From "Falling" into Automation to Thriving in the Industry with Sami Birch

N:  Our guest today is Sammy Birch with Mission Design and Automation. Sammy and I met, I think for the first time at the bar, at the A three forum, up in Florida earlier this year. And I just thought, wow, what a friendly face. I need to know this person. And we had probably not a business conversation, but we got to know each other a little bit as moms.

And I've been following her on LinkedIn and, we thought: Hey! we need to have Sammy come on the show and tell her story. So welcome to Automation ladies. Sammy, thank you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. I appreciate you being here and rescheduling, I think we had to do that once, as happens today.

We have Allie with us. Allie. Hey, how are you? Hi, I'm great. And I know you have to run. We have exactly 10 minutes with Allie because we did such a good job chatting, before actually hitting record on the show. But Allie, since we have you here for a limited time, you wanna give us any updates?

Any, Thoughts on what you're to Yeah. I'm hiring in the Seattle Land area, so [00:01:00] Yep. Still at that. So if there's any engineers that wanna be crazy and do controls with Ali G processing controls engineering LLC hit her up. She's got two open positions. Is that right, Allie? Yeah. And you don't have to be an engineer.

You can just be aspiring to do controls in general. Yeah. We know that you value resilience in getting stuff done, getting your hands dirty, not being afraid to fail and learn. Right. Exactly. All right. Well, I guess we'll start with our, first question that we normally have. Sammy, can you introduce yourself a little bit to us and tell us your journey, how you got to be doing, what you're doing at Mission Design and Automation?

Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, thanks for having me. So my name is Sammy Birch. I am currently the marketing manager at Mission Design and Automation. We're a systems integrator based in Holland, Michigan. Been quite the journey to get here, but this summer will be my, uh, 10 years in the automation space. So been in the industry for quite a while.

I'm looking really forward to celebrating that, especially since I [00:02:00] never ever saw myself in manufacturing or automation and honestly when I, my degree's in writing. And so I took, my role as a tech writer at another. Automation company here in West Michigan. And I was like, all right, like I'm gonna like work here for six months, put some writing on my resume, and then I'm moving to New York and like writing for the New Yorker.

Ah-huh. And that didn't happen. And it's because I really got excited about all of this stuff. I didn't know, like when I went to my interview, I had never seen a robot before. Like in real life. I hadn't ever seen a fanatic robot or any other robot brand. And so I was like, I don't know what I'm doing, but the team that I had and the person that who had hired me were just awesome.

They too, were kind of on similar paths, like, yeah, we didn't know we'd be in this space, but it's a really good job and it's really fun to work here. So I was like, oh, okay, sure. And then I ended up, doing that role, a tech [00:03:00] writer for automation systems for three or four years until we formed a marketing team at that company.

Um, and then I jumped into marketing, my minor's in business and I had, have always had a creative interest, to do like graphic design and that type of stuff. So it made a lot of sense for me to jump over there. And then we were implementing a C R M and I had started getting more into like metrics and analytics and I was offered the opportunity to, to be our C R M administrator and manage that.

And a lifelong learner. I was like, sure. Like I. Really enjoy getting to know that. And that was a phenomenal experience for me. I learned so much about business. I got to travel all over the world, uh, to integrate other business units that we had acquired and just learn about automation in different countries and the different scale and ways that we do it here versus France or Romania.

And really just opening my eyes to just the vast opportunity there is in this [00:04:00] space. And then shortly after that, I became a mom. And, some things in my life shifted. Covid started, and, some people that I knew from my former company started working at Mission and, uh, asked me if I was, interested in coming to handle marketing and documentation and a little bit of recruiting here.

And that sounded like the pace change sounded like a good fit for where I was at in my life. And then I jumped over here and it's really been a. Awesome experience, uh, so much that we've done and grown this company and learned a lot and met some really cool people along the way. So very cool.

In court. That's my story. Yeah. So like most people we talked to, you didn't really know this industry existed, what it was, what it did, or how cool it was until you got here, right? That's true. A hundred percent. And like I was thinking about this earlier, just sort of thinking about different aha moments in my career.

Mm-hmm. And at one point when I was a tech writer, I started thinking I wanted to maybe go [00:05:00] into controls engineering because I had been working on a huge project for an EV company that you've all heard of. And it was just so cool for me to like be sitting out there with these engineers and like watching them do what they were doing.

And at the time my, one of my roommates was a software engineer and he just had like Arduinos laying around our house. And so I was like, can you. Teach me how to program this thing. So I'm like making it beep and making it do a little light. Like I was like, oh, I can be a controls engineer then, you know?

Then I was like, no, I probably couldn't. But you could. Oh, you probably could. You probably could if you had that like already, like if you like the turning on little lights, that's all, that's what it takes. I swear to God, that's what it takes, because the rest of it is just like what you want.

You're just like, I must know, and there's a manual for everything. I'll say that. Yeah. So if you're good at reading and writing and documentation, I mean, following processes like allie's, [00:06:00]chemical engineering degree, I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with controls. Right. When I started wiring, I made some crazy mistakes that like, everyone was just like, why would you do that?

Because in chemical engineering, I draw things in like 2D and I, took one electrical class, I didn't understand why I would need a neutral. Like, why don't I just, you know, put 'em all here since and it was like a bad drawing. Like I started from absolutely just like frying stuff to actually designing stuff that is functional now.

But yeah, I didn't have the background, so I just, but I'm smart, right? So I guess that's the point is if you're hungry for the knowledge and you have some smarts, but the hunger matters so much more than the smarts, I think. Then you can just make anything, be your job.

The ability to be that lifelong learner. Like you said, take on projects. You don't know how to do 'em, but you'll figure it out. Right. I've had to learn to talk to people and like Nikki's teaching me to uh, control my temper. But like we're all have to learn something.

