301: NYC's Role in Reindustrialization and American Manufacturing (LIVE from Brooklyn)

0:00At its peak, the Navy Yard hit 70 ,000 workers. This is the largest industrial enterprise in the history of New York State. We were able to do things like build this 45 ,000-ton battleship. We repaired more than 5 ,000 ships, helped New Yorkers get into the middle class.

0:19Welcome to Manufacturing Happy Hour, the podcast where we get real about the latest trends and technologies impacting modern manufacturers.

0:31Each week, we interview industry experts that are at the top of their craft and give you the tools, tactics, and strategies you need to take your career and your business to the next level. And now, your host, Chris Lukey. Hey folks, it's episode 301. We are heading to New York City for this conversation. Another one of our live shows, a stop on the All-American Manufacturing Summer Tour here in 2026. And this episode is all about New York City's role in re-industrialization and American manufacturing. This episode was recorded live in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which we'll talk about later in the interview, at a place called New Lab, and it's actually a three-part episode or three mini-segments all in this single episode.

1:29And I'll give you a quick walkthrough of what you can expect. Part one will discuss manufacturing and its legacy in the New York City economy. We have Andrew Gustafson, VP of Turnstile Tours, Jimmy Williams, a Brooklyn-raised industrialist, and Stacey Weissmiller, President and CEO of the American Manufacturing Futures Institute. We're going to give you a more thorough intro to them and all the other guests as we get into each segment of the interview. But in the second part of this conversation, we'll be covering New York City and the industrial workforce and the intersection of tech and manufacturing.

2:05One of the ways we dive into this is through NY Robotics. Jacob Hennessy Rubin is the co-founder and executive director of that organization. and he also works at Standard Bots, which if you're part of our automation crowd, you're undoubtedly familiar with that organization. In this panel, we also have Nikki Evans, Senior VP of Workforce Development and Education for the Brooklyn Navy Yard, as well as Michaela Crater of the South Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation. Then finally, in our last segment, we will sit down with Michelle Feinberg, founder of NY Embroidery Studios as we dive into what it takes to really make it and manufacture in New York City.

2:45This is a big episode. You'll hear me say it up front. This almost goes for one hour. So let's head to Brooklyn, New York to meet up with our panelists.

3:03All right, folks, while you're finding your seats, we're going to get things started here. So we have a show that I'm super excited about. We're going to be covering manufacturing past, present, and future here in New York City. So before we begin, I do want to give a shout out to two different groups that have made this whole American manufacturing summer tour possible. And that's Clifton Larson Allen and Maintain X. Give them a round of applause.

3:33I also want to give a shout out to New Lab for hosting us here tonight. What a space. What a cool spot. Thank you, New Lab, for welcoming us into your space. When we were getting prepared for this tour, you know, I look at New York City, and it's often a spot that I think people look at for finance and a lot of other industries. And I'm like, well, let's come here and explore what manufacturing means to this city. So to do that, we're going to go back in time for a little history first. So Andrew, Jimmy, and Stacey, if you want to join me on stage, we'll get going with our first segment of the show.

4:11All right, as we go through this, since we do have three different parts of tonight's show, we'll be recording for about an hour tonight. describe what you do, introduce yourselves the way you would as if you're hanging out at a bar in Brooklyn with someone. So, you know, let's go down the line. Andrew, we'll start with you, and then Stacey, we'll finish with you. Yeah, thanks so much, everybody. My name's Andrew Gustafson, and I work at an organization called Turnstile Tours and Studio. We're based here in Brooklyn, and we're a small firm, and what we do really is work with nonprofits, cultural organizations, businesses, to help them welcome the public in various ways.

4:49One way we do that is through tours. So we've had the extreme privilege to be able to work here at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to offer the tour programs with the Development Corporation since 2008. And we work with several other industrial sites around New York City, including what's called the Bush Terminal and the Brooklyn Army Terminal. And then we also work with museums. We develop exhibits, develop programs and work a lot in the field of accessibility. But a lot of what we do is, again, work with industrial sites that want to tell their story. And so we help them do that and help people get an inside view of what manufacturing today and in the past really looks like.

5:28All right. And Jimmy, you're an industrialist. I'm very interested to hear your intro as well. Hi, I'm Jimmy Williams. I'm from Nanotronics. I'm a native Brooklynite. I work for a company that makes. We've made equipment, software, and factories for other manufacturers. My background's actually in the arts, so it was more of municipal pride than anything to ensure that cities can still build everything instead of just importing everything. All right, Stacey. Municipal pride. I love that. So, Stacey Weissmiller, thank you for having me, Chris, and NewLab. It's great to be here. I wear a variety of hats, but currently I am the founder of the American Manufacturing Futures Institute.

6:13It's a 501c3 that is focused on the intersection of manufacturing and economic development. I am also an architect and urban planner, so I dive deep into what industry means for people, policy, but also really place. So I'm deeply invested in this conversation. And this first part of the show tonight is going to be a little different because Stacy is going to be co-host with me for this discussion. Between two ferns, basically. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We got I don't know what the plants are. Corn, corn plants. I forget what they're officially called. But nevertheless, yes, between two manufacturing fans.

6:52We'll say that. But because I'm the regular host, I do get to ask you a question first. So, and you live in New York now, but you're not originally from here. You are from Erie. So, Stacey, what was the Erie, why was the Erie Canal so important to New York as an industrial powerhouse? Let's start there, because I know this is a topic you are passionate about. So, I was obsessed with the Erie Canal growing up. Finished in 1825. It was, and thank you. I'll say thank you. or you're welcome more or less because you know Lake Erie is the reason that New York City is the industrial powerhouse but also the financial powerhouse that it is today and it's really what connected the Midwest to what we have today here in New York City which is our beautiful two rivers more or less the Hudson and it allowed for goods to move in and out of New York City and really through our port and abroad.

