long-term, walking young people around that facility is going to be exciting. What we’ve done in addition to the investment in the facility itself is spend a lot of money and resources on a strong apprenticeship program. You’ve got to go grassroots with this stuff. You’ve got to get out into community events.

You’ve got to get into the church pews. With the associations, we’ve got to get arm in arm. We’ve got to get out to these high schools, bring them into our shop, give them a tour, and talk about the earning potential, anything that attracts these young folks in. We’ve spent a lot of time and resources on creating that apprenticeship program and then a career path for these folks. You start as an apprentice and then at Header Man I, Header Man II, Header Man III, Roller Man I, and so on.

It is saying, “Once you get up to four or five, you’re probably running multiple machines. You’re making a lot more money, which is great. You’re doing some of the harder stuff. You’re doing the multi-die applications. You’ve got to go from a single die to a multi-die.” That’s what we’ve been spending a lot of our time on. It’s paid off. Addison is one example, but throughout our portfolio, it’s all about getting out to these folks and making these investments so that we are state-of-the-art and we can attract young people.

I’ve got one more example for you, and then I’ll stop talking here. We’ve got a great location, Ohio Rod Products, out in Versailles, Indiana. The general manager over there, Mike Hughes, who has been with us for 30 years, is a great guy. He had a baseball field built right next to his facility. The idea was to find ways to get your family involved in the community and involved in the shop, and then bring the kids, saying, “Dad works next door. Mom works next door.” It’s a brilliant way to introduce kids early. It’s some of those intangible things that this younger generation seems to care about.

There’s a lot there. I would like to do a segment with somebody from MW who is super focused on that whole apprenticeship program because that idea is something that needs to be nurtured. It needs to be grown. There are probably people out in the audience who have young people in their world, be it their kids, somebody they know, or somebody in their family. There are lots of them. They’re looking down the road.

MW Components: Acquisitions, Growth & Marty Nolan’s Network

They don’t know what they’re going to do. They would be attracted to something that looks worthwhile. We should talk about this some more. Thanks for presenting all that. By the way, folks, IF you want to get more about what’s going on at MW, what Kara is talking about, there’s so much there. It’s MWComponents.com. You rattled off all these names. I’d forgotten about the big Elgin acquisition. That happened back in ’23. Let’s see, there was Ideal Fasteners sometime back. They were FCH members. USA Fasteners were FCH members. There have been so many that you’ve rolled into your portfolio. MW Components is a monster.

It’s fun, though. It has this nice balance where not in every case can the owners work in the business because it’s your baby. You raise your baby a certain way. Someone comes in, and it’s hard to see, “I raised my kid this way all these years.” It’s hard to do anything different. In many cases, we have a lot of owners in the business still present and working in the business, which is fun. We’ve got one guy, Kirk Tindall. He sold us this business down in Houston, Texas, in 2015, and is still in the business. Facundo Quiroga out in Ideal Fasteners, who has grown up in the business as I have, is still in the business as a general manager. It’s neat to see some of these folks thrive within it.

MW has been super fortunate to buy some fantastic outfits, especially in Ideal Fasteners. It’s been fun. It’s a salesperson’s dream because the product offering never gets stale. We’re talking to our customers a lot like, “Where are your pain points? How can we help solve those?” It is either through bringing in some of the technology ourselves or acquiring it. There are so many wonderful businesses. It’s a real testament to this space that we all play. There are some folks who make some incredible investments in this space. It’s worthwhile to combine those forces. It’s fun. You get stuck in it. You’re a glutton for punishment. You don’t ever want to leave.

It gets in your blood. It’s well known. It is a testament to the kind of company that you’re running that so many of the original owners are still there. I can totally see how it would be a fantastic environment for an energetic and ambitious sales-minded person to test their limits and do what they want to do. That’s exactly what you’re doing, Kara. I sure do appreciate it. Your energy bubbles over. We could go on forever, but I want to ask you this before we close this conversation out. I know our time is limited. How did you get to me? I’m not surprised by this. How did you find Marty Nolan in this whole labyrinth of companies and everything? You mentioned him, and I got a smile on my face.

He is the infamous. I can tell you that in my sales career, I have never met somebody who knows so many people in this industry. Whatever I need to get to somebody, Marty is the first guy I call. Marty hooked us up. This was an awesome time for me. I know he has brought lots of folks together in this business for many years. As I say, I rely on Marty for so much, calling him, “What’s going on with this? Tell me what’s the latest,” when I get stuck with things.

We’re super fortunate to have kept him. We acquired him through the Elgin acquisition, which was a fun thing. I don’t know. He stuck with us ever since. MW is not a perfect company. We talked a lot about the good stuff. There’s no perfect organization. That’s for sure. Marty has been patient and kind with us. We’ve got a whole network of some other reps that we utilize who are very well known and connected. We’re lucky to have good people. It makes it part of the fun. That’s for sure. The infamous Marty Nolan, God knows how he knows so many people. It’s like a full-time job all his networking he does.

He is one of a kind. He rolled in through Elgin. I’m not surprised by that. You’re right. The M&A business is filled with successes. Anybody who says that there’s a company out there with a perfect track record of smooth transition is 100% not telling you the truth. Kara, I said that we’re going to do this again, and we are. I definitely want to talk more about the apprenticeship program that you mentioned. Anytime you want to talk about what’s going on out there and what’s important, I’m so glad to have MW Components on the FTR team.

Thank you so much, Eric, for having me and for your audience. I appreciate it.

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Ed Smith (NFDA President): Leadership & Association Initiatives

We’re back. It’s the news segment. Always headlines. Mike McNulty is focused on them. He’ll be bringing us the latest FDI news. A lot of suspense there if you haven’t seen that report yet. No suspense on what’s going on at the NFDA yet because the announcement came out about that. They elected their new Board of Directors. The President of the National Fastener Distributors Association is none other than Ed Smith. He is the Senior Strategic Sourcing Manager over there at Würth Industry USA. He’s here now.

Good afternoon, Eric. How are you?

I am doing outstanding. Congratulations on your bump up to President of the NFDA.

Thank you. I appreciate the kind words. I’m very humbled to be sitting in the spot where I am with as many notable names in the fastener business, leading the charge here and setting the stage for me to be able to come in and try to put my mark on it.

I want to hear what your mark is going to be or what you’re envisioning at this point. When you look back in history and the list of names who have been President of the NFDA, as you said, it’s pretty impressive.

It was quite interesting. I’ve reviewed the list a few times here, leading up to knowing what was coming. It was brought up in one of our past Presidents’ meetings. It’s like looking at a family tree. You’ve got so many legendary family names in the business and generations of folks that have led the charge. I am extremely humbled to be able to sit in this chair, do what I can to keep moving things forward, and be a part of something great.

You’ve put your time in. Let’s say it that way. When you and I first started talking, I’m pretty sure it was probably at a Pac-West event. You were with Timberline at the time. That’s going back a few years, Ed. You’ve done a lot of roles for a lot of associations. This is your crack. What is Ed Smith’s agenda for the NFDA going to be? What’s front and center for you guys this time?

For us, it’s not a whole lot different than what we’ve had in the past. What’s the member value? How do we continue to increase the member value and help the membership get the most out of what they’re a part of, whether that’s through various trainings or some of our various task forces that we have put together? One thing I do want to plug if I can is coming out of our strategic planning meeting, we put together a task force to come up with professional resources.

Looking at our strategic plan, when we sat down and said, “What do we want to do over the next few years?” One of the brainchilds that came out of that was looking at our workforce and saying, “How can we best try to help develop some of these guys who don’t know what training they need?” They don’t know what they don’t know. What we came up with was an area on our website that’s hosted out at the NFDA website, where you can go in and learn at your leisure.

If it’s a warehouse personnel that wants to make their way into purchasing, sales, or accounting, we’ve developed some links out there. It’s anything from an entry-level type of person on up to mid-level. The goal of it is to give them an area to start. You don’t necessarily know what you’re looking for, but once you find this website, you’re going to be able to figure out the skills that you need. It’s going to help direct you. There is a lot of free information out there, but there are also some paid links. We find this very valuable for some newer entries into the business, for sure.