[00:07:00] Like I'm, maybe I'm good at you know, numbers and sitting there on my own Excel spreadsheet, but then I gotta go deal with people and I'm like, not good. So Yeah. But, that's really cool that you can say you went and like, played with like Arduino programming. That's like a giant first step that is like how people get their feet wet.

They're like, so I could tell the thing what to do and then industrially, that's the exact same thing. It's just bigger hardware, but exactly what you did. You told the thing what to do. So you have programmed before. Yeah. Period. I.

A craft company based on Arduinos. That's so cute. How cool. Well don't you still do that? Takes my idea. I kinda, yeah, right. Like cut that piece out. Cause that's, that's good. You will meet, Courtney during automate. Yes. Yes. She will be there with her automation ladies hat on. She's actually taken vacation, which she also does not do often enough.[00:08:00]

 So I know both for Allie and Courtney Automate is their vacation. That's how nuts we are. Detroit is getting cool. It is, yeah. Maybe Detroit's always been cool full on. I don't wanna like. Give Detroit a black guy. It's, it's a good place. It's really fun. The last, few years that we've gone to automate are just, I'm from Michigan, so hometown, but like it's really fun down there.

I'm really excited to be there with you guys. Same. Yeah. Excited to see it. You're just in Detroit, right? Last week. Yeah. So I was there for manufacturing in America, which is Siemens and Electromatic, big event. And it was at Ford Field. It was, it was really cool. We did a live interview with Amanda Beaton, who does, Siemens cooperates with education.

She travels to schools all around the country. Sweet. They had, I didn't know this, but like you can kick, you can try to kick a field goal on Ford Field during the event and I did not wear good enough shoes for it and I decided not to embarrass myself. I also mostly didn't have [00:09:00] a lot of time. But I'm definitely gonna plan to try to do it next year if I go for nothing else.

To MIA 2024. It will be to completely fall flat on my trying to kick a football over because I've never kicked one before. But, you know, hey, I don't know. I just, I feel like I have to try things and why not? If the opportunity is put in front of me, for sure. So do you think that you would leave, actually, let's say, bye, Allie just said, bye bye, Allie.

But would you, uh, at this point in your career now, having been in this industry, in this area for a while, between two different companies, would you go take your talents elsewhere to another industry or have we got you now? Uh, I think you got me. I don't foresee going anywhere else. I, there's so much opportunity here.

Like when I think about. My career and the stuff I like to do, I get to do it here. Even though it's not traditionally like what you think about Yeah. When you think about automation or engineering, I get to [00:10:00] do really fun, creative stuff. I learned how to, you know, take nice photos because we needed to take photos of machines for instruction manuals and mm-hmm From there.

But working in Adobe Creative Suite, which is something that I want, I started to do in school and I wanted to keep doing. I've done it my entire career. Graphic design, I do most of our home, just about all of our design here, things like that. Working with videographers, designing really cool, like we're doing something right now who are next month.

Holland Hat. We've never, basically at Mission, they let me let my freak flag fly like I can do. That is awesome. Really cool projects. And sometimes I get like raised eyebrows, but a lot of the time the team's like, That sounds cool. Let's figure out how to do it. So like earlier this year I came to some of our team and asked if they'd be interested in putting a robot on a parade float.

Mm-hmm. For the fall tulip time parade. And they're like, uh, okay. Yeah. Like get the team together and talk about your idea. So now we're doing it in three weeks, [00:11:00] we'll have, uh, robot watering tulips on, or like simulating watering tulips on a parade flow at a huge festival that our town has. Wow. So just kind of stuff like that that you wouldn't really think of in automation, even though it's obviously automation.

We're having a robot moving on a moving flow, but just getting to dream up kind of creative, artsy stuff like that. I need to have that in my life. That's what kind of makes me feel full. So I get to do it here. So that's something that when we talk to students and we're trying to. Talk about automation to the younger generation.

Of course, we need engineers, of course we need machine builders, and that's where most of our focus is. But I don't sleep on the fact that creative people belong in this industry too. Mm-hmm. Creative in a sense of like art, arts and writing and photography and designers, like graphic designers and videographers.

We need that here too. And, I think that will only [00:12:00] continue as more marketing and creative jobs come to the space because the industry's growing. Yeah. So would you, what is your take on the traditional marketing in our industry? Have you seen a lot of the stuff that comes out from the component manufacturers, the distributors?

Like are you, I'm on all these email lists right? From all of these different companies I deal with and I get the newsletters every week and I have some opinions, but I'll keep them to myself for now. Like, do you think that there's room for marketing as a practice to evolve in our industry, or do we just need more people?

Uh, I think both. I think, I don't wanna criticize what other people are doing for their marketing. I know that marketing isn't always the first thing you think about when you think about our industry. And it's probably not where everybody's main focus is. Yeah. Um, something that we, I. Talk about here a lot is storytelling and talking about building relationships and talking about getting your voice of customer.

Mm-hmm. [00:13:00] Um, and I know that more and more marketing agencies are doing really good work to promote just that Yeah. To companies. And so I think people have, people do what they know and people do the best they can for what they think they should be doing. And sometimes it is the best thing that can be done.

 I think there's areas that it'll get better. Personally, and maybe this is my age, right? Whatever we're, you know, I am older millennial. I don't wanna assume that we're around the same age, but I'm, that's my assumption, probably. And I personally just connect so much more with, like you said, stories, customer stories, application stories where I can really see, you know, something from point A to point B or rather than, Hey, here's my product and it's the best product and it has the best specs.

Which I think traditionally for the engineering, you know, technical marketing has always been the way to do it. Um, mm-hmm. And I used to, be a sales [00:14:00] engineer and I would walk around with these catalogs that would have all these specs, and I knew the specs, off of the back of my hands.

Mm-hmm. Which is great when you're trying to, pick the right product for an application or spec something. Right. Put together a bill of materials, but the reason why you would choose me and my company and our product line was probably not those specs. Right. Yeah. And I'm seeing more of a shift, and that is one of the things that I personally like, do recommend if I get asked about marketing, particularly to the younger generations.