7:50So once again, you are welcome. All right. Well, thank you, Stacey, for that. And thank you, Erie, for that as well. But let's shift the conversation now to New York. And I'm going to ask one question, and then Stacey, I'm going to hand it off to you. But Andrew, you're giving tours on a regular basis. So I think one thing to ask would be, I mean, what surprises people when they're out there with you? What do they learn about the industrial history history of New York City when you're with them? Well, I think it's surprising for people to hear that for most of American history, and we're celebrating the 250th birthday this year, but for most of that 250 years, the largest manufacturing city in the country was New York.

8:36Most people don't know that. They don't think of New York as a factory town, but you know go back not that long ago and there were a lot of factory jobs you know go back to 1950 there were a million factory jobs in New York City go back to 1990 and there were still a quarter million factory jobs in New York City and so and it's surprising to people to see that we're still making things here in the city it's a really important part of our economy of our culture and so much, even if we don't mass manufacture it here, so much of the innovation starts here in New York. So I think that's the message we try to get across to people, that this is still an important part of our national economy, but it's also an important pathway for people to get good quality, well-paying jobs that they can actually advance in, which is hard to find in a lot of sectors today in employment.

9:28From my side, I have to look at Jimmy and say, you're from Brooklyn right so I mean Brooklyn has been at the heart of this and if you're going back and you're talking about the history of Brooklyn dive deep into what it meant to grow up during some of those times and what it meant to have the industry of the 80s and 90s be such a critical part of its economy yeah I think to jump on what Andrew and Stacey both said like you have this the Erie Canal. It opens it up. New York goes from the fifth largest manufacturer of goods to the largest for almost 100 years. And then you have the Federal Highway Act kind of just in containerization to kind of change how that is.

10:14But when you go outside here, I don't know if anyone's looked around at the rail that connects Sunset Park all the way to Astoria. And there were more kind of industrial classes being made in New York than anywhere else. There were more goods that were being made anywhere else. And you're saying, okay, but it was small factories. It was all part of a supply chain. And you could still see the remnants of that. And you're like, okay, I moved to Long Island when I was in middle school. I was right by Grumman. You see that get sold off and move. And what happens to a community when one industry or company is really keeping the community afloat?

10:52It's like, how do you diversify that to make sure that everyone can manufacture together? And then you can build that city from there. We could talk about the Main Street later if we want to get into it. Robert Moses, Stacey knows. We only have 10 minutes. I have a deep-seated disdain for Robert Moses. My grandparents used to bowl with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Yeah, but I think that's a really important point, Sue, is that throughout this time period, last couple hundred years, New York City always had a highly diversified manufacturing base. So we never focused on one product or one company. And in some ways, that made it resilient.

11:34But in other ways, it also meant that it was hard for them to organize and advocate for themselves, especially when we get into the rough times in the 60s and the 70s and the 80s. There's no one voice that's going to say, if we leave town, we're going to lose X number of jobs, but instead you have all these small, mostly family-owned businesses that weren't really able to advocate for themselves and push policy that would be amenable to manufacturing. I mean, what does manufacturing look like here now? And Jimmy, it looked like you had a point you were going to bring in as well. To Andrew's point, it's like, you had all these inventions that came from here.

12:11You had the laser, the CCD, the ATM machine, I mean, the transistor, vulcanized rubber, and then all those things went somewhere else to build them. But I've seen people making artificial pancreases in an old defunct literary agency in the Flatiron District. So what does it look like now? I think the possibility is it looks a lot like it used to in that it's much smaller footprint factories and the capabilities of that with more diversified and cohesive supply chain. I think that's why in the Navy Yards, 300 contiguous acres of like industrial class where everyone can work together. That's why we moved here.

12:50It was like you can be next to your suppliers and your customers and you all lean on each other for different things instead of waiting for something. I'm just going to run around the corner and ask them to do this really quick. And I mean, obviously, Andrew, you're wearing the USS Missouri hat. And I told you I was going to ask you this question, but I would love if you could dive into some of that history on what we did here at the Navy Yard. And what that meant for our nation. And not just here in New York, but across the country. How that really amplified what industry meant. And how to build things during that period of time.

13:26Yeah, I mean the Navy Yard has such a long and diverse history. It goes all the way back to 1801 when Brooklyn was just a tiny, it wasn't even incorporated as a village. A few thousand people living in Kings County. And over time it went through its ups and downs. We had peaks during the Civil War and World War I, but there are many times when the federal government wanted to close it. And the Navy Yard hit its peak, and the shape of the Navy Yard and many of the buildings you see in the Navy Yard today really came out of World War II when we hit 70 ,000 workers here. This is the largest industrial enterprise in the history of New York State.

14:03We're never going to have 70 ,000 people working in one enterprise ever again. And I think one of the challenges we face, too, is that so much of the history and the story of World War II here in New York gets kind of grafted onto the Navy Yard. So, like, everything happened at the Navy Yard. No, like, there were thousands of businesses and thousands of, you know, like, other government installations that were around the harbor. It wasn't just all happening at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. But yeah, this was an incredible place where we were able to do things like build this 45 ,000-ton battleship in two and a half years.

14:43We repaired more than 5 ,000 ships at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and that's primarily what we did. We actually didn't build that many ships. We built 12 ships during World War II. We repaired more than 5 ,000. But I think the most important thing is that the Brooklyn Navy Yard throughout much of its history helped New Yorkers get into the middle class. It gave them good, reliable employment within the federal workforce. And, you know, as different generations of immigrants and migrants came into New York City, many of them came into the Brooklyn Navy Yard. But by the time the Brooklyn Navy Yard closed in 1966, over 20 % of our employees were African-American.