I love that. I’m a big supporter of the idea of helping distributors get more of their bench people to the shows, the association meetings, the regionals, and everything. Allowing anybody avenues for professional development seems like a great idea. The NFDA should be spearheading that. Good job. I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

On that topic as well, we’ve looked a lot at what our events are and how we can be a little bit more inclusive for our events. Maybe it’s not just for the executives, but for the next generation of leaders. We need a strong future. We need to welcome and invest in the people who are going to shape it going forward.

We need a strong future; we need to welcome and invest in the people who will shape it. Share on X

Since we are going to try and do a pretty quick segment here, I’m going to move us right to something completely opposite from what we talked about. That’s your big event coming up in October. It’s going to be a little more on the exclusive side. That is happening down there in Key West. It’s your annual executive retreat. What a powerhouse event you guys have set up down there.

We’re looking forward to it. We’re anticipating some good weather, so hopefully, no issues coming up there. I say that tongue in cheek, so please give us some good vibes for the weather in October for that event. That one is turning out to be a good education. We’ve got some people coming in talking about the QBQ, the question behind the question, for some leadership-type training.

We’ve got a couple of good panel discussions. Don’t get me wrong. Panel discussions can be great, or they cannot be so great. It all comes back to what the topics are. What are the hot buttons in the industry? We’ve got a few that are pretty good that should lead to a good panel discussion. We’re certainly looking forward to hopefully seeing a lot of people out in Key West come October.

That event is happening from October 15th through the 17th. Get out to NFDA-Fastener.org. That’s the website. Got some time on this one, but you might want to start making your plans now. That’s after Vegas in 2025. Ed Smith is the new President of the NFDA. Who’s the rest of the board?

The Board of Directors for 2025-2026, Steve Andrasik from Brighton-Best International, Lisa Breton from DB Roberts, Scott Camp from Atlas Distribution, Alex Goldberg from AMPG, Scott Longfellow from Huyett, Melissa Patel from Field Fastener, Angela Philippart from AFC, Christian Reich of GOEBEL Fasteners, and Jennifer Sturm of Empire Bolt. With the officers that were elected, I am happy to have such a good, engaged group of distributors. Melissa Patel is now the Vice President for NFDA. Christian Reich is serving a second term as the Associate Chair. Scott McDaniel is the Immediate Past President. They’re passionate and engaged. I am looking forward to serving alongside this group and into the immediate past presidency.

I had a lot of fun talking with Scott about various NFDA events. These terms fly by. Do you ever think about expanding it to two years?

We’re good with one year for now, but we’ll see.

I probably asked you at the wrong time in your term, but it seems like it from an outsider. We’ll reconvene here in a second. I want to point out to everybody that the news is coming up. For many years, it’s been sponsored by Volt Industrial Plastics, makers of the world’s finest plastic fasteners. The title sponsors of Fully Threaded Radio are Brighton-Best International, GOEBEL Fasteners, and Star Stainless. I got to pay those bills, Ed. I know that you can appreciate that.

I do appreciate all our sponsors for everything.

Würth Industry USA has also been a strong supporter of many things across the industry, including the Fully Threaded show for a long time. I don’t know if I got that title right the first time. You are the Senior Manager of Strategic Sourcing. That’s a mouthful, but it’s a big job, isn’t it?

It is. As we continue to integrate the various Würth Industry USA companies into one year, it definitely becomes tougher and tougher every day, navigating the seas of supplier announcements, tariff challenges, and steel pricing. There’s not a dull day any longer in the seat that I sit in. That’s for sure.

I can imagine. A lot of big headlines are coming up. We had Chapman on the last episode. We always talk to Würth people who take the pulse. Generally, tariff is still pretty much the top of your agenda in terms of managing sourcing these days. Is that a fair idea?

It is fair. It’s something that we’re definitely keeping our eye on, looking at different areas of some reshoring and some more nearshoring, and looking at other countries that are becoming more and more viable for various supplies on different commodity products. Tariff is probably the big pain point in our business. I would say that is true.

Tariffs are probably the big pain point in our business today. Share on X

I look forward to getting you back on the show at some point in the future when the smoke clears on that, because I know you’ve got tons of insights. Good luck to you until then.

Eric, I appreciate it.

I’m going to pass it off to you right now because you have one more duty to fulfill as we head into the news. Ed Smith is the new President of the NFDA. He is with Würth Industry USA. Ed, it’s all yours.

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

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The Fastener News Report With Mike McNulty & Dave Manthey

Thanks, Ed. This is Mike McNulty from Fastener Technology International Magazine, bringing you the Fastener News Report. This is sponsored by Volt Industrial Plastics, makers of the world’s finest plastic fasteners. The Constitutional Republic of the United States of America is in the first days of its 250th year of independence. Semiquincentennial may eventually be a household word, as more than 340 million people have less than one year to prepare for the July 4, 2026, America’s 250th birthday bash to remember. I am still focused on fasteners and ready to deliver the Fastener News Report.

In this episode, Baird Senior Research Analyst Dave Manthey 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 from the National Fastener Distributors Association, plus newsmaker headlines from Unbrako, Huyett, AFC, BUMAX, Brainard Rivet, MacLean-Fogg, 3Q, Suncor Stainless, Lindfast Solution Groups, Auto Bolt USA, and more. On the back page report, we’re going to talk about the top fastener distributors in the USA. We’ll get to all of that and the latest FDI results right after this.

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The seasonally adjusted Fastener Distributor Index for June 2025 rose to 52.0 after posting a solid 50.4 reading in May, seasonally adjusted. This was the fourth reading above 50 out of the last five. The forward-looking indicator, also known as the FLI, tumbled to 47.4, down from 50.2 in May, the fifth time in six months of being below 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 insight into these results, we’re going to talk to Baird Senior Research Analyst, Dave Manthey. Dave, thanks for joining us on the Fastener News Report.

Mike, thanks for having me, as always.

It’s good to have you back. What do you think about the latest FDI results?

We’ve been range-bound, is how I would think about it. This month is no different. We’ve been bouncing around that 50 breakpoint. As a reminder to the audience, if the reading on the index is above 50, that signals expansion, and then a sub-50 is contraction. The FDI in June was signaling a bit of expansion, like it did in May. The FLI has been primarily below 50, signaling a mixed bag of outlooks there. It is a little bit below 50 there as well. I don’t know that it’s shocking, given the readings we’ve seen year to date. If you’ll allow me, Mike, I went back and did a little analysis here. If you look back to the start of the survey, 2012 is how far we have data going back. It’s been a while.

You shocked me with that.

If you think about the range of outcomes in a given year, the maximum and the minimum reading on the FDI in a given year, it tends to have a range of dispersion throughout the year. What’s interesting is that since January of 2024, the average has been 51.7. What’s interesting is the range, so the high and low, around that is an 11.3-point band. The max was 56.7. The min was 45.4. To think about that, it’s ranged a little bit over 11 points.

In over thirteen years of this survey, with the exception of 2016, which was a little bit tighter than that, this is the tightest band that we’ve had. I put that in the context of some of the commentary, which I’m sure we’ll talk about. Also, when you talk to investors and participants in the industry, everyone talks about the tariffs, which I’m sure we’ll get to. The word you hear from everybody is that there’s all this confusion. There’s this volatility. Uncertainty is one of the key phrases we hear quite a bit. In the midst of all of that, the FDI has ranged in this relatively tight band around flatness.

I would point that out. When people come to you and say, “We don’t know because it’s these unprecedented, uncertain times,” I would remind them that it is. There’s no doubt about it, but we’ve seen this before. Every time is uncertain. Point to a time in the past when we could raise our hand and say, “Yes, we’ve got everything figured out. Everything is going to happen the way we think it will.” I thought I would point that out in terms of the range is very tight, but hovering around that flat area. It is consistent with industrial production, ISM, and a lot of the other economic indicators right now.

You’re saying the last time it was this tight was in ’16?

2016, yes.