The millennial managers now that are in purchasing positions, they have influence or, you know, they make these decisions at their companies. And I don't know, I can't speak for Gen Z, right? I'm already too old for that. Like, we had Jordan Yates on the podcast, she graduated like two years ago.

 She's definitely got some insights and language and ways that she does things that I'm just like, whoa. I guess we are a little bit different in age here, but I'm learning and it's crazy. Like we grew up with, I don't know, tools in the internet, but only when we [00:15:00] were in like early teens or a little bit maybe before that, but People just 10 years younger than us, like, it's a whole different ballgame in terms of what they had accessible to them and available.

So I personally love to see more storytelling, more like the people behind the brand, the why behind the brand, not just, you know, my product does X, Y, Z better. Uh, because there's definitely different solutions out there for different applications. Absolutely. We try to focus on our people a lot.

That's, I mean, that's what it is. Like we build relationships, you build trust with your, the people you're working with, you build partnerships, and that's what makes a successful project. Like everyone says, we're the best in our industry because we have the best customer service. Yeah. And like you're just saying me too.

Mm-hmm. Like, what makes you stand out If you're saying that. Right. At this point, that isn't the differentiator anymore that you think it is. Right? Right. Or, or it's, that's at a bare minimum, you expect good customer service, right? Mm-hmm. It shouldn't set you apart. [00:16:00] Yeah. It should be basic requirement is to have good customer service, be responsive to your customers.

Right? Totally. That's something that I think about a lot. You brought up such a good point about Gen Z and I just think about like influencer marketing and, you know, content creation in a sense of like TikTok or mm-hmm. YouTube reels and things like that. And it's just an area that I know I need to get better at.

And because we are recruiting for a younger generation who consumes content that way. Yeah. I don't need, I don't know how to do it yet. Like I, I've stayed off of these apps cause I'm just like, I got too much going on. I got my kids like, I don't need to be sucked into some social media thing. And then sometimes people think because we produce content that, you know, We do a lot of those.

I'm like, no, I know how to, I barely figured out how to go live on LinkedIn. Right. That took me like three tries. I feel like I'm grandpa at this point going, ah, these darn kids. Like, there's too, it's too complicated, but there's always something new That's true. And being resistant [00:17:00] to it and saying, well, it's just not how people should be doing it.

They should be doing it the way I like it. They're not gonna change for us. Right? Mm-hmm. And if we wanna continue to do business and sell them something or come have them work for us, we gotta go kind of where they are. Which brings me back to the parade thing. I wanted to ask, is that for your recruiting efforts in your community?

Or what is, what was the reason you thought it would be a good idea to put a robot on a parade float? Yeah. A little bit of both recruiting for sure. It's kinda like three-sided, so a little bit of recruiting. We've got a ton of, manufacturing industry in our area. Mm-hmm. So, engineering students and companies that need that manufacture components and also, Hire people in this space.

We've, so it's kind of both in a commercial sense. We've got a lot of people that attend these events that also work for manufacturers who are, some of them will meet up with our ideal customer profile. Yeah. So recruiting and then, you know, commercial marketing in that sense a little bit. But then also the third [00:18:00] component is we've launched a team here at Mission this year called Mission Impact Team.

It's our community outreach group. So we've done a lot this year with, getting some fundraisers going, volunteer opportunities, and figuring out ways now that we're, we've got enough people here that can support the team to mm-hmm. Do some work giving back to our community. And so this is another way to, just get involved with the people that we work with in those spaces and remind them that we're here and just be integrated into the community that way.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I love it when you can do something. Whether it's for marketing or supporting someone else that has those multifaceted benefits, right? You're not marketing solely, you know, to a buyer trying to buy your thing because ultimately that buyer is only in a buying cycle for a very short period of time during, you know, but they have a long career and people, we have long memories, right?

Mm-hmm. We know the [00:19:00] brands that we know and like maybe sometimes for years before we buy something from them, because just the timing isn't right. I found honestly that, for instance, for my day job at Kopi, we have such a great sort of community, both of our users, and people that have found out what we're doing, and it may not be something they need, but they think it's a fantastic idea because they've had a previous experience or something like that.

Some of our biggest supporters and sources of leads are not even customers of ours. They don't have a need for what we do, but they get it and they like what we're doing, and then you end up with this just sort of. Yeah, great. Like you get word of mouth, um, and of course it's great to get that from your customers that have a direct testimonial of they did this for me.

Mm-hmm. But just the more people that are around that know what you do and what you do well, you'll end up seeing, you know, referrals or dividends from that probably for a long time to come. But it is a little bit harder to measure upfront. So do you, being in marketing, do you, what are your thoughts on like things that you can directly measure and attribute [00:20:00] versus doing things that are a little bit more maybe unproven and harder to measure directly results from?

Really good question. There are so many things that you do that would be considered marketing that are hard to measure. I'm sure you've heard this, metric before, but like, there's seven touchpoints before somebody makes like any type of inquiry. So you mm-hmm. Somebody has to like, See your logo or hear about you seven times before they take action of any kind.

Yeah. You can't measure that easily because your metric or what you report on might be, oh, well they filled out a form on our website, but they may have seen you on LinkedIn and they may have walked by your booth at I M T S or automate. And so it's a little challenging, to measure some of those things.

One of the things I was gonna say about the tulip time thing that we won't know, probably we won't be able to measure. We're being a little scrappy on how we're sourcing things. So like we'll have tulip pots on it and we source them. They were donated to us. [00:21:00] So we're trying to keep the costs low because it is something that we don't know if there's gonna be any type of return that we can see on a balance sheet.

Yeah. Um, probably not in the traditional sense, but showing the community who might, like you said, people have long memories, they might. Recognize us, or maybe I've heard of them. Mm-hmm. Oh, that company. So whatever, doing something like this is sort of like fun and whimsical and maybe a little silly. And while we are very serious and excellent engineers and machine builders at what we do, we also like to have fun and doing something that really shows our personality like this.