15:25It was one of the largest employers of African-Americans in New York City. And so the loss of that was absolutely devastating to this community. But at the same time, we're seeing lots of other smaller scale, but seeing tons of other factories around this area. We're seeing this big deindustrialization of this area as well. So it was really hard. And the city tried to hold on to it. The city tried to turn it into a commercial shipyard that lasted for about 10 years. And then we kind of had to pivot in the late 80s. We were trying to get just one or two tenants to take over this whole massive 300-acre space.

15:58And then they decided, well, maybe we should bring in a bunch of small businesses and take some of these big buildings and chop them up into smaller spaces. And that's how what you see today in the Navy Yard with 550 businesses and 13 ,000 jobs, that's how that came about. was just thinking creatively, thinking about what could the future of manufacturing look like. And it's probably not going to be a business that needs 500 ,000 square feet of space in one of these giant old erection buildings is what they're called. So yeah, I mean, I think what you're seeing here in the Brooklyn Navy Yard didn't happen last year, over the last 10 years.

16:35This happened over the last 30 years. And what's really amazing to me is that that's happened through who knows how many mayors. And we've seen this continuous commitment to keeping this place alive as a center for manufacturing because of its benefits to our community and the jobs and the opportunities that it creates. That's really what it's about. It's about people. It's not just about ships. So whatever we can do to make people's lives better through giving them opportunity, that's what we want to do here with this public asset. In one of the next segments of our conversation, we're going to talk about what the industrial workforce in New York City looks like today.

17:13Stacey, I think one of my questions that I have, Andrew, for you is more of a closing question. So I'll pass it back to you if you have any questions for Andrew and Jimmy before I jump into that. I mean, I have so many, but I would love to end with just one final statement with both of you, which is what you see as the future in a space like this. Because I think, I mean, I work here. I used to manage part of the Brooklyn Army Terminal. I mean, I am deeply embedded in the industrial ecosystem. And I love to make sure people know that if you want to make something, you can make it in New York. There's a quote on the wall of the EDC when I used to work there that said, New York City is where dreams come to audition.

17:54And I feel like that is so true in manufacturing. So, you know, for both of you who are embedded in this, like, what do you see as the future? I mean, I'm just so excited about the idea of manufacturing in any city center. Being from here, it's even more exciting for me. But I would love to think about industry as not just a manufacturing and what we're doing. How do we actually connect the idea of housing to those jobs? how do we actually connect all the empty storefronts in Main Street to actual industry and manufacturing too because there's no way that we're going to build up an industrial base here unless we actually focus on Main Street and the marketplace and actually really build the idea of like how close people can be to the to those things that are made yeah and I would say the future is about choices like all these things came about because of policy choices you know the the Pentagon decided to close the Brooklyn Navy Yard down in 1966.

18:53That was a choice. We made choices about industrial policy and trade policy. And often our city chooses not to make choices about industrial policy, just sort of like let inertia keep going. And everything in New York is without real estate. It's all about land use. So we make choices about our land use policy that can actually support the types of uses that we want to see. Then I think we can have a future for manufacturing businesses because there's lots of available buildings. There's lots of available land that's underutilized or utilized not in the way that was intended because of bad policy choices.

19:28So to me, I think we have a choice for what we want our city to look like. So I'm going to go a slightly different direction with my final question because we started, Andrew, with your intro. You do turnstile tours. Give us a taste. What can someone expect from an industrial tour, right? That's not usually the first thing people expect when they come to New York City. They're usually going to Broadway or somewhere else. You know, the last time my wife and I were here, we went to the Transit Museum, which is almost a pseudo industrial type of tourism as well. I was geeking out because a lot of the train cars were built in my hometown of St.

20:05Louis, which was super cool. But what, and this is just more of a general comment, like what can someone expect from an industrial tour, especially in a spot like New York City where that might not be the first thing on someone's list. Well, I mean, I always tell people like if it's your first time to New York, you don't need to come to the Navy Yard. It's okay. Your second visit, it's great, you know, come. But unless you have a really, you know, good reason, and most of our visitors do have a good reason because they have a connection to this place. And I think for me, that's been the most rewarding thing.

20:36You know, I've had so many veterans or people who worked here at the Navy Yard or their parents or their grandparents worked here. When you think about 70 ,000 people worked here and if they have kids and grandkids and things like that, we're talking about and then all the ships that pass through here. We literally have millions of Americans who have some personal connection to this place. So for me and I think for the other visitors too, that's like the most amazing thing is people really connect with this and share their own personal stories. But I think what's really amazing is history is the hook.

21:10History is how we get people to come out here. They're interested in military history. They're interested in ships. And then they learn, like, oh, these businesses are actually here. This is not just a museum, but we've been able to take this incredible historic fabric, like you can see here in New Lab, the space that we're in, and turn it into something that's still productive and useful and is really a vital part of the New York City economy today. So again, we use a lot of the historical stuff to get people here because that's what people can relate to. And they're just really surprised that they're able to see, you know, things being made here and learn about, you know, what manufacturing in New York City looks like.

21:53I have to double down on one thing, okay, which is that I worked at the Brooklyn Army Terminal for a while. and if any of you are interested in prohibition you need to go take this tour with Andrew because what almost all of the alcohol that was seized in New York City was eventually dumped or put at the Brooklyn Army Terminal and then it also transitioned to a post office in the 80s I mean it's wild and it's where Elvis left to go to war yeah I mean it's it's when we think about industrial policy too. He left the building? Yeah. He never went in the building actually. He was just on the pier.