We’re far enough away from the pandemic days and everything. That’s good insight to add to the mix. Let’s jump into some of the numbers. It looks like sales and inventories have all improved. Employment dropped. Pricing was fairly stable, with the year-to-year being almost the same and the month-to-month going down slightly. Any insights on those numbers there?

It relates to all of those items. When you think about pricing in particular, there’s still confusion out there in terms of what pricing should look like or does look like, how the tariffs stack, whether they do, and which tariffs apply. There’s always the question about whether the tariffs that we have today are going to apply tomorrow or if there’ll be different ones. There’s a lot of confusion around pricing. Because of that, when we think about inventory levels, demand levels, and so forth, these things are all intertwined. It is this point in time where we’re seeing relative flatness.

We’re not seeing what we call in the market the animal spirits of people feeling like they want to invest and they want to be aggressive in terms of CapEx or growth. That is because of going back to that uncertainty. In what we’re talking about here, it’s not just the overall environment or the economy in general. We’re talking about how much these things cost, how much they’ll cost tomorrow, what we should be charging, how much we should have on hand, should we be heavy or light, that sort of thing. When we look at all of that data, none of it is all that surprising, particularly relative to the commentary we heard from respondents.

The biggest jump number-wise was sales. When we get to the comments, some people said they had great months. Others, not so great. I’m looking at your summary chart. It’s the highest sales number on the chart here.

When we get to this time of the year, sales can obviously be volatile. There’s an ebb and flow of the construction cycle, depending on the weather to some extent. There are shutdowns around the 4th of July, when the holidays fall. Having said that, we have gotten good commentary from a number of people that June was very strong. Having said that, some of the commentary is maybe less positive toward the back half of the year. If we do get some clarity on a few of these items, I’m positive about 2025 and into 2026. It feels like we’ve been chipping along here in terms of these readings and the economy in general.

If we look at investment, maybe some deferred investment, and some capital spending that should be ahead of us, not to mention reshoring, manufacturing has been a huge boom here in the United States. It seems like there are a lot of things that are positive. If people could wrap their heads around what the future looked like for the next 3, 6, or 12 months, we could see a nice release of that and an acceleration in the underlying manufacturing economy.

That’s good to hear. I look forward to that. The other numbers we had were the six-month outlook. It got a little bit more bullish. We had 41% of respondents expecting things to be better six months down the road, 38% the same, and only 22% thinking it’s going to be worse. That’s probably what helped the FDI as well as the sales.

That put me in that bucket, too. That would be a positive for the FLI as well. As we’re looking at that leading indicator, the things that would lead to a higher FLI would be rising employment, a positive six-month outlook, and then low inventories, both at the customer and respondent level, in anticipation that when things get better, those inventories would need to be built up. Therefore, that’s going to lead to a surge in demand. The six-month outlook is what it is. Employment is a bit of a longer-term decision. We assume that people aren’t hiring people with a plan of firing them next month. If they see things getting better and they truly believe that, you should see a rising employment indicator as well.

Also, it’s not directly related to the FDI or the FLI, but the ISM PMI for manufacturing inched up a little bit to 49.0, still staying below 50. It has been below 50 for a long time, except for February when it jumped over, but is moving back a little bit higher. Any take on that?

Economic Outlook: ISM PMI & Market Optimism

It’s a continuation of the theme that we have seen, which is nothing terrible in terms of the ISM rolling off a cliff. As you mentioned, it is not popping above 50 with the exception of a month or two, depending on adjustments. It’s reflective of the same environment we’re seeing through the survey that we do together. Other economic data is that we’re in a very flat industrial production and manufacturing environment. It is what gives me hope that if there’s one thing I know about Americans, they’re optimistic. Given time, if we sit here and do nothing for a few years, eventually, people are going to decide that it’s time to invest. It’s time to take a risk. We’re getting close to that.

 

Anything else on the numbers before we jump into the comments?

I wish I had some more exciting news for you on the numbers, but it sure seems like when you look at them, it’s got a landscape that looks like the topography of Florida here. It’s the flat land and not many peaks and not many valleys, but hopefully, we’ll see some improvement. As we pointed out, there are a few positive signals that maybe things over the next 6 to 12 months will start to look a little bit better. Hopefully, some of that economic data turns up.

I guess if you’re talking to runners or bikers, they’re okay with flat. Maybe that’s okay for industrial numbers as well. Let’s move on to the comments. We’re going to go through these. You can jump in with commentary on the comments as you see fit. Tariffs were the dominant theme again in the June comments, but we’ll start off with a few comments related to sales reports, which were mixed, but maybe more on the positive side.

The first one is, “Through the first six months of 2025, our sales are up over 50% over 2024.” Another comment, “Quarter two is closing well.” On the other side of the coin, we’ve got two here. One says, “Booking seems to be slow. Several customers have a July shutdown scheduled,” and “Ho-hum sales in June.” Those two balance each other out to make it flat.

It seems that way. When I think about the sentiment that we heard, it seems like the quarter ended well. The June quarter was pretty solid. As was mentioned here, maybe there are some shutdowns around the July holidays, the Independence Day, and maybe a little bit more caution as it relates to the back half. I would point out that it’s never perfect. I’m in the prediction business. I know you’re lucky if you’re right 51% of the time, but people voicing caution about the back half of the year is pretty standard.

We’ll see what happens from here. I’m not saying that I see things that are flashing green across the board, and I can say things are going to get better. It feels like we’ve been in this holding pattern for long enough. Maybe there’s still some near-term zigs and zags in terms of a week in July, or maybe the back half doesn’t quite materialize. You can only keep this thing down for so long. Eventually, we’ll return to growth.

We got another comment here that is sales-related. It says, “It seems like last month’s jump equals this month’s scale back.” That contributes more to the balancing act. “End-user demand remains sluggish. The June 4th tariff is precipitating another price increase.” As we move on, everything is 100% tariffs here. Here we go. “Tariffs continue to burn time and are now more confusing than ever. Customs is very slow to clear products. Brokers don’t fully understand the rules. All in all, chaos.” The next one, “There are at least two to three differing opinions on how to calculate the 310-232 and whether or not to stack on IEEPA.” What is IEEPA?

I do not know, Mike.

Tariff Impact: Confusion, Pricing & Demand Destruction

That makes two of us. It has something to do with tariff calculations. As you alluded to, it’s confusing. How do you price these things properly?

It stands for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

That’s the act that they’re using to justify the unconstitutional tariffs.

I hadn’t heard that acronym before, but it’s related to exactly what we’re talking about.

I know what that is. That’s what they’re using as the emergency. One person can declare the tariffs, whatever he or she wants, depending on their mood for the day. It’s ridiculous, but it is what it is.

The theme here, and when this first respondent said, “All in chaos,” for sure, is what we’re hearing from people. What’s interesting is there’s a theory out on Wall Street that people are trying to figure out. Was there a pull forward ahead of tariffs on certain goods? Across my coverage list, I haven’t seen that. Not the least of which is that there is this confusion about whether we would pull forward something in anticipation of the price going higher.

If everybody else is sourcing from the same area, is that the right move? Over the past several years, since COVID in particular, at least the public companies have been very focused on adjusting their supply chains and trying to get them closer to the US, some of that reshoring because of the dislocation we had in the supply chains during COVID. All in, there’s no one answer. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of different products.

Many of them are fasteners. Maybe not the same, but many of these products would have fasteners as an input or would be finished goods that have many different parts to them. It creates a lot of confusion. Whether or not it’s happening in other areas of the economy, I don’t know. What I can tell you is that in the industrial and building products distributors that I cover, I would be very hard-pressed to come up with anyone who has said they’ve pulled forward any inventory or purchased ahead of what they thought was a looming tariff at all.

It could backfire. The next comment says, “Tariffs and interest rates have affected our customer spending since February 1, 2025. We are holding back on major infrastructure purchases because of tariffs and cost increases.” The thing that jumps out to me is the interest rates. I read something that, in terms of government spending, interest payments have reached number three on the list, with Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid being one and two. Interest payments moved up the ladder. That’s maybe a longer-term issue.