You know, it's something that the team got excited about and building community and partnerships that way. It's holistic. It's not just transactional. Yeah. It's, and it's truly who we are. So I think that's why it makes the team more on board to do stuff like this. And if you know Scott, uh, Linda and our c e o, like, he's the same way.

He'll invite people in for tours all of the [00:22:00] time who might not necessarily be directly related to automation, but he really believes in a sense of community and partnership. And it's real, like he's kind of taught us, or I guess I'll backstep a little bit, In the last year, I feel like having worked with Scott for the last couple of years and previously in my career.

Mm-hmm. More recently this year, just understanding how building your community can make your life or your career so much better. Just by getting people who have the same or similar goals in your corner with you and motivated to achieve whatever it is. Help your customer be successful, so partner with your robot supplier and get to know them for real.

Yeah. Because it's gonna be so much better if you're working with people that you know, for real instead of transactionally. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you and I think from my standpoint as well, when we started Quoing, we didn't have a budget for marketing. We a small team. So how do you get [00:23:00] yourself out there?

I mean, it's a different situation, right? You guys are not small. You guys are not like resource constrained in that matter. But of course everybody should be smart with their marketing budgets also. Mm-hmm. And I am personally a huge fan of kind of thinking through it. From a community standpoint, I wish that more companies thought about their local communities as well, even though they're maybe not.

And in your case, like your local community could be your customers, right? Cuz you have a lot of manufacturers in your backyard before A lot of other companies, it's not, their local communities are not necessarily their customers and so they don't engage. Mm-hmm. And then I've, on the flip side, been with big companies that'll, they'll spend a lot of money on, let's say like team building exercises or retreats or something.

But again, it's very isolated and it's, yes, let's take the sales team out to do something fun. Whereas I love how you kind of thought of this like, hey, this is something that we're doing and the benefits are many, including helping our recruiting efforts, getting the name out to customers, something fun for our team to work on that they can get excited about.

That's out of the box. Something that they don't have to, you know, not their normal job. [00:24:00] I bet that has like internal team building implications as well to be able to work on fun stuff like this. Like I see that from Loop a lot and I'm just like, man, you guys do so much school stuff. But it seems like it really, a, some of it is real customer, work.

But b I can only imagine that if you worked at Loop and you got to do that kind of stuff, like they probably retain people much more easily than those that are only like, come in, do absolutely what you have to get paid and that's it for sure. It's nice to be able to have that fulfilling work life rather than just coming in, getting paid, going home.

That's something I heard from Courtney initially. She's like, yeah I had this engineering dub and I would go in and it was just meh and I'd go home and get my paycheck and it was meh. And then she got into automation and she's just so into it and, has worked with some great people, as well.

And it's a whole different, you know, thinking about your career when you feel that way about work, whether it's your company that you work with as well as all the partners. You guys are in a great position being a systems integrator, you get to really partner [00:25:00] with a lot of customers as well as a lot of the vendors.

Yeah. Are you sort of newer to like, have you been doing events like you've been doing? Cause we met in Florida at a three. The forum, and I see that you did a retreat recently as well. I saw some LinkedIn stuff that seemed like it was really fun. Is that something newer for you or have you been out there doing those in-person, events and things for a while?

Uh, yes and no. It's mostly newer. Just a couple weeks ago I was driving and thinking, like, if I had to reflect on what I would say this year, if I could sum it up to a phrase, I would say it's probably plugged in. This is the year I went to a three. I got to know you. I got to know Chris in person.

Mm-hmm. Um, Chris Luki. So I hadn't known him outside of just digitally until then as well. I M T S going to fan events there last year. Automate going to a fan event and a plus one event. So working with our partners more in person. Of course, it was Covid for a few years, but when I took this marketing position, it was, everything was locked down.

[00:26:00] But, I am such a people person that I have found that to be such a fulfilling component of my job that I want to continue doing that. The manufacturing Champs event, that was really amazing to get to know so many influencers in our space and learn from them about influencer marketing. It's something that we see often, but to really talk about it and learn just processes and how to beat imposter syndrome and all of that was really enriching and fulfilling and.

You know, help me just feel more part of the industry. Yeah. But things like automate, I've been going to, since, I think the first one was in maybe 2015. Okay. That I went to IMTS Fabtech, so shows I've been going to for quite a while as well as working at career fairs and that's something I still do here now.

But, um, events, some of the more, the larger industry events have been a newer thing and I love it. Do you feel like since you started going to shows in 2015, between then and now, have they [00:27:00] changed or is it pretty much the same from like your perspective? I was such a new then, so I'm trying to think through, I think they've changed in the sense.

Of especially after, sorry, keep bringing up the pandemic. But it is like, no, it's a big deal. It's a big, it's a big thing. Yeah. I mean we had to stop and think about is it worth it to do shows? Yeah. In-person shows. Can we just do digitally we've been surviving as an ent, like on a global level. Mm-hmm.

Digitally, and do we even need to meet in person anymore? And I would say yes. Yeah. And I know a lot of people would say no, but I would, I'm a hundred percent in the camp of Yes. Do I think we should have hybrid work schedules? Yes. Yeah. Do I think people should be able to work from home when they want to or need to?

Yes. But I will not sleep on the value of being in person because there's so many interactions that happen organically that simply don't happen in the digital realm. And that the same has to be said for trade [00:28:00] shows. Yeah. Like you can watch, and I like obviously love video, but you can watch demo videos.

On your screen and maybe you're in a silo or maybe you don't have the light bulb go on that you would have if you were in person and talking with somebody. Yep. There's just energy exchanged in person that I think can't be replaced. I absolutely agree with you. Change shows have changed a lot for me, but I also think it's, I've changed a lot too, so I'll ask that question just because in my world I feel like shows have changed, but I also realize part of it is that my relationship with shows has changed.