22:31Okay, he was on pier six. I'm trying to get EDC to put a plaque on the pier where Elvis left. Because there's one in Germany where he landed. But yeah, the thing when we talk about policy, we're at a place right now where a good chunk of the manufacturing jobs in New York City are on city-owned property. and within deactivated military bases. There's just so little room now for people to find to operate that we sort of have this public option for manufacturing. Or it's the nonprofit option. So if you take those two together, the city and the nonprofits, it's a huge, huge proportion of our manufacturing base because it's really hard to get private landowners to take on industrial tenants.

23:20Look across the street. They'd rather have self-storage than have people actually making things in their space. Because it's allowed under land use. And it's a way to warehouse a building until you can get someone to rezone it for you to turn it into luxury condos or commercial office space or something like that. That's a whole other panel. Yeah, I don't want to steal their thunder, but yeah. Well, I was going to wrap this by saying at Manufacturing Happy Hour, we do not support prohibition. But we do support going on tours with Andrew about prohibition. So, hey, let's give it up for Stacey, Jimmy, Andrew.

23:54Thank you so much. Thank you for kicking off our show. We're going to do a hot swap. We're going to keep things rolling. But as you three leave the stage, we're going to have Nikki and Michaela and Jacob jump up on stage as well. We'll be back in a moment. But first, a quick word from our sponsor.

24:20This episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour is brought to you by Harmony.io. All right, manufacturers, chances are you don't have a data problem. You've got plenty of data. The bigger question is, are your machines, your people, and your systems actually working together? That's where Harmony comes in. Harmony is a factory orchestration platform that connects what's happening on your shop floor with the systems you already use, from your machines and operators to your ERP. giving your team one real-time view of production. We're talking machine monitoring, automated labor tracking, and the right work instructions and programs delivered directly to where they need to go.

25:01And here's the key. Harmony isn't asking you to rip out all the equipment and systems you've already invested in. It's designed to connect them, automate the manual stuff, and help your people spend more time making parts and less time chasing information. Having more manufacturing data isn't the goal. The goal is using it to run a better factory. So if you're ready to see what factory orchestration can do for your operation, head over to Harmony.io and check them out today. And now, back to Manufacturing Happy Hour.

25:39All right, we're going to kick off this segment on, let's say, the industrial workforce of today, as well as the intersection of manufacturing and tech. here in New York the same way we did the last segment. So Jacob, we'll start with you, and we'll go down the line. If we can do quick intros as to how you describe what you do, as if you're having a beverage with someone. We'd love to hear about New York robotics in that fashion, because I know you've been pushing for a long time to get Manufacturing Happy Hour out here. So thank you for helping make it happen. Yes, thank you to Stacey and everybody else as well for getting Chris here finally.

26:12This isn't the last time. I'm Jacob Pennessy-Rubin, Executive Director of New York Robotics. New York Robotics is a nonprofit industry group that supports the robotics and embodied AI ecosystem throughout New York City, state, and throughout the tri-state area, as well as regionally, nationally, and globally. We feel strongly that the power and resources of New York and New York City in particular, as the fastest growing tech ecosystem, financial capital of the world, the history of industry and innovation, are what's required to really grow the robotics industry in many different ways. I am also the exponential marketing lead for StandardBots, which is, I'm proud to say, America's only native AI industrial manufacturer of robot arms, happening right here in New York State on Long Island.

26:55So there is a robust history, and it's continuing to grow with robotics and manufacturing. One more fun fact. In 1964, Dr. Joseph Engelberger invented the Unimate, the first industrial robot in Connecticut. It was installed in a General Motors facility in New Jersey. So we are the hub of the start of industrial robotics in the United States or the world. And we have a big automation segment of our audience that I know will appreciate that part of the history, as well as the present with Standard Bots. Definitely a company that's making waves right now. Nikki, how do you describe what you do? So I am the Senior Vice President for Workforce Development here at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

27:36What that basically means is I oversee the talent ecosystem. that sits here at the yard, whether that's working with companies to find talent, whether that's exposing people to what we do here and the type of manufacturing and what a career here at the yard or what the yard business looks like. I've been in the advanced manufacturing space for about 15 years. I've worked both in the private sector and in the public sector. My introduction to this world was through mechatronics. So I love hardware. I love things that move and seeing how things are made and all of those great things. And I love helping other people to see kind of the beauty in that when they come to the yard and the beauty in that as a career option, as a choice, the innovation that can come out of, you know, creating and developing new technology and, you know, new hardware and all of those types of things.

28:29So I get to combine two loves that I have, workforce development and kind of that physical hardware space, that automated space in the work that I do. All right, Michaela. So when I try to explain what I do today, it's a lot harder. I am Michaela Crater. I run my own consultancy. And what is that? Well, I like to help people solve their problems. So if this is a real bar situation, I would try to break it down like, do you have a problem? I probably can fix it. Do you have needs as it relates to, I can't fix your problems with your neighbors, your spouse, but I can help you with your company. So my background is actually similar to Stacey's.

29:11I'm an urban planner by background. I went to school out here, but I also am from Oregon. And believe it or not, my journey starts with refusing to follow my father's footsteps with this small manufacturing company and saying I'm getting far away from that. But as I said, I solve problems. So what I see is lots of problems when government doesn't understand how businesses work and they can't find talent. And I like to solve those problems. So that's what I do. All right. And my next question, Nikki, I think you'll be the right person to start this off because, Jacob, you're already talking about, you know, hey, you're building robots on Long Island, right?

