Let me tell you about the moment I knew I belonged in manufacturing.
It began at California Polytechnic State University (go Mustangs!) in part because of their motto which i took to heart: Learn by Doing. It’s the reason I got hands-on with circuit boards, manufacturing execution systems, and real production environments before I ever picked up a textbook on any of it. I learn through action, trial and error, and immediate feedback. That’s how my career started, and honestly, it’s still how I work today.
From Cal Poly, I went to ViaSat in San Diego, first as an intern on the shop floor, then into engineering full-time after grad school. My job wasn’t theoretical. I spent time with operators, engineers, and supervisors trying to understand what slowed production, what created rework, and what kept teams from doing their best work. Then I’d go figure out how to fix it. I loved every minute of it – the bottlenecks, the change management, the conversations with people who’d been building things for thirty years and could tell me exactly why the latest “improvement” wasn’t going to stick.
At ViaSat, I gravitated toward the government side of the business. Working on programs that support our service members mattered more to me than helping someone get better Wi-Fi on their yacht. (Nothing against yachts. Or Wi-Fi. Or the people who own both.) That pull toward defense work has stayed with me ever since.
I Understand Your Risks Because I’ve Lived Them
When I meet with A&D manufacturers today, I bring all of that with me. And I’ll be honest – I wince when I hear an ERP vendor claim that a new module or a little customization will let their system “support your MES needs.” Or worse: “We’ll throw it in for free since you’re already buying our ERP.” That may work fine if you’re building a $20 remote-controlled car. You might ruin a five-year-old’s birthday, but nobody gets hurt.
Now, picture a gearbox failure on an airplane engine. The engine comes back for repair years later. Which lot did the gearbox come from? Serial number? How many flight cycles? Who built it, on which tool, with what certifications? Was the issue isolated, or is it sitting in a hundred other engines flying right now? An MES purpose-built for A&D surfaces that data in minutes. An ERP wearing an MES costume, a bolt-on, or a heavily customized workaround – that’s where you get exposed because those systems weren’t built with A&D in mind.
Shop Floor Conversations, Not Software Pitches
MES, to me, is not a sales pitch, a tool, or even a product. It’s how I help solve real problems on a real shop floor. I lead with learning – understanding what’s actually happening in an operation before I propose anything. That’s the Cal Poly habit I never shook: you can’t fix what you haven’t put your hands on.
What that looks like in practice: I’m not running through a slide deck. I’m asking about your engineering change process and why quality escapes cluster on second shift. What does your DCMA process look like? How are you creating AS9102 forms today? How long does it take to pull a full genealogy when a customer calls? These aren’t trick questions. They’re the questions you can only ask if you’ve lived this work – and the answers are where the real conversation begins.
I’m not asking anyone to trust me on my background alone. But it accelerates things for sure. Instead of spending the first hour explaining what AS9100 means or why root cause and corrective action is more than a fishbone diagram, we can get to what’s actually slowing the floor down.
Why This Matters at the Executive Level
In A&D, operational issues are almost never just operational. My experience has shown that a traceability gap is a compliance exposure. A quality escape is a potential safety issue. A missed delivery can cascade all the way to readiness. The people deploying your MES should already understand that, so you’re not the one explaining it.
The Questions Worth Asking Any Vendor
A few things worth pressing any vendor on. Who, specifically, is going to be in the room when things get hard? Have they worked in A&D manufacturing, or just read about it? And if anyone tells you they can stand up a system in a few weeks and solve everything, push back. Even a strong A&D-ready MES like ours, which lands close to 80% out of the box, still has to be tuned to how your floor actually runs. We work in three- to six-month phases, prove each one in production, and move on. The improvements compound. They don’t show up on day one, and any vendor who tells you otherwise is selling you a shelf decoration.
What I’d Actually Tell You
Along the way, we’ll have honest conversations. The kind where I might tell you that what you think is your biggest problem may not be, or where you’ll tell me my recommendation won’t survive first contact with your second-shift crew. That back-and-forth is where the real value gets built, and it’s the part I look forward to most.