The way I show up at them, what I do at them has changed. It's really nice to be able to know people before you go to the show, and that's, to me, where like the whole hybrid online and offline is so amazing because you can meet these people on LinkedIn or Zooms or you know, whatever that is via email.

And then when you meet them in person and have [00:29:00] that warm, I finally, get to shake your hand. But we already know each other. It's also such a different introduction than when you do everything cold in person. Just showing up at, like, I've been to Pack Expo before where I didn't really know anybody.

Then it was really overwhelming and I found that like some of the people were not all that friendly or, you know, wanted to show me what I wanted to see or whatever. And, I walked away that year from the show with like a, ugh, I don't wanna go here again. Mm-hmm. But I can only imagine if I went, now with the network that I have and the conversations, if I were to post on LinkedIn a couple times before the show, Hey, who's gonna be there?

 I would probably not get that feeling at all that I felt, sort of not at home, not welcomed. But I still see that I saw somebody, post after I m t S that she was like, man, it was such a horrible experience. And I just thought to myself, well, first of all, that's a giant show. And I can imagine that definitely two people could have to totally opposite experiences [00:30:00] depending on, I guess, what their network is, who they were there to see, how they were received.

And this was a woman and she was commenting on, in particular, I guess not feeling, welcomed as a woman or respected. And I did go to, I went to a couple booths where I felt the same, and thankfully I had enough other stuff going on that it did not color my experience at the show completely with that.

 But it's unfortunate that that still exists. Yeah. But I would say like, it's not necessarily the entire story either. Yeah. You make such good points, even for you and I meeting at a three. Yeah. Like it would be so much more intimidating to even start a conversation with somebody. I think if you hadn't connected first or had some other touchpoint, like we're so fortunate that we can do both now.

Yeah. And I love that and I love like being able to have these online relationships and then meet in person, when the timing is right or when the opportunity comes versus having to say, oh, well let's schedule, an in-person meeting when it's really inconvenient. Mm-hmm. Um, so [00:31:00] I'm a huge fan of this whole hybrid thing, to be honest.

Mm-hmm. I was a fan of it before Covid. I had a hybrid schedule at one of my previous jobs where I worked partially from home, partially in the office, and then partially at customer sites. I've also found out about myself as I've gotten older, like I am a buffet type of person. Like you asked me what my favorite meal is and honestly I will give you like, Oh, it could be the, like I used to do a leftover buffet when I was little and I would have to be in charge of like a meal at home.

I would just pull out everything that was already cooked in the fridge and I'm like, there's a lot of stuff on the table. Have what you like. It doesn't have to be a full meal. Um mm-hmm. And that's why I thrive really well in jobs that have like lot of variability. Not a very detailed set. Like, you have to do this all day, every day.

I would get crazy bored. Sounds like you're a little similar when it comes to that. I know you mentioned putting your title on this on the screen before and you're like, well, I do wear a lot of hats. Yeah, I am. Yeah. [00:32:00] You're really like speaking my language here. I have to have a variety. Like it's just who I am as a person.

So yeah. I'm, so, I feel really, fortunate to sometimes I'm like, oh, I've got this and that, and this and that. And sometimes it can be a lot, but for the most part it's like, thank goodness I have so much Yeah. Variability and so many different things I can do. I just don't, I can't even see a world where that wouldn't be my case because I would find something else Yes.

To do. Like it's just, you would just do it outside of work then if they wouldn't allow you to do that at work. Yeah. Which I think, you know, thankfully we're getting to a place in the world where we're realizing that like people's individuality can be strengths rather than having to all fit into a certain mold as we get better with machine learning and, we can like mass personalize things more.

Mm-hmm. Of course there's always a challenge, pros and cons to things like that. But I think as we evolve what work looks like, the more that we can actually tap into [00:33:00] individual people's strengths, and weaknesses rather than shoving them into a job description, that has to be the same for everyone.

Mm-hmm. The more we can puzzle together, like the right people doing the things that they love and that they're good at, I think those are kind of the organizations that are really gonna thrive and grow. Beyond just the ones that say, okay, we've been hiring this way for 30 years and we're just gonna keep doing that even though nobody's applying for our jobs, and we're just gonna complain that nobody wants to work.

Right? There's plenty of people out there that wanna work, they just may not wanna work the way that you want them to. And I think that you, we reflect, you see that in your number of applicants or whatever that is. Uh, do you guys have any recruiting challenges? Do you feel like there's not enough skilled workforce to work in our industry, in your area?

Or do you think that it's, you know, maybe more of a culture problem? Like there are people out there that our industry can have, but not all the companies in our industry are attracting them? That's a huge question. I ask a lot of compound questions. I'm sorry. And sometimes I answer my own question before I give it to you too.

I'm like, [00:34:00] just overall it's like there's a labor issue overall. Yeah. We are lucky to have really good relationships with some. Strong engineering groups at Grand Valley, which is a college here. Okay. Grand Valley State University. We do a co-op program there. Nice. We also do the same for Lake Superior State University, which has a really strong robotics and engineering program.

 So those are ways that we, work to recruit and inform the incoming workforce. Mm-hmm. But yeah, we see challenges. I think we've been really fortunate that our company has grown quite a bit over the last couple of years and we've been lucky to fill most of the positions quickly that we. Are searching for, but we are almost always hiring and the need for controls and mechanical engineers is huge here as it is in a lot of places.

So that's something that myself and Mandy, I was telling you about Mandy before we started recording, but she's awesome. [00:35:00] She's got such a passion for talent development and recruiting and having her on our team, kind of heading that entire force up is, has been really, really great for our team. Oh that's great.

So you guys are mainly hiring, or not mainly, but you have those talent pipelines out of colleges. What would you, do you have any recommendations if somebody maybe outside of the industry or didn't have that experience yet? I know you mentioned earlier on the show that you thought about getting your feet wet as a controls engineer.