29:47So we already got an answer from you of what's being built here today. Nikki, what's being built here in Brooklyn today? Give us some idea of just some of the breadth of applications? So there's so much being built and manufactured here in Brooklyn. And a lot of times people don't think about all the different things that they touch or they see that's being manufactured here, even just here on the yard. On the yard itself, there's 17 different manufacturing verticals that are happening here. Everything ranging from med tech and medical devices to food and beverage production to fashion production to companies who are experimenting with using sugar to make the cloth that goes into fashion.

30:28A ton of sustainability products are being produced here. So there's a lot of really great things that are being produced here. And I think what is really interesting about where we are in the time right now in manufacturing is that we're seeing a bridging of the old and the new. I think we oftentimes just focus so much on either like all the hot things that are happening. And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of really great emerging tech that is being built and developed in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. But I also get to see some of the really amazing, you know, more traditional forms of manufacturing and production that's happening here.

31:04I love going to see some of our furniture designers and some of the really cool things that they're doing. I love to go and see some of what is happening over at GMD, which is a second generation shipbuilder who helped to refurbish the Learjet. And I got to see them, what is it, barge it in and then lift it with a crane and then lower it on a dry dock so that they can start the work there. And I think that is what's exciting about what's happening here is that you're starting to see the old and the new merge. Because I think people think that when you start talking about emerging technology and these new areas of manufacturing that the old dies away.

31:42It's not dying away. It's changing. It's growing. and it's oftentimes the foundation of a lot of the newer manufacturing that's happening here. People have to prototype. So there's always going to be space for a welder or a machinist because they have to prototype. Now what they prototype and what they build in those places are different than what they were maybe 50 years ago, but they're still figuring that out and helping new products get to market. Yeah, and I appreciate you covering kind of the gamut of manufacturing, the traditional, the newer, you know, Jacob, being that you are someone that is really focused on more of those newer automation robotics technologies, what are we seeing from, let's say, the newest automation technology coming out of New York?

32:24There's a lot. There's a wide range of, particularly in the robotics industry at large right now. There's a kind of this now, it's the hype cycle. So we're starting to see companies that don't necessarily do robotics start to do software for robotics. So there's a big angle. New York has really been heavy on our AI talent and the amount of talent that's in this region. So there's been quite a shift in that. But I think that history of industry and innovation, when we talked about, again, we talked about Jimmy living in Long Island, New York Ruman, the Cradle of Aviation, one of my favorite museums in the area, Cradle of Aviation Museum.

32:54There's a lot of that tier supply chain that still exists here that I think could really support and take better advantage of what's happening in the robotics ecosystem. But to your question, everything is happening in New York. We have just about 200 startups in the region, majority of them here in New York City. So my next question is more focused around workforce. And Michaela, I think you'll be the right person to lead us off on this one. What characterizes, in general, New York City's industrial workforce today? So I think, as Nikki and Jacob pointed out, there's a lot of different shifts between the many different verticals and the emerging technology.

33:31and to Nikki's point, there's not necessarily an exodus of the sort of old ways, it's that blend. And so from a workforce perspective, what I've heard when talking to many employers is that it's not that somebody is getting rid of the hand tools, it's that it's merging with some additional technology, diagnostics, and other forms of technology that is embedded into the workflow. And so the challenge from a workforce perspective oftentimes is the presumption that going into this field like you know you don't necessarily need no technology and so in some ways the bar has been raised but the the thing is there's still a great demand but it very much is somewhat dependent on like Nikki's point there's a lot of different lanes of vertical so we have a growing food and beverage group manufacturing food manufacturing space we still have garment manufacturing and innovation in that and I know we're going to hear from Michelle later But we also have some of the work I've been involved in is helping legacy companies transition to supply for climate solutions.

34:32So one company we've worked in, Red Hook, actually has taken concrete and is doing special casting for offshore wind projects. And they're doing work all across the East Coast. We have another company that is taking a variety of companies, they're building drones to do the quality control for some of those projects. And then we have others who are making things for building efficiency. So what we see is this, again, I like to solve problems. So all the problems as we look to meet the new rules for Local Law 97 and all these other climate policies create new opportunity for companies. so where I see a lot of challenge and opportunity from a workforce perspective is not that they're still not that they're changing the manufacturing it's that how do you pivot the product line to meet these new growth areas I'll also add that there's also companies like PE Guare and that's 150 200 years old that's still casting doorknobs and sinks in New York City Steinway is building pianos still mostly by hand so the gamut of what's happening in New York is you know from the old to than new.

35:42Yeah. And Nikki, I want to get your take also. You know, what does workforce development look like, maybe specifically in the context of the Brooklyn Navy Yard as well? And I know that's really a hard question to ask because every company is represented here now to an extent. So maybe there's a better way to ask that question, but what are some of your thoughts around workforce development in the work you do? When I think about the workforce that's here on the yard, I try to categorize it between things like what I call technical professional. These These are the engineers. These are the logistics people, the business people and things like that, that help to make businesses grow, that do the design to what I call, you know, occupational technical to the people who actually build it, to the machinists, to the electric, the electromechanical assemblers and maintenance folks and all of those types of people.

36:29And then that produces such a wide range of opportunity. and so we have a very diverse workforce that's here. I think a lot of times people assume it is either because when they hear emerging tech, they assume that, oh, it's just those engineers and those tech boys and all of these other things and I'm like, they're part but there's also this really amazing opportunity around the technical occupational and we actually run a CNC training program that's open to the community. It's two parts. The first part is an entry-level CNC operator training program that's then certified where folks learn how to set up bench work and how to operate CNC machines and all of those types of things because I have a high demand for CNC operators and not in the places that people think that I would have a high demand for CNC operators.

