Blair Haas is CEO at Bud Industries. With over 50 years of experience in the electronics and enclosure industries, Blair has helped lead and been active in multiple industry associations, including EIA, ECIA, and EDIC. Jack Schron is president and CEO of Jergens Inc and has led the tooling component manufacturer for over 30 years. He also founded an educational technology nonprofit called Tooling University, now Tooling U-SME. Blair and Jack recently spoke with Laura Putre, senior editor of IndustryWeek, about how political and economic uncertainty has affected their businesses, and the strategies they’re adopting to survive.
Below is an excerpt from the podcast:
IW: So maybe we can start with you, Jack. How's business been going so far this year, and what do you see ahead for the rest of the year?
JS: Well, business has been very interesting in that we are seeing a couple different aspects of that. The business, as far as manufacturing of our core products, is probably on the flat side. We’re waiting to see what's going to happen with automotive, things of that nature. Then you flip the same equation over to aerospace and defense, and we can't make it fast enough because it's going crazy out there. And I anticipate that that's what we're going to see for a long time both here in Cleveland, our headquarters, and in our Chicago operation. We're running aerospace and defense 24/7 up in Chicago. So, I think that all indications are that that piece is going to continue to grow exponentially out there because obviously there's a lot of uncertainties in the world between what's going on in Ukraine and the Middle East and who knows what's going to go on in the Asian market. So, the Defense Department I think is really ratcheting up our portfolio and the same with aerospace.
IW: Has that been the same for a while, or has the mix recently changed?
JS: Well, the growth in aerospace and defense is really taken off in the last year and a half, two years. And again, I would attribute a lot of that to what's going on in the world. I spent 28 years in the United States Army, and whenever you get this kind of elevation of activity, it's for a reason, whether it's to shore up our defenses or it's to be prepared for something. So, I think that it's going on for a while and I think it's going to go on for a considerably long time from this point forward.
IW: And Blair, what about you? How is it looking for you over this past year and going ahead into the future?
BH: So, I think this year, I can reflect some of what Jack has said. It's almost a schizophrenic year. We have seen for several of our larger customers in IT and Wi-Fi and in some of those areas, business has gone gangbusters. We can't produce it fast enough. And in other areas, some more traditional but also tech areas, we've seen a continuing reduction of inventory. We had so many customers that were grappling during the pandemic with supply chain issues that they doubled and tripled orders to fill the supply chain, and they're still working through some of those inventories. And they're finding it's going all the way back to the basics of the supply chain, to customers and customers’ customers and so forth. In discussions we're having, we're thinking that the inventory reductions or right sizing have sort of played themselves out, but we'll see. I've heard that before. So, it's interesting. Our traditional business has been somewhat slower. The tech industry has been quite slow, but we're seeing that there are peaks that are happening that are keeping us very busy. And I think as the year goes on, we're probably going to see that play out. So it'll continue. I think things are going to get busier and busier.