Are there ways within mission to come in and start somewhere and evolve? Totally. Great question. I'm glad you asked that. So we just, this year we launched an apprenticeship program. So some people who may not have a lot of industry experience or want to learn more on a deeper level, for machine build and electrician.

Mm-hmm. Roles. We have a partnership that we just kicked off this year with Grand Rapids Community [00:36:00] College so they can learn more in upskill. We also do cross training here. So, um, we have a team member that. This is just one example. We have a team member that was a builder here. Mm-hmm. Wasn't going to sch, hadn't gone to school ever to work in automation.

Came, started tinkering and became a machine builder and wanted to learn more about controls engineering. And so we did a cross training program with him just internally. Mm-hmm. And now he's doing controls engineering or could, you know, he's programming machines. Yeah. Um, well that's a win-win.

Yes, for sure. And think about like the vast understanding you have at that point. Yes. And what an asset you are to your team. So he's not the only one. We've done cross-training for quite a few different roles, here that want to learn some other areas and will continue to do that because it only makes your team stronger to have them understand all.

All the, all of the sides. Yeah, definitely. And again, another way I'm sure to increase [00:37:00]retention because you're not sticking people, pigeonholing them into one job. And then if they wanna grow, they go elsewhere. Right. Versus you letting them grow internally and then they become even more valuable to you than if they stuck around doing the same thing.

Totally. And I was thinking about this just from a marketing standpoint. Mm-hmm. I experienced this, earlier in my career where I never knew the value. I mean, I knew the value, but in hindsight, the value of starting out as a tech writer and being part of the project team and learning what the mes do, and what the quotas do, and what the controls engineers do, and how the machine goes together and what things mean like lockout tagout and different things like that.

Yeah. Having to understand what all of these different areas of automation systems mean. Mm-hmm. Made marketing for the industry so much. , it made it make sense. Yeah. So like when you had hire people that had no experience in automation or manufacturing to be part of the marketing team.

There were, I'm [00:38:00] not, they were great people and awesome marketers, but there were some learning challenges that I didn't realize until that happened. That how fortunate I was to get it Yeah. To like, speak the language and understand what the hell was going on. Yep, yep. No, I spoke with the marketer, for a company in our industry earlier today, and she didn't have to tell me that she was new at it because she mixed up a couple of terms.

I, I'm not gonna judge based on that. Like, welcome to the industry. Thank you. Come here like we need you come learn it. But it was very obvious and I sometimes take for granted what I've learned over the last 15 years as being something that like, oh, I'm not any kind of expert. I don't, you know, I'm nothing special.

 But even just having that kind of cross-functional experience, Understanding within a machine builder what everybody does and what everything means. I mean, that, that's worth a lot. That's a skill in and of itself. Yeah. Um, because most people don't, I mean, many positions don't ever get that kind of holistic view Right.

Where they get to see everybody, [00:39:00] or learn what everybody does. Yeah. It was, it was funny. She said it twice and I was like, I don't need to correct you. You'll learn. You'll learn. But it is, also with this podcast, right? We have a producer who, we love Laura, but she doesn't know our industry and she's like getting to know all these things as she hears us.

I can only imagine what like two, three years from now, she knows about our industry just from having listened to all the automation ladies episodes. Yeah. But it's funny to see also as she evolves, cuz she writes sometimes the episode descriptions and stuff when I don't have time and. From her perspective as a person outside the industry, it's really interesting to see like what themes she picks up.

And then maybe, some things that are nuanced that like, you know, she of course she wouldn't know mm-hmm. To focus on this or that, but, I think we are so used to our industry being so insulated. It's not one of those technologies or industries that like many people know about or understand unless they come into it.

I mean, even just I, [00:40:00] when people ask me what I did, I just stopped like actually trying to explain it because I was like, oh yeah. Robots and stuff, or like sensors and stuff because mm-hmm. You, their eyes will just glaze over when you start talking about what we actually do. Right? For sure. I used to always say, have you ever seen how it's made?

Yeah. That's what we do. Have you ever seen how it's made? Yep, yep. Because that's like the only popular culture reference that's really, that's still what we reference in terms of like, what do people see about manufacturing? Mm-hmm. Love that show. Uh mm-hmm. A lot of the machines they show there are like super old school, like they were developed like a hundred years ago and they still turned out just thousands and thousands of parts.

It's not necessarily modern automation that you're seeing there. Mm-hmm. But you are seeing a rare glimpse into how things are made. Isn't it so funny though too, now that you're like in the industry Yeah. Recognizing brands or something. If you're, I remember on the show, I think it was Unwrapped, I was like, oh, that's a fan rope.

I know so much about what, oh, unwrapped. I forgot about [00:41:00] that one. I just thought of that one. Yeah, those are the two. Cuz you could point out industrial machinery mm-hmm. And be like, oh, I. I know what that is now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like when you get a car and then all you see is that car on the road now.

Like Yeah. I went on a brewery tour when I was in college and all the college kids cared about the beer and I was like, oh, look at that process over there and this bottling line and like, oh, here's the labeler.

Yes. Yeah. Well, I think more people need to know how fun our industry is, and not only is it, you know, these robots, they see spot, they see, those sorts of things in popular media and they're like, ah, are they gonna take over? And the rest of us are like, we are just gonna keep building machines to ship out the stuff that you think happens magically somewhere.

Also, the answer is no. Like, yeah, rose not gonna take all the jobs. No. Create jobs. Yeah. No, we need a, we need all the robots cuz there's not enough people to do the jobs. And B then [00:42:00]when we put in the robot, we need people to do all kinds of other stuff around it. So it's not, you know, it's not a, that they can actually come in.