37:28We have set builders here at the yard who want CNC operators because they have to build the sets and they have to manufacture a lot of stuff in-house. We have furniture makers and we have designers who want CNC operators because they are prototyping or developing their own specialty designs. And then we add on to that and we upscale even further by doing Mastercam certification. And one of the reasons we did Mastercam certification is we talked to some of the businesses on the yard. And even though Mastercam is an industry standard for a lot of design work related to CNC, a lot of them didn't use it because it's expensive.

38:06And a lot of their staff didn't know how to use it. And so they were like, yeah, if we could have people who actually had certification in there, we would be more likely to use it and it would be a preference for us. And so we started doing that upskilling and where we have Mastercam certification to help to answer that need. But again, that is not necessarily, that's engineering work, but it's not necessarily the engineer. And now we are doing other programming that helps to address the need for that kind of college level employee around sustainability and clean energy and all of those types of things.

38:45Because I was listening to folks having a conversation, and there's so many young people at the college level who really want to get into this. But they came at it from advocacy. And the challenge with coming at it from advocacy is like you can make all the rules and you can make all the policies, but you still need a lot of private sector innovation and development in order to reach those goals. And so helping folks who came at it through the advocacy to start to learn about the business case of, you know, creating new technology and innovation, understanding the business challenges of what that looks like, and how to marry their passion for the economy and for clean energy and all those things with a business environment.

39:26And so we've been doing a lot of work with our Green Careers Accelerator, hosting, helping companies host interns, doing programming to help expose college level students who come from design backgrounds, engineering backgrounds, policy backgrounds, to really start to understand the business of manufacturing in that space and how to bring their skills to that space. And so just in terms of what that industrial, you know, workforce looks like, It is, again, really diverse. But that's part of the fun for me in terms of a job, in terms of looking at different programming, different ways to help to build out those talent pipelines.

40:01Yeah, one thing that stuck out in your answer was the amount of technology that's going into those old traditional manufacturing type of roles, right? You're bringing in, you know, machinists into furniture manufacturing. So you see all that coming together. You talk about how machinists are moving to Mastercam, computer-aided manufacturing for a quick acronym check on CAM for anyone that's not familiar with it. No, I think most of the, I say that mostly because I have some friends that came out to the show tonight that aren't the manufacturing space, but I know the majority of people listening to this podcast would know what that's all about.

40:35So awesome answer. Awesome way to really put into perspective just the gamut of what New York is doing from a manufacturing perspective and how that's evolving. Jacob, a question I have for you is around the ecosystem, around robotics. I think when a lot of people think about robotics, they think of Pittsburgh or Detroit. New York City is not necessarily the first thing to come to mind. How would you characterize the robotics and automation ecosystem out here? Well, we're excited that it's growing so fast and that it's become really robust in the last couple of years that New York Robotics has existed.

41:09And companies like StandardBots and the 200 plus others that exist and the ones even here in NewLab that are starting to help grow that industry and really be a part of it. We also have 20 plus universities in the region that lend itself to the kind of growth of the academic ecosystem and the spin outs of tech transfer. But I think New York, it's never going to be a Detroit when it comes to manufacturing. It's never going to be a Pittsburgh on the level of Carnegie Mellon and what it's been doing in the history of autonomy that has been created there from DARPA and all those other programs. But the unique things that New York has, those places don't.

41:41They have the financial capital of the world. It is the fastest growing tech ecosystem in the world. And so there's places that allow New York to be the kind of capital of creating the business side of robotics. You're going to find every Fortune 100 or Fortune 500 company in New York that is using autonomy or robotics in some capacity. The city in and of itself is kind of the perfect petri dish for testing robotics across all of Borg. We can put robotic systems on the 70th floor of a building and still do some form of manufacturing in all kinds of capacities. I think the way I'll sum it up, and I'll do some super nerd cred here.

42:17Well, raise your hand if you've heard of the Tyrell Corporation. Yeah, a couple of you, right? For those of you that don't know, Tyrell Corporation is the evil corporation in Blade Runner that manufactures the box, right? In the movie, they come out of this giant skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, right? If we think about the future of robotics, that kind of maker company is not going to be in Pittsburgh or Detroit. That's going to happen in a place that is an epicenter of commerce, which is Detroit or New York City or Los Angeles. So I'll sum it up in that way of the kind of resources of New York as a business center are going to be what really helps to elevate and move the robotics ecosystem.

42:56Yeah, that's a great point in terms of one of the aspects of New York's secret sauce as something that differentiates it as an industrial place. As we wrap up, you know, we'll go down the line. Nikki and Kella, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what is one of, if you were to summarize, and it could be a point you've made before, what is a secret sauce aspect of New York's industrial future? I think the secret sauce to New York City's industrial future and manufacturing here in the city is really just some of the things that have been named here. So we do have a very, you know, amazing university ecosystem and there's more conversation around tech transfer.

43:37And I think what is needed there is to make that conversation bigger. But that conversation has already been started and that infrastructure is already there. We have in a lot of ways our own specific market. there are 8 million people um in this city um 8 million people who consume who buy who purchase um a lot of places can't say that so depending on what's produced here um you are building literally your own market that can help to sustain you to branch out even regionally or nationally um i think also too you just have a lot of people who just by the nature of being in this city you have to be creative you have to like you know have a certain level of hustle have a certain level of like hey like maybe I can do this and so I love what Stacey said about like dreams New York is a place where dreams come to audition because like most of the time the people who are coming to the city who stay in the city even native New Yorkers they're always thinking about something bigger aiming for something bigger trying for something bigger and I think you need that in this day and age with manufacturing just because there's so much activity that's happening there's so much innovation that's happening there's so many changes happening and more and more companies are really thinking about how can I be close to my consumer base how can I manufacture closer to my consumer base and that is driving some really great innovation yes and I mean everything you said is on point i'm just going to double down a couple themes you know for me when when previously trying to sell others on why new york city still is a great place for manufacturing so this is like revisiting old memories here it was all the things it was the amount of diversity of opportunity and there's a shit storm of problems here right so that to me that's the fun thing about manufacturing and this is where I come full circle again I was refusing to follow my dad's journey as a small manufacturing but when I got into industrial policy for the city of New York and trying to find a way to connect people to jobs and learning from manufacturers I started to get why my father did what he did he likes to solve problems too I solve them in a slightly different way from a different angle but the whole point is building creating and that creativity is what I think is a secret sauce that manufacturers and the industrial community has that I think is an untapped opportunity that I'm excited for this forum because more people in the city need to know that this community exists and that we need more problem solvers.