They jumped ahead of defense spending, which we know isn’t going down anytime soon. There’s jawboning from the White House regarding short rates and the Fed funds rate, which may have an impact. I don’t want to get too political or pontificate here on rates. I’m an equities guy. It’s outside of my direct realm of responsibility here. If people are interested in what’s going on with the broader economy and how the fixed-income market is viewing the current situation, it’s the ten-year. You look at the ten-year, which is 4.43%. That’s what is essentially a long treasury now, because I don’t think we issue 30-year treasuries anymore.

When you look at that ten-year, that’s essentially what drives mortgage rates. That’s a big part of that longer-duration economy. Short rates, sure. If you’re borrowing as a company or if you’re borrowing for a non-residential project, potentially, that short rate could have an impact. The final point would be on federal spending. One way to keep that down is if short rates are down and we’re able to issue treasuries at a much lower short-term rate, it solves half the problem because it takes a little bit of pressure off near term. To go on the wayback machine, I sure wish we were issuing 100-year bonds back when interest rates were zero. That would have been a smart thing to do. It’s Washington. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.

You mentioned spending. Nobody is going to stop spending until it breaks. That’s down the road outside of the timeframe we’re talking about right now. Next comment, we’ve got a couple on the 232. “Due to Section 232 Tariffs, the cost of goods is about 50% on average higher than year-over-year.” That ties back to the first comment, where somebody said their sales are up over 50%. Maybe it’s a price increase.

We certainly hear price increases spun as mostly positive by the companies that we cover as distributors because the vast majority of them don’t just pass through the price increase. They pass through the price increase, trying to maintain their gross margin. They’re able to leverage their operating expense better and therefore be more profitable in a rising price environment. I do think those things are intertwined.

As far as that 50%, the good news is that if you’re building a firetruck, fasteners are a relatively small component of that. What you do have to worry about is everything else. If all the other steel components and the other commodities are also up in value, that can lead to demand destruction, which is the number one concern out here. It is not focused on fasteners, which are low-dollar amounts in most cases, but on the broader impact of tariffs on the demand destruction picture.

The other, “Section 232 has caused uncertainty in pricing parts. Demand overall remains strong otherwise.” We got two more comments. The second last one is, “We are expecting to see supply chain issues in the next several months through the end of the year.” The last one says, “While things are trending back up, the tariff-related trade war will ultimately cause our economy to tank. History doesn’t lie. Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” That’s the most fiery one. What do you think?

That is what it is. We’ll see how things play out. The good news, and the final score is not on the board at this time, is that even though GDP was down 0.5% in the first quarter, the Atlanta Fed puts out a forecast they call the GDPNow forecast. It’s looking for the second quarter GDP to be up 2.6%. The GDP was up 2.4% in the fourth quarter of 2024. There is a lot of hand-wringing about all this. Believe me. You’re right in some of these comments, certainly talking about the back half of the year, which is important. At least in the near term, we haven’t seen the most dire of situations relative to tariffs yet. I know some of these haven’t even taken effect yet. We’ll see how things go. So far, thankfully, we haven’t done that much damage to the economy.

Hopefully, it stays that way. Before we move on, I’ll let you talk a little bit about Baird and what’s going on there. Anything else you want to add on the FDI or the FLI, comments, numbers, or anything like that?

No, we’re in good shape. Things at Baird are great. We’re happy. On a personal note, I celebrated my 30th anniversary with the company. I couldn’t be happier with the situation. It’s a great firm.

Thirty years, good for you.

It has been fantastic. Thank you.

Do they do anything special for your 30th anniversary? They give you a LinkedIn post, saying, “Attaboy.”

I’d like to say there’s a gold watch, but there was a range of gifts I could choose from. I chose a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

That’s the practicality in here.

That’s it.

That’s good, 30 years at Baird. As our audience should know, you guys have been producing the FDI-FLI report, so we appreciate that, all the time that goes into it, and staying the course with the fastener industry.

Here, too. It has been a great partnership. I am always happy to do it. It’s great to talk to you guys. It’s fantastic information for our clients. I know you guys also turn that back to participants and others, so it’s a great relationship. Thank you.

You’re welcome. Thanks to Eric and Brian, too, who have been the leading forces on it, leading the charge. In an anecdote story, I attend a trade show in Milwaukee every year for the wire harness industry. The new Baird Center used to be the Milwaukee Convention Center. Now, it’s the Baird Center. They’ve completed it. The show we were in was moved into one of the new halls. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s spectacular. It is a good venue for trade shows and conferences. Job well done there. I know you guys had a big part in it.

Thank you. It’s exciting.

Anything else you want to touch on before we wrap it up?

Usually, we talk a little bit about the public companies here. The data point that we have, MSC did report. The numbers were still, like we’ve been talking about, flattish, slightly down, and not seeing much improvement. Fastenal, on the other hand, their May daily sales were up 9.3%, and a couple of points above what seasonality would say is normal for the month. That’s maybe a little bit out of character relative to the ISM.

It is consistent with an FDI that’s 50-plus, but probably a little bit better. If you look at the historical relationship, that might be a little bit better. Fastenal’s doing some company-specific things that may be driving some of that, some of their vending and on-site. As we look forward, and that optimism that I’ve been talking about, we’re looking for June to be up nearly 10% on organic daily sales growth for Fastenal. Again, that’s slightly better than normal seasonality based on our optimism for the economy as we move forward.

Also, what we talked about earlier, Mike, is further price gains from tariffs. That’s predicated on those price increases. Other components that manufacturers are taking in don’t lead to that demand destruction. If they don’t, if manufacturers can either share those or somehow pass those along to customers, there’s not too much demand destruction. This bit of inflation we’re seeing here in the industrial economy should be good for everyone, but that’s the balancing act. The litmus test here is over the next 6 to 12 months, we’ll see how it plays out.

You’re alluding that tariffs can have a positive impact on sales, which might lead to a positive impact on GDP in the short term. Maybe that’s part of the method and the madness.

Let’s hope so.

As I said, we appreciate the partnership and you guys doing all the number crunching and analysis for the FDI and FLI numbers. I appreciate you coming onto the show and talking about it.

My pleasure, Mike. It’s always great to hear your voice and to get in front of your audience here. I am happy to do it. We’ll look forward to talking again soon.

NFDA Board Of Directors & Executive Summit

Same here. That was Baird Senior Research Analyst Dave Manthey. The FDI number for June 2025 was 52.0 versus 50.4 in May. Visit FDISurvey.com to participate in the process and get a detailed PDF copy of Baird’s monthly analysis. For the top story, as you heard earlier, Ed Smith of Würth Industry USA was elected as the 2025-2026 President of the National Fastener Distributors Association, also known as the NFDA.

Melissa Patel of Field will serve as Vice President. Christian Reich of GOEBEL Fasteners will continue as Associate Chair. Scott McDaniel of Martin Fastening Solutions will remain on the board as Immediate Past President. Lisa Breton of DB Roberts, Scott Camp of Atlas Distribution Services, and Jennifer Sturm of Empire Bolt & Screw were elected to serve on the Board of Directors effective June 11, 2025. Continuing on the NFDA board are Steve Andrasik of Brighton-Best International, Alex Goldberg of AMPG, Scott Longfellow of Huyett, and Angela Philippart of AFC Industries.

The NFDA gave recognition to retiring board members Gigi Calfee of Copper State Bolt & Nut, Jim Degnan of S.W. Anderson, and Jake Glaser of Sherex Fastening Solutions. The 2025 NFDA Executive Summit will take place on October 15th to 17th at the Casa Marina Resort in Key West, Florida, offering three days of learning from industry experts, connecting with fastener friends old and new, and soaking up the Florida sunshine. Registration for this event opens July 15th at www.NFDA-Fastener.org.

Fastener Newsmaker Headlines: Corporate & Personnel News

Next up, our fastener newsmaker headlines. In corporate news, Signature Engineered Solutions was selected as a North American distributor for Unbrako Fasteners. FDH Aero formed FDH Hardware, a unified division comprising its five legacy hardware brands. Aeromed Group announced a new strategic partnership with Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing, also known as CAM, a Stanley Black & Decker company. Huyett expanded its manufacturing operations by adding two new state-of-the-art Swiss lathes. AFC Industries acquired Cavanaugh Government Group, also known as CGG.