I mean, sometimes they come in and directly replace couple operators or whatever, but hopefully, and this is, again, it's a culture problem, right? If you're the type of manufacturer that decides to just fire those operators because you got a robot in, you're gonna have a talent problem, you're gonna have all kinds of problems, all you know, throughout the rest of time.

Mm-hmm. If that's how you look at your business and think, okay, I can save money by getting rid of these two people by, you know, putting in the robot. If you thought about that person has learned how to operate that machine for how long, think about if they got upskilled to do something that involves overseeing the robot, operating the machine, and learning more and becoming, you know, That is just that valuable intel and information about how things used to run day in and day out is so shortsighted in my [00:43:00] opinion, to be like, okay, now we can save the labor cost of this person and get rid of them.

It's you just dumped a bunch of money that you put into this person, training them on how to do this and so much intel about your business and how it runs. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, unless it was just a terrible employee to begin with, and like they're, of course not everybody is who you like need to be keeping around, but anybody that learns how to do these jobs and, that is valuable information.

Definitely. And you would hope that that's what you're doing when you're making your plans for automation is also considering the people component and thinking about, okay, we're gonna. Automate this because it's not safe or it's, you know, it's not a job that we can even keep filled. Mm-hmm. And then the people who are currently doing that, what opportunities can we move them into and how do we elevate what they're doing now into something else that maybe, maybe you don't know that they wanna do?

Yeah, just the [00:44:00] importance of touching base with your team, having good connections, building good relationships. Like I can't stress that. Hard enough. It's something that I've really learned over the last couple years more than ever before, is like the importance of like building, trusting relationships with the people you're working with.

Not only your customers, but also the people right here on your team. Mm-hmm. And your partners and your suppliers. Like it's, makes going to work fun and fulfilling. And maybe I don't speak for everybody, but that's why I'm here. Yeah. That's also why I'm in the industry. Honestly at this point. I'm really excited about a future where like we can use more robots so that we can treat people better.

Like a hundred percent like humans. Like we can be more humane to each other. Yeah. And cuz we don't have to give the robots vacation, right. We need to maintain 'em and all that. But like, the more we can, and again, this is not to get into any kind of political discussion, right. But please, if you're making way more profit because you're implementing a lot more automation, which is typically how things go, right?

You invest in that and then [00:45:00] you become more competitive. You can get more business then. You know, yes. Make more profit, but give some of that back to your people to make it a better place to work to make them more fulfilled. Mm-hmm. I mean, we need that in this world. And I am, I personally think that like more automation can help get us there.

Totally. And so being scared of it, replacing labor is exactly the opposite, right? No. Let's get more robots in here so we can have better jobs for people. Mm-hmm. Not just more of terrible ones. Yeah. A hundred percent. So we're coming up close to the hour here, and I wanna, be cognizant. I actually have some stuff as well to just get, trying to make these episodes a little bit shorter so that we don't, we could probably talk all day.

Is there anything after my barrage of like weird questions that I came up with, and off the cuff discussion, is there anything that you would like to talk about? Today to our audience that listens to automation, ladies that we didn't touch on, that we can make sure to talk about. No, I guess we can, yeah, definitely wrap up.

I think [00:46:00] I just wanna reiterate that if you're somebody out there who is interested, even if you're not sure if you're interested in automation at all, there are really fun careers in the space in automation and manufacturing and, you know, finding great teams that can support different weird, unique goals of yours they exist.

So, yes. Like just be not being afraid to say yes to stuff, even if you're unsure, if you know how to do it, because you'll get trained, especially if you're working with good people, which you wanna hope that you are. And, don't be afraid to take risks when it comes to like taking a new position because like sometimes really cool stuff happens.

I agree with you. Take that leap. I had no idea what any of this was when I started. And I found a company that was, I know, no, you can't drag us out outta this. No, we won't stop talking about like, I've been offer jobs at Meta in places, you know, doing other stuff and I [00:47:00] just, yeah, no, you know, yeah. At this point I'm having too much fun with this.

I see so much happening. I feel like it's such a time to be alive, to be implementing automation and robotics and trying to, you know, bring manufacturing back and make that, a tech job. Mm-hmm. Make that as attractive as going to work for Google or Amazon or any of these companies. I mean, hard software's been needing the world for the last like 10, 20 years.

Well, now is the time for hardware. All the investors have also finally realized after, a lot of the money they invested and all these unicorn companies has evaporated over the last year. That, you know what? There's money to be made in physical things and there's so much to be cut up on.

Mm-hmm. In terms of our infrastructure, our manufacturing capacities, shoring up, you know, resilience in the supply chains. There is an unending list of things that we can do with physical stuff now and obviously marrying that with the advancements in software, we can do so much more with actual hardware now.

Oh yeah. That it's really exciting. Mm-hmm. [00:48:00] Yeah. I'm also not on the engineering. A lot of people do assume that I'm an engineer. I've done a lot of application engineering, I'll call it that. Right. But I'm not, I don't have an engineering degree and I've always done like sales engineering or something cuz I'm such a people person too.

I thought about getting an engineering degree and I was like, I cannot imagine sitting at a desk in a corner somewhere not talking to people all day. So especially if you're a people person where you, even when I get into sales, don't do it because you wanna sell, do it if you're a problem solver, the loves relationships, those I think are the most like successful and most valuable salespeople in our industry mm-hmm.

Are the ones that like get the technical side, they care about solving the problems properly. And you have to learn how to work with engineers, which is a whole nother skill as well. But being that bridge between the business side and the engineering side and making all of that work is a whole art and a science in and of itself that, I think many people that haven't been in the industry or know what that kind of job feels like, they just don't know how cool it is, in my opinion.

[00:49:00] Is like the coolest job ever. Yeah. , aside from the one I have now, which is building partnerships. So I guess, yeah. One last question. Role of community, I feel like back in the day was always me, me, me, my company. My technology is the best. Now I, the main observation I make from shows, and again, this may just be, but from my perspective, is yes, there's like more cool technology coming out, but what's really catapulting like more success is the way that some of the companies have starting to look at themselves as part of an ecosystem or a community, rather than having to go at it alone.