46:17We need more people who don't accept the status quo as good enough. The things that I learned from talking to manufacturers that they're always a problem with the line, with the equipment, with the material that came in and there's this relentless desire to troubleshoot and we need more troubleshooters. So secret sauce is there's the grit here in New York. There is the resources and capital. There's also an embedded old ecosystem that, you know, there's nonprofits who actually want to help companies. So if you're a startup or somebody who's trying to make all the pieces of the puzzle come together, there are a lot of groups out there who are going to help you find talent, who will train your talent, who will connect you to other resources to make it work.

47:00All right. Manufacturing in New York City, where dreams come to audition, is becoming a theme of tonight's conversation. So, hey, let's give it up for Jacob, Nikki, McKella. Thank you so much for jumping on stage. Next round of our interviews coming up right after a word from our sponsor.

47:28This episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour is brought to you by MaintainX. Let's be honest, maintenance usually gets noticed for the wrong reasons. It's only when a machine goes down at the worst possible time that everyone starts asking questions. But the best maintenance teams, they're preventing those conversations before they ever happen. That's why I'm excited to tell you about MaintainX. It's a modern maintenance and asset management platform built to help manufacturers reduce downtime, stay ahead of preventative maintenance, and keep equipment running at its best. And now, with AI built into the platform, your team can turn manuals, work history, and maintenance data into real-time recommendations that help technicians troubleshoot faster and make smarter decisions.

48:11Maintenance isn't just about fixing equipment anymore. It's about improving reliability, protecting production, and giving your team the tools they need to succeed. If you're ready to spend less time reacting and more time staying ahead, head over to GetMaintainX.com to learn more. And now, let's get back to today's show.

48:37Alright folks, we have one segment left. Michelle is going to join me on stage here. I'm going to move to the middle since this is more of the traditional manufacturing happy hour one-on-one interview. Michelle, you are literally still making things in New York City. Yes, proudly. Yeah, we've been talking about this for a while, but we want to hear from a manufacturer that's been doing this for, what, 30 years now, I believe? I started rounding down to 30. Okay. I passed that a little while ago. But, yeah, it's been a fun evolution. And there's been a couple of, you know, unusual pivots. I started in moderate fashion, which all ran to China.

49:23So I did that. I learned a ton doing two weeks on, two weeks off. Not a lot of fun. But I did learn a lot from the way they think and the way they manufacture. and then 9-11, the plane hit on the first day of Fashion Week. I had a bunch of orders cancel and decided I really wanted to make things here. And I wanted to be closer to the customer, closer to a delivery time. And that was really great. I decided I wanted to work with a better higher-end brands that were interested in manufacturing in New York. And that was a really great run. I did that really up until COVID. It was fashion, TV, theater, runway, Met Gala.

50:24Started with Tori Birch. I made her first caftan. You know, Tom Brown. Got to do really fun projects with Tom Brown. And it's been an interesting evolution. And then all of a sudden, COVID shut our city down. And the Economic Development Corporation, which I'd won seven fashion manufacturing initiatives. So I had the latest and greatest in manufacturing technology. They asked if I could make PPE. you know I was you know had a shop full of people and my orders were getting canceled again and terminated and I said yeah I mean I'm making wedding gowns for Veer Wang and all these brides you know weddings are being canceled I'm sure I can build a smock so it was really great fun actually to learn something brand new after manufacturing for you know almost 30 years at that point to learning about the science behind non-wovens and doing deep dives into testing and then I started sending out you know five giant truckloads of PPE every day and I started researching, you know, wow, we use petroleum to make a disposable item and got to invest a lot of time and effort into more sustainable options, got to do interesting projects with the Cornell science team.

52:02And that led me to federal contracting, which really led me to very large awards and huge amounts of PPE. I currently produce close to 3 million isolation gowns every month, fully automated using robotics and advanced manufacturing. And, you know, my operators that were sewing them by hand are now engineers and watching, you know, skill of jobs. It's been really fun and exciting to do something, you know, new after doing the same thing for so many years. So it's been fun. Yeah. And if anyone out there hasn't picked up on it yet, Michelle runs NY Embroidery Studios. And you took us back to 2001, 2022.

52:59I mean, And you continued to manufacture in the garment district when you were watching all other manufacturing move overseas. I mean, what was that like? I mean, I'm proud to say I'm still on 36th Street. I still maintain over 10 ,000 square feet in the garment center where I've been since 89. So it's amazing. I work with incredible people, talented people. I just had someone retire who'd been with me for more than 30 years. So, you know, and holding on to a skill, you know, I took over a business that had been in business for 100 years. So I have turn of the century technology all the way to we have a 3D fabric printer that prints over two inches high on fabric.