BUMAX strengthened its market presence in Turkey by forming a new strategic agreement with Standart Civata. White Cap closed its acquisition of Advanced Fastening Supply, also known as AFS. Brainard Rivet upgraded its packaging process with a fully automated start-to-finish system. Barry MacLean, Chairman of MacLean-Fogg, was selected as a 2025 inductee in the Illinois Manufacturing Hall of Fame. In personnel news, LindFast Solutions Group, also known as LSG, named Mike Spencer as Chief Executive Officer. 3Q Inc. announced Ellie Maddelein as a new Managing Director.

BlackHawk Industrial named John Arends Chief Financial Officer. TriMas appointed Thomas J. Snyder President and Chief Executive Officer. Suncor Stainless welcomed Dave Doherty as its new Associate Product Manager. Distribution Solutions Group appointed Barry Litwin CEO of its TestEquity Group. Dianna Barnes joined Auto Bolt USA as Sales Operations and Marketing Manager. 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.

Top Fastener Distributors In The USA (MDM Report)

Let’s turn to the back page to talk about the top fastener distributors in the USA. Mike Hockett, Executive Editor at Modern Distribution Management, also known as MDM, reports, “Our highly anticipated annual feature is now available to view and download. Explore our twenty different lists to see the distribution’s biggest movers and shakers. After countless hours spent scouring over spreadsheets, a sea of emails, and a plethora of web page testing, MDM’s 2025 top distributors feature is now live online.”

Hockett gave thanks to the sponsors of the year’s renditions, which are SAP, BigCommerce, and Epicor, for their support and for everything they do to support the wholesale distribution industry. Distribution enthusiasts can now peruse the complete list of more than 200 distributors at www.MDM.com/Top_Distributors. The list provides a clear snapshot of who’s who in the distribution industry, presenting the top players in general and across several different product sectors. One of those sectors is fasteners. Based on 2024 revenues, MDM identifies the top fastener distributors in the USA. The top five in order are Fastenal Company, Würth Industry USA, The Hillman Group, McMaster-Carr, and MSC Industrial Supply.

The next five, rounding out the top ten, are Boeing Distribution, AFC Industries, Optimas Solutions, Endries International, and Applied Industrial Technologies. Coming in at numbers 11 to 15 are Distribution Solutions Group, EFC International, Bossard Americas, W.W. Grainger, and Copper State Bolt & Nut. The last five in the top twenty are Motion, Field Fastener, Encore, Bisco Industries, and Kimball Midwest.

You can find information on MDM’s other nineteen sectors of distribution coverage, including building materials, electronics, fluid power, industrial supplies, plastics, plumbing, and specialty adhesives, as well as details on its ranking methodology online on the MDM website. Congratulations to the companies that made MDM’s top twenty this year, as well as to those other smaller, uncelebrated ones flying under the radar and fighting for and filling fastener orders day after day. This is Mike McNulty of Fastener Technology International Magazine, bringing you the Fastener News Report. Please send your news, pictures, comments, corrections, or complaints to me at McNulty@FastenerTech.com.

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Carmen Vertullo: Fastener Training Minute – Conical Spring Washers

This is Carmen Vertullo with your Fastener Training Minute coming to you from the Fastener Training Institute and beautiful El Cajon, California, home of Carver Labs. This particular episode comes out of a training session I did with a client. One of the things we do here at Carver Labs is help our clients review their catalog data and their website information as it gets presented to their customers for technical accuracy. We want to make sure they don’t say things that aren’t true or that they properly highlight the benefits of their particular fasteners.

In this case, it was a very good client of ours. I’m going to say the name, Spaenaur, in Canada. They have one of the most awesome catalogs and websites. The particular category that we were reviewing was what’s called conical spring washers or Belleville washers. When I return, I’m going to run down all the things you should know as a fastener supplier about conical spring washers. Stay tuned.

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Thanks, Carmen. I am Jo Morris with the Fastener Training Institute. We are full steam into summer. I hope you can join us for some phenomenal fastener training. We have been promoting our summer in San Diego fastener training series. I want to let you know there is still time to join us. All three days will be instructed by Carmen Vertullo and presented at his lab, Carver Engineering and Manufacturing, in El Cajon, California.

Day one, July 14th, we are going to present Fastener Specifications and Terminology. This is step one for anybody in our industry. We’re going to be learning about things like consensus standards organizations. I’m talking about ASTM, ANSI, and SAE. What are those? Plus, what’s the IFI? How can they help us? We’re also going to be learning about important terms and definitions for fasteners, including a segment on how to handle customer-specific requirements. This class is appropriate for all skill levels. It should be required for everybody in the fastener industry.

On day two, that’s Tuesday, July 15th, we will present Understanding the Bolted Joint. This class focuses on how bolts work. We’re going to be covering the most frequently asked questions. How tight is right? What is the proper torque for this bolt? This training will teach you how to properly determine the best tightening strategy for any given fastener. It is a great leader to day three, which is Infrastructure Fastening and Structural Bolting Technology. This class is all about things structural. Anybody who sells, buys, supplies, specifies, or installs structural bolting is aware of the many risks associated with this product.

 

Training is essential for all personnel involved. You’re going to be learning about structural bolting assemblies, proper specifications and installation practices, waterworks applications, fastening for gasketed joints, troubleshooting, and how to handle the hardest job site problems, plus a whole lot more. As a bonus, if you register for the July 16th Infrastructure Fastening, your registration includes attendance to Understanding the Bolted Joint the day prior on July 15th. That’s a bargain. It’s two for one. Sign up at FastenerTraining.com. Now, back to Carmen.

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Welcome back, everyone. This is Carmen Vertullo with the Fastener Training Minute. We are talking about conical spring washers, commonly called Belleville washers, because they were invented by a French guy named Belleville back in the 1860s. I don’t know his first name, but you could look it up if you want. The basic premise of a conical spring washer is that you take a standard flat washer and you make it into a cone shape. Sometimes, the cones are a little bit elaborate, such as in a product called a square cone washer by Shakeproof. Those are engineered parts.

All Belleville washers, spring washers, are engineered. I’m going to call them Belleville washers from now on. They’re all engineered. The first thing to know about them is that they’re relatively precise components compared to standard washers. The second thing to know about them is that they have to have some springiness to them. That comes from the material being hard. Whether it is made out of 1045 steel, 1075 steel, possibly some stainless steel, such as 17-4 or A286, or even some exotics like Inconel or Hastelloy, it has to be hard enough to have some springiness to it.

Even though you might occasionally see Belleville washers made out of 304 or 316 stainless, they’re not very high-performance. When we put pressure or flatten the washer, we expect it to recover a certain amount after we remove the pressure. That’s called testing the deflection and the recovery of the Belleville spring washer. Depending on the application, that’s one of the most important properties of the Belleville washer.

That gets those properties from a couple of different attributes. The first one obviously would be the material. How hard is it actually? The second would be the size of the washer. It’s the inside and outside diameter ratio, and then also the thickness of the material that it is made from. These spring washers have a wide range of performance. They can be made out of very thin metal and be small, even micro-sized, up to large inches and feet in diameter, and thick.

Their primary purpose in life is to regulate a clamp load or to provide a spring force. They can provide that spring force with one washer, or we can stack them up either back-to-back or face-to-face. When we stack them face-to-face or in parallel, we essentially double, triple, or whatever the force that is required to compress them. When we stack them back-to-back, and when I say back, I mean the smaller diameter, they look like an accordion, maybe.

We don’t increase the force, but we increase the amount of compression that’s available. We can stack these things up in a long chain. We end up having what is the equivalent of a good coil spring. We see that used in things like pressure regulators and systems where we have a lot of expansion and contraction, such as diesel engine exhaust pipes being clamped together, and so on. I believe that the spring washer, the Belleville washer, is one of the most underutilized fasteners in all of fastenerdom. Here’s why I say that.

One of its most powerful attributes is the ability to artificially lengthen a screw or a bolt. What do I mean by artificially lengthen? Why does that matter? We know that the longer the bolt in terms of its length-to-diameter ratio, the better chance it’s going to stay tight when it’s properly tightened. Very short bolts and screws are difficult to keep tight and stay tight under vibration because they’re not stretched enough. Sometimes, we will actually use a longer screw, even if it means lengthening or thickening the components, in order to get that long clamp distance inside the joint.

By the way, that’s one of the reasons why we have to add stuff to short screws, such as patches, pellets, Loctite, and various kinds of tricky washers under the head to keep them from coming loose. If we add a very thick, nice, heavy-duty Belleville washer under the head of a short screw, what’s going to happen is normally, without the Belleville washer, we tighten that screw to snug tight. It’s probably going to be fully tensioned within a quarter of a turn or certainly within a half of a turn.

If we add the Belleville spring washer, it’s going to take a lot more angle to get to the full clamp load. That means maybe a full turn, a turn and a half, or even two turns, depending upon how much compression there is. Let’s say that we had a 1/2-20 bolt. I’m using that because the math is easy. Each of the threads of a 1/2-20 bolt is 0.050 of an inch. If we had a Belleville spring washer that had a compressibility of 0.150 of an inch, that gives us three rotations to compress that washer. It makes that bolt act like it’s much longer than it is. If we needed more than that, we could stack them up one way or the other, either back-to-back or front-to-front.

Obviously, there’s a price to pay. Belleville washers are made out of precise material. They’re precisely made in terms of their dimensions, often plus or minus 0.005 of an inch, and even more precise on the thickness. They must be tested so that they can perform properly, or we know they can perform properly. They must have nice edges on them because when we compress that Belleville spring washer, we are putting a lot of stress on that metal. Imagine what’s happening to the ID of the washer when we compress it. It’s getting squished inward. What’s happening to the OD? It’s getting squished outward. If we have any flaws, chinks, or stress risers, we risk cracking the washer.

Another thing we risk with Belleville spring washers in steel. That is hardened steel 1045. Sometimes, they’re called spring steel 1075. They’re high hardness. We sometimes electroplate them. You all know what the word I’m about to say is. We risk hydrogen embrittlement. We must make sure that we bake them and test them. It’s not an uncommon failure for various kinds of conical washers to experience hydrogen embrittlement failure when they’re zinc-plated. If you ask me later, I’ll tell you about a classic case I had years ago of this.

When we are specifying these washers, one of the things we’ll notice is that the catalogs have a lot of data. There is OD, ID, thickness, material, deflection, free height, compressed height, number of cycles they can handle, and all kinds of things like that. It’s an engineered fastener. They come in all inch sizes and all metric sizes. As of now, as far as I know, we don’t have any inch standards for spring washers. We do have some DIN standards in the metric world, but I don’t think we have any ISO standards for spring washers.

If that’s wrong, somebody can correct me. I didn’t look it up. Let me know. Just know they’re generally available from a lot of different sources. I’m going to say some manufacturers that I’m aware of. This is not a shameless promotion for anybody, but if you do need Belleville spring washers, or if one of the companies I’m about to mention is your company and you would like a shameless promotion, I would love to test some of your spring washers here at Carver Labs. Two of the most common manufacturers that I know of are a company called Key Bellevilles and another one called Solon Manufacturing.

There are three or four others that have the word Belleville in their names, such as Belleville International, Belleville Springs, and American Bellevilles. There’s also a washer company called Boker’s. Most of the people who make flat washers can provide these as well. Keep in mind, as a fastener supplier, you can give some tremendously good value-added services to your clients when you can find ways for them to put spring washers into their assemblies. It is because they help keep the part tight, they do a great job of helping to control the torque-tension relationship, and some of them even have other features, such as serrations, another anti-vibration feature.

We have the weird shapes where we have things like the square cone, which is two squares on top of each other, that we use on relatively small screws. They give a very highly controlled torque-tension and angle relationship. They make it so we can tune the assemblability of the joint to a fine degree. There’s probably more to know about Belleville spring washers than I said, but that has been a pretty long Fastener Training Minute, so I’ll stop there. I want to encourage anybody tuning in to this to please give me a call or send me an email. Let’s do some exploration of the uses of Belleville spring washers. This has been Carmen Vertullo with the Fastener Training Minute. Thanks for tuning in.

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It’s feature segment time. This time, I’m with none other than Big Country Rob Reynolds with INxSQL Software. Hey, Rob.

Hey, Eric. How are you doing?

I am doing great.

Thanks for having me.

Anytime. It seems like yesterday we were scheming to do this, sitting around the smoker.

That’s right. I got shagbark.

We were putting down some amazing brisket. We had Carmen Vertullo also on the smoker, and TJ with Star. He was doing the ribs this time. It turned out pretty good.

What did we do, three briskets and six racks of ribs?

Something like that, plus there was a whole lot of other stuff. Tony Martinez with Buckeye Fasteners brought a nice pork shoulder that he did. I told him he’s got to do the cooking on site. He said, “Okay,” so we’re expanding.

There’s always room. Shagbark is huge. We’ve got multiple smokers. I bring mine down, throw it in the truck, and bring her on down. It’s a good event. It is always great hanging out with Carmen, TJ, and you. I appreciate you hosting that. That was a good time. Everybody enjoyed the food, hopefully, and the games as well.

We had some fun. We raised a little bit of cash for the Bed Build. We’ll be presenting that in August at MWFA Fastener Week for Sleep In Heavenly Peace. All around, a success. I’m saying, in retro, that is the first sanctioned event of the new NFBBQA, the National Fastener Barbecue Association, of which you are a charter member.

Is this the official start?

I think it’s about time. We’ve been teasing it for how long?

Since we met?

Yes.

Twelve years ago or so?

I think it’s even longer. Here’s the thing, Rob. We got together and barbecued for the first time. We did Brisket Fest also. That was the prototype. All those years that we talked about doing it, we finally got together. I had no idea that you were so well-equipped, and you were so hardcore about the whole thing. People talk a big game. No, you showed up. You had it all. You brought your smoker. You brought the fuel and the wood. You even had your hammock. When you got the smoker set up and going at 6:00 AM, you knew where to take your nap.

It wasn’t my first rodeo. I don’t know if we have time for this one, but I got into the smoker game when my daughter was born. My wife and I were living in an apartment. I was sick of cooking spaghetti from the jar, the Ragu spaghetti jar noodles. Basically, my cooking consisted of eggs, bacon, and spaghetti. When the baby was born, I bought my first grill. After doing steaks, chicken, and the basic grilling stuff, I turned that grill into a smoker. It turned into a great time on the weekends.

My neighborhood will buy the meat. They’ll come over. I’ll smoke them. We’ll have a pool party and barbecue. We probably do that a few times a year, and then every 4th of July. This July, I’m doing four or five briskets and six butts. We have a group in the neighborhood where someone is smoking something every weekend. We’ve been doing it for a while. It’s great. You look into what Carmen was telling us. He’s cooking 20 to 30 briskets at least for his event.

He manufactured this huge carousel smoker. It’s got four shelves on it, and they rotate. He’s got a group of guys. It’s for his church group. They call themselves the Holy Smokers.

He was showing me the production. It’s impressive. If you’re not familiar with the NFBBQA, or Brisket Fest that we do have, it’s not just me. I would say all of the pitmasters that are there are avid smokers of meats. If you do make it out, you won’t be disappointed in the food.

We all brought our own unique style to it. I was using a good old-fashioned kettle. You were doing a water smoker. TJ and Carmen both had offsets. I borrowed that offset from Jamie Clarke over at Hodell. He was kind enough to loan it to Brisket Fest. Carmen did his thing on that machine. All the different styles turned out well, but with very different approaches, I noticed.

There are lots of ways to skin a brisket.

What’s your take on brisket? How do you like to do them?

If I have the time and I don’t mind not sleeping, I love the 14- to 16-hour cook, starting at midnight and having it ready for after lunch or so. The rest is huge. Everybody knows that. If you can get 2, 3, 4, or 5 hours rested in the cooler, it breaks down. You can almost make a couple of briskets with it. These days, I do about four hours on the smoke and then wrap it up in juices, tallow, and whatever else you want to put in there, the good stuff. Usually, some coffee grinds are in the rub. Do you know Jake from BTM? He’s got the barbecue seasonings.

I’ve used his before. It’s the love you give to it. If it’s got a few hours of smoke, and then it’s sitting in the juices wrapped up, for a lot of it, you can’t go wrong with the tenderness of it. I’ve done some where you never wrap it when you get to the sixteen-hour cooks, and you’re going at 200 degrees or even lower. I’ve done some at 180, but it takes 24 hours. They turn out just as tender. It depends on how much time you have. Typically, I go four hours on the smoke. It takes about another 4 to 5 hours, wrapped up. Take it off and set it in the cooler to let it continue to break down those fats. That’s pretty much how I do it these days, about a nine-hour cook. I’ve gone up to a seven-hour rest in a cooler.

That’s some brisket wisdom right there that you laid down, Rob.

It’s a little more like you’re doing it with the hot and fast. Wrap it like a Myron Mixon, the barbecue champ.

He’s definitely one of my mentors on that one. For that whole idea of the rest, it’s critical for that approach. I love it. I almost never miss, but you do sacrifice the bark. When you go hot and fast, you don’t get the bark that you do when you go low and slow. Here’s my question, Rob. When did you shift from the basic grill to the water smoker that you’re using now? The thing that distinguishes a real pitmaster is their ability to control that fire. If you’re driving 180, which I would love to be able to do, or 200 for that low and slow, and let’s lay it down right here, Rob, the NFBBQA is officially not sanctioning pellet cookers. You’ve got to burn coals, or you’ve got to burn wood.

I don’t have one of those yet.

I hope you won’t. No offense to anybody who uses one. It’s not a competition cooker. That’s where the real art comes in. How do you approach keeping that fire consistent for 8, 10, or 12 hours?

I use a Weber Smokey Mountain, which you know. It looks like a taller cylinder-type shape. I snake the coals down below. When I set it up, I layer a snake around the bottom of the bowl. It’s like the bottom of your kettle grill, if people know kettle grills. You lay a layer of coals down, three-quarters of a circle around it, sprinkle in the wood chips, put more coals on top, sprinkle in more wood chips, and then only light half of a charcoal chimney.

When that’s ready, pour that in at one of the ends of the snake. I can get about five hours without having to touch it that way. By that time, it’s wrapped and back on the smoker. It doesn’t matter what you use from there. You could use coals or a log, but I use a combination of both wood chunks and logs from then on out. With smokers, for the ones I’ve used anyway, the challenge is keeping it low enough because a lot of them want to burn hot. If you use too much coal or use too much wood, that’s where you get the hockey puck texture on a brisket.

We’ve all been there. Have you ever had an experience where you had a big brisket, in other words, you had to serve a bunch of people and everything, and it was a complete disaster, and you had to go out for hamburgers?

Not that I remember with a brisket. I definitely have on some whole chickens.

Bone-in chicken is very challenging to do well.

I don’t know if I have a brisket because when I first started doing them, I had a gas grill. I would only turn one of the side burners on. It was more like an offset, like you do on the kettle. It was with one burner on. If you take it too low, the grill I had would go 150 or 180. That’s where I cooked them. It would take forever, but they were delicious.

Are you partial to any particular woods these days?

As far as the cooking wood, I like oak or hickory for the briskets. When I’m doing pork, I’ll do a fruit wood for the ribs or the butts, usually a combo of cherry and apple. The pecan wood is awesome. You can use that for anything, but I use that for seafood if I’m smoking fish, which is a little hard to find. If you Amazon, you can find that anywhere. The pecan wood is awesome for seafood.

I’m a big fan of pecans.

If I had a supply like you do in my backyard, I’d use whatever was there. You’re cutting down the wood to use.

I’ve got cherry trees back there galore. Shagbark is a colloquial name for hickory. Plenty of that as well. We could talk about this all day, which we pretty much have in the past, and not talk about any fastener software, which is equally important, isn’t it?

Every once in a while, you do one like that.

On the other hand, there’s another pastime that you have that you’re very well known for in this industry. It’s probably helped you sell more software than barbecue. That’s golf. Before we cut over to find out what’s going on within INxSQL these days, you have been on a little bit of a roll. You had a dry spell there, but I’ve noticed several events your name has been popping up. You’re back.

I played every day of my life from 12 years old to 24 years old. When I decided I was done playing golf, I was done. For about ten years, I’d probably played. Right around then is when I had my baby. A couple of years after that, my daughter was born. That’s when I picked up barbecue. On weekends, I love barbecuing. I’d start barbecuing more than I was golfing. I would only golf a few times a year for ten years there.

My boy is now twelve. My wife likes to golf, so we joined a little municipal golf course here in our backyard. We go a couple of times a week. I know why the dry spell happened. It’s because I wasn’t golfing. I know you play golf. If you go from playing every day to playing a few times a year, it’s not like riding a bike. We didn’t have too many victories at the events. We sprinkle one in every once in a while. I’ve been playing a few times a week this year, and the results are showing.

The picture is becoming a lot clearer now. It comes full circle. That explains it. I’m going to look forward to seeing some more Team INxSQL in the winner’s circle again. You team up with the Star guys a lot, I’ve noticed.

Yes.

Who’s the best golfer that you know, or one of the best golfers out there in the fastener world?

Do you know Dewey from G.L.?

With Huyett, sure.

He’s solid. We played at the SEFA. The day before the golf event at SEFA, we played nine holes. Dewey came up behind us. We joined for the last nine holes. He’s always winning the SCREW Open, the NCFA Screw Open, and other events as well. He’s solid. Do you know Tim Vath? I first met him when it was Solutions. When Johnny Riddell was still there, and they were running Solutions, he was playing every day. He’s got a couple of kids. He’s a great golfer, but he’s got a couple of kids and is busy with the new position at Lindstrom, and with a couple of young kids. He’ll be back.

I was talking to him at the NCFA Social. I was like, “Don’t worry, man. When the kids get older, you take them out there. Your wife loves it. Kids love it. You can golf every day if you get them out on the golf course, liking it.” Tim is good. At Star, do you know Bryan Wheeler? When I first met him, we were playing out there with Kelly Lehman at a Pac-West event, Bryan, Kelly, and I. He was pretty new to golf, or didn’t play much, maybe once a year, but he’s shooting now in the ‘80s, pretty consistently hitting the ball close to 300 yards on some drives. He’s improved big time. He had let me know that Dean at Star is a player. Dean Rosar, I never played with him. Maybe he needs to get out to the Screw Open this fall.

You don’t see Dean at the events much. He’s the CIO, as I understand it, over there.

The guys from American Ring are good, a decent amount of good golfers. One more to add, AJ from Holo-Krome. AJ Gallo is solid. We’ll be teaming up. Holo-Krome is a manufacturer for Fastenal. We’ll be teaming up at the IFE.

Who’s the most fun to play with? Who’s the biggest joker out there?

I would have to say my guys, my group. AJ, Bryan, Morgan Wilson, TJ McFarland, Eric Gates from INxSQL, and Mike Robinson from Star as well. Bill Armstrong, MPT Fasteners, is always a blast.

He is a riot. He’s right here, too, local. Have you ever been to MPT?

Yes, a couple of times.

Are you going to sell him some software?

We’ve been talking about it.

I think he’s one of those guys who is still running the whole shop on cards.

Yes, he is. They do a good job. It’s highly organized. It’s funny how good everybody’s handwriting is when you’re in that position. If we ran stuff on cards at INxSQL, nobody would be able to read anything. It works for them, but maybe in the future here.

Those guys are old school all the way. It’s a good segue, though, because you’re in the business of selling software. What’s the newest pitch at INxSQL? You guys always have new stuff. I talked to you in Nashville. You were talking about manufacturing at the time. Is that what you got your sites focused on? What’s going on over there?

We’re focused on a lot of things. We’re an ERP and inventory management software. That’s where our roots came from, where we started in 2003. We always had what we call item fabrication for secondary processing. That’s always been a part of our software from day one for our fast distributors. Some of our customers started getting into manufacturing their own stuff in-house instead of getting it from their suppliers, maybe a handful or so.

What we found when that happened was typically, what manufacturing companies do is they’ll purchase an MRP software. It is great for handling their raw material to finish the product through multiple steps. It ends up falling short a lot of times from what we hear on the inventory management side for the warehousing, for connecting sales orders to manufacturing orders. There’s a gap between these ERP systems and MRP systems. We built an MRP that goes along with our ERP. It’s all one database. There’s visibility throughout. You’re going to get that material planning that you need from taking raw materials and components and calculating the required materials based on the bill of materials and the production schedule.

It’s all tied into the accounting to the sales order side. Instead of purchasing an MRP system that costs you a small fortune, falls short on your distribution side, and then needing two systems that don’t talk well together, we’ve bridged that gap. Everything is in one database. We have MRP software and distribution software. Any of our distributor customers that get into manufacturing, a lot of times, what we’re seeing nowadays is they’re purchasing their own manufacturing company. Especially with the tariffs, they are bringing the manufacturing into their company. We’ve planned for that.

We have it available now. If you are a manufacturer, we have both. We would love to take care of you, especially our fastener manufacturers or our fastener distributors. When we’re going through the sales process through the demos, what we do, since it’s our niche and three-quarters of our customer base is in the fastener industry, if there’s something in the software that isn’t there yet, there’s a good chance you won’t need any custom. If you do, we’re going to put it in the software for you guys. That’s where we’re at these days. A lot of people don’t know, but the approach we’re taking is bridging that gap, so people don’t need two systems for MRP and ERP.

You answered one of my questions about how you decided to move INxSQL into the MRP space. It sounds like it’s a market demand or a request that you’re hearing a lot of.

It is. Everybody is dealing with the tariffs these days. We’re seeing domestic manufacturing come. There’s an uptick in that. Some of our customers are buying manufacturing companies. It’s happening all over, though, even if they’re not our customers. Distributors are bringing in a new manufacturing company in-house. Bridging that gap between using two systems for the distribution side versus the manufacturing side has been key for us because, as far as we know, there’s not another system out there that does that with one database like we do.

 

We’re looking into joining the IFI. We went to the event they had down in Hollywood, Florida, at the Jimmy Buffett Resort. They’ve got a golf outing coming up on July 14th. I’m going to try to get accepted into that. Hopefully, we’ll be at the fall show as well if we get accepted into the IFI. That is a big push for us, trying to help those manufacturers out from spending a small fortune on two systems that fall short functionality-wise. Why not pay less and get more for the software? That’s where we’re at these days.

There you go. There’s a reason INxSQL software is the market leader. That golf outing, in a few days, I’m sure you’re going to be there. I don’t think you have anything to worry about getting into the IFI. That event is happening on October 11th through the 14th down in Louisville, Kentucky.

Are you going to be at that one, Eric?

I’m going to head down there myself. We’re doing a lot more lead gen for manufacturing these days. The FCH Sourcing Network is moving in a similar direction. It’s one of the reasons that when we were talking in Nashville, this whole conversation caught my ear, Rob. You’re always welcome on the show, but I was so happy to hear that INxSQL is moving in the direction of supporting manufacturers as well because you hit it.

Domestic manufacturing is on top of the fastener world’s agenda, and barbecue. Touching back on the NFBBQA idea, when people started to hear about Brisket Fest, all the fun we had, and everything, everybody says, “I want to come next year and on and on.” In actuality, it’s hard for everybody to get in one place at one time. However, what we need to start looking at is doing sanctioned events in the fastener industry in connection with our other events and stuff like that, and see what we can do with it. One thing is for sure, this industry loves barbecue.

That’s right. Once people start to get a little taste of the NFBBQA, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got some invites to other shows.

Before you get out of here, why don’t you clear something up? People do ask from time to time. Who gave you the “Big Country” moniker?

That’s from Rich Cavoto. I’m sure nobody knows who that is, but that’s Rich Cavoto.

Nobody knows Rich.

That’s my fastener dad. The first time we played golf, he was telling me about Hollywood Jason Bertone and how he bombs it. Jason can hit the ball pretty far. Jason, Bob Bayer, I, and Rich were playing in Vegas before they had the golf outing the day before the show. I guess he says I hit a country mile. That’s where “Big Country” came from. It stuck from that day. The fact that I do barbecue, too, I guess that doesn’t hurt it.

That’s a good one. You’ve got to keep it. I love it. Rob “Big Country” Reynolds. Cavoto is one of those guys who’s begging for a nickname, but I don’t know that he has one. I don’t have one handy, but he’s such a great guy.

It’s Dad. If you’re looking for a nickname for Rich, we were at the IFE. I was buying him a drink. I forgot what he wanted. The bartender asked. When he told me, I said, “Can you get my dad a Bud Light?” or whatever it was. He called me son from that day on. I call him Dad from this day on, but he’s the fastener dad. Rich is not only a great salesman but a great person. A second dad seems like a good way to put it.

Big Daddy Rich Cavoto.

Big Daddy, there we go. It is even better.

How is your dad doing?

My dad is doing good. He is enjoying semi-retirement, spending time with the grandkids, watching golf, and playing golf. He’s half the year in North Carolina, outside of Pinehurst, North Carolina, these days, and then half the year up here in Michigan. It is all the years of hard work and traveling 340 days out of the year. He is enjoying chiming in whenever he wants.

He certainly earned it. I had a chance to see him and Kim out there in LA for Pac-West. It was good to see him.

They are planning on coming back to the next one, too. It’s in Anaheim again in March. INxSQL started out on the West Coast for the most part. He was out in Cali. At one time, he was talking about getting an apartment out there back in the early 2000s, because he was out there so much. That’s a hotbed for distributors. A lot of our initial customers are out on the West Coast. They go to that event. He plans to be back next year, too. We did all right with the old men, the Truckey brothers, and my pops. They carried me that day, Eric. We shot sixteen under.

Joe Truckey is no slouch either. He hits the ball a long way.

He does. They’re both pretty good. Between the three of them, they ham and-egged it. They’re making putts and chipping in from everywhere.

Do you know the story of when Joe Truckey got his knees replaced in the first game back? Did you hear that story?

I didn’t hear about the first game back.

This goes back years, but he aced. He got an ace on his first game back after his knees were replaced. If I remember the story correctly, I don’t know. I think he tunes in to the show, so he’ll let me know if I’m wrong on that. It was near miraculous.

What a way to come back.

A lot of great stories. It would only be better if we could get a West Coast barbecue event going. That way, I could participate because I’m not much of a golfer.

Maybe they have smokers for rent. I’m sure they do.

Are you kidding me? We’re in Vertullo country. He is going to supply the cook.

That’s right. To do whatever it was, 20, 30, or 40 briskets, I imagine they got some decent smokers.

Carm has the technology. If you want to talk with Rob Reynolds about INxSQL, either for purely distribution or manufacturing, or both, it is INxSQL.com. He’s at all the events. Rob “Big Country” Reynolds, INxSQL Software, you’re always invited on this show. I look forward to seeing you in Louisville, at the NFDA, or wherever we next meet. Good luck at the IFI golf outing.

I appreciate it. We’ll definitely see you soon. Thanks for having me on.

 

Important Links

• MW Components
• National Fastener Distributors Association
• Würth Industry USA
• Mike McNulty on LinkedIn
• Baird
• INxSQL Software
• Carmen Vertullo
• Link Magazine
• Brighton-Best International
• Kara Bosse on LinkedIn
• Ed Smith on LinkedIn
• Dave Manthey on LinkedIn
• Fastener Distributor Index
• Fastener Technology International
• Top Distributors Archive – Modern Distribution Management
• Carver Labs
• Spaenaur
• Fastener Training Institute
• Rob Reynolds on LinkedIn