Do you feel that as a sense, you know, in, in what you're doing, Sammy and relationship building from a partnership like ecosystem perspective, should that be a bigger part of what we're doing going forward? Definitely. I echo your feeling of shows having so much more camaraderie, people working together to the sense of like, every time I'm [00:50:00] at a show, I'm.

Doing something with a supplier. Yeah. Like we're working on projects together. This is for mutual benefit. It's not just mission or it's not just one of the robot suppliers or end of arm tool providers. We're doing it together and we're coming up with ways that we can help each other all the time. And uniquely as an integrator, you we have to do that.

That's what we do. Right, right. So it's a little bit different than somebody who is in automation Component product providing you know what I'm saying though. So it's a little bit different than somebody that is offering specific components.

Mm-hmm. But as an integrator, we, our entire business is built on good partnerships and integrating different components. So, We always are working together with, we'll walk shows with a customer, with two different of our suppliers and talk about different technologies and ways things are used and how they might support what they're trying to accomplish.

And we're there to do, to help them do that. We want to help our [00:51:00] customer reach their goal. So, and then it, we're all part of a team and we're in it for the long haul together because automation projects take a long time. So you wanna have these really trusting relationships. Not only do they take a long time, but then there's, you know, actually implementing and supporting them for the lifetime of that machine.

Right. And you want that, right? You want to have long relationships with people. You don't wanna only have one project and never do it again. That's like the first time you got to know them. Yeah. You only want to work with people for the long haul and that's why I know I keep bringing it up, but like that's why building good relationships is the key item.

Yeah. To be successful in my op from my perspective. Mm-hmm. No, and I'll say the same. I mean, people ask me all the time about, advice of getting jobs or, even creating content, how do I go about doing that? I started going to trade shows and just connecting with people that I met and that sort of thing.

But like my network. I was just built [00:52:00] these relationships with no particular agenda. Like I didn't need anything from them or they didn't have anything to offer me at the time. But oh my gosh, the business that has come out of that, just from that relationship, you started with no expectations. You start to add value to each other when and where you can.

 And then ultimately when people can choose who to work with, they will choose those people. Yeah. I know somebody that you know, is about to make a change job-wise and, they've, been pulled into something and I'm like, it's because this person knows that you are good and they're gonna try to poach you no matter where you go.

Because finding good people is hard. And when you already have a relationship with, you know what people you can trust and count on, it doesn't really matter exactly what they know. If you know that you can like, Trust them to do, you know, what they should do or live up to their word, for instance. Mm-hmm.

Um, and our industry is fairly small. I mean, it's big, but it's also very small. Mm-hmm. And, reputation [00:53:00] does sometimes precede you. Mm-hmm. And systems I integrators are one of those companies as well. Like, if you go out and integrate a bunch of bad stuff, you'll eventually stop, you know, your business will dry up.

Yeah. Or you're gonna have to work way, way, way too hard to just always get new customers in the door if you're not keeping them and growing those relationships. Yep. So anyway, with that said, my very long winded agreement and recap is what you're saying. I think we've made a pretty good point today, on the show that regardless of what type of position you're in, in the automation industry, focus on those relationships because whether you're in an engineering position, somebody that you worked with or worked for will go somewhere else.

They'll pull you in, like you said, some of the people you used to work with came to work at Mission. And they suggested you did the same. Right. This is how good people end up, in different places. We pull each other along because you can't help it, but wanna keep working with those people. If you're, you know, you wanna make a change, you want [00:54:00] to cross train, do something new, just tell everybody around you all the time that that's what you wanna do.

Mm-hmm. And if it's not your company that picks up on that, give them some time. Obviously they can't like move you tomorrow necessarily, but if they don't have any desire to wanna help you with that, tell it to everybody in your network outside of your work and somebody will pick up you on your desire to learn.

Mm-hmm. Because, like Allie was saying earlier, she does not have hard requirements for the people that she's trying to hire right now, other than the fact that they are extremely thirsty to learn and willing to learn what she's doing. And she teach them hire for attitude, right? Absolutely. Hire for attitude, train on skill.

Yep. That's something we believe in here and. The one thing I was just gonna say to add to what you were saying is also if you're in a management position or a leadership position, it's really important that you have a pulse on what your employees wanna do. Yeah. So if you're listening and you're kind of in one of those roles, make sure you're checking in and, you know, that's what is fostering such a good environment.

That's [00:55:00] how you, I think, keep your employees happy and you want people to keep working with you. Right? So help pave those pathways for people. Make the connection if they wanna cross train or they wanna explore something new. You just never know. So like, I guess just don't put yourself in a box that doesn't exist or put your employee in one.

That's a great point, Sammy, that absolutely. I don't tend to speak to the management audience. Much. I also personally feel like I usually in am intimidated by them, uh, which is I know is dumb. Like I have so many people that have offered to help and mentor me and I'm always just like, ah, yeah, okay, thank you.

But I don't know what to do with that. But I think yeah, sometimes it's like blindly trusting somebody. Yeah, yeah. Blindly trusting that somebody has good intentions too, which can be hard. But I think again, if there was actually like just an open, more informal maybe dialogue, that was, maybe it was more common for people at [00:56:00] different levels to like, interact with each other like that it wouldn't be so intimidating.

Mm-hmm. But I think sometimes it is, and that's not to say that this person isn't trying to be approachable or helpful. Mm-hmm. I just feel like we've had all these different like ways of stratifying ourselves over. You know, in the past we had to do that to survive. Mm-hmm. And that is changing now.

 I think you can have conversations. There's even such a thing called reverse mentoring now, which I had never known about, but makes a lot of sense cuz things have changed so much Yeah. In such a short period of time that honestly anybody can learn from anybody. Mm-hmm. Um, and I did see Anne Wyatt, who we know