53:53So being able to have the range when people walk in of, you know, turn of the century pleating machines combined with 3D textile printing is pretty fun and remarkable. If you could summarize what allowed you to keep manufacturing here, whether it's operations, your customers, the people working with you, technology adoption. I mean, what what would it be? Is there a single thing or a few you can point to? I mean, I think being willing to pivot and find a path to keep my people employed because I've changed my ideas of, you know, hardcore fashion to, you know, government contractor just to, you know, maintain and hold on to jobs and upskill people.

54:42I think it's just being flexible with your path. How did you stay focused on what's important to your operation when things around you were always changing? Your industry was always changing. The garment district was always changing. How did you stay focused? Because I feel like that's something manufacturers in this audience and then the podcast audience that listens to this afterwards can learn from you. Well, I think being flexible to change and embracing the new, you know, we always do it like this. But, you know, there are better ways and being open to receiving that information like, you know, I knew that in order to bring jobs back and making gowns, we were going to have to automate it.

55:35So that sort of, you know, I went from over close to 2 ,000 people at one point sewing gowns to automating and bringing that factory down. I meant it a lot for the people. So I think, you know, in order to hold on to this manufacturing, we've had to automate. And now we're competitive to what you can import for. We can compete on a commercial level because we're willing to automate. So now we can provide, you know, something that we used to have to buy from China or Cambodia. We can now make it here. So I have to be open to like, it's not always just about the jobs. It's looking at the bigger picture and trying to find something to upskill those people, trying to find a new job that we can hold on to more people with.

56:31So I've got two more questions as we wrap this up. The first one is advice for the folks listening to this show. What advice do you have for manufacturing leaders to continue to build and adapt and manufacture here? And that here could be New York City or that here could be wherever they are. A lot of our audience is based here in the U.S. when there's always temptation to do that elsewhere. there? Yeah, well, for me, you know, I've seen firsthand, you know, a doctor came to me at the start of COVID and he said, there's a very big problem with PPE. There's a giant gap at the gown glove interface.

57:15And I need you to come into surgery with me. I need you to see this problem in PPE. So I went on FaceTime with this doctor, and he was a neurosurgeon in Maine, and he showed me the leak of the fluid that went down into his glove. He said, this has been studied for 20 years. National Institute of Health, they have hundreds of articles about this weak and failure point at the gown-glove interface. And, you know, you need to help me solve this. It's like, well, okay. And it took us six years, but we invented a gown that solves the leak at the gown glove interface. We have FDA wrote our label claim that says our gown is superior to any gown currently on the market.

58:09It protects doctors that are trying to do a normal thing like catch a baby during Ebola. And, you know, they're at risk of just doing an ordinary thing of delivering a baby and that bringing factories close to inventors, you can create things. And I might not know what the problem is in PPE, but giving a doctor access to a factory, you can make a life changing innovation. And I think that's what's super important about manufacturing is having it close to someone with a good idea and giving them access. This doctor never would have been able to go to one of the big distributors and get them to make his innovation for him.

59:02But smart people that have problems need to be able to have access to factories to create and build new things. And so that's what I think is the most important part of making something here. That's great advice. And it's an awesome story. And I'm worried it almost negates my last question because I was, you know, you're talking about the gown glove interface. You spent six years on it. You made it work. I was going to ask you, what is one of the coolest stories of a garment or something you made? I feel like you might have just shared it. But is there another one more on the fashion side that comes to mind, if you will?

59:38I mean, listen, I created, you know, we used 3D modeling software to make an octopus come out of a dress for Tom Brown. I was pretty proud of that. We made his dog into a mirrored ball hat, you know, and that was at 2 a.m. the night before the show. So I've done a lot of amazing things I'm super proud of. but this one that protects not only the provider but the patient from you know all sorts of things it's super exciting yeah I think one theme in addition to where dreams come to audition that came out tonight is also just the spectrum of things being built here and that have been built here in New York City because just in your examples alone you covered everything from PPE all the way to the more whimsical examples that you just shared there as well.

1:00:32So, hey, everyone, let's give it up for Michelle here at the end of our conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Michelle. That was fun. I'm going to say three quick thank yous as we wrap this up, and then we're going to sign off. First, thank you again to NewLab for hosting us tonight. Awesome spot. Give them a round of applause. And then again, let's thank Clifton Larson Allen and MaintainX for making this whole All-American Manufacturing Summer Tour possible, making conversations like this across the country possible. Give it up for MaintainX and Clifton Larson Allen. And this is going to be a fun part for me tonight because if folks listen to the podcast, they know the sign-off line to Manufacturing Happy Hour.

1:01:19And my brother's in the audience tonight, and he thinks it's the most ridiculous sign-off line in the world. So he gets to hear it in person for the first time. So, hey, raise your glasses up if you still have a drink. Stay innovative. Stay thirsty. Cheers to everyone. Thank you all for coming out.

1:01:43Hey, thanks for listening. On a personal note, I have to say it was super cool recording a live show in New York City. It's one of those things that when you're planning out a tour like this and you look at the different markets you can go to, you know, you're trying to go to the spots where a lot of manufacturers are concentrated. And as you probably picked up, one of the themes from this episode, a lot of people don't think of manufacturing when it comes to New York City or Brooklyn. And it was one of those conversations where it's like, hey, I know there's a manufacturing scene here and we've got to go explore it when we were trying to plan out the tour route.

1:02:19So super glad we went there. Shout out to everyone that appeared in this podcast. If you want to connect with any of them, you can do that over at the show notes page at manufacturinghappyhour.com. If you want to find out where Manufacturing Happy Hour has our next live shows, well, you can do that by going to manufacturinghappyhour.com slash tour. And with that, we are going to wrap up for this week. Stay innovative. Stay thirsty. Thank you again, New York City. We'll catch you next time. Thanks for listening to Manufacturing Happy Hour. Powered by the Industrial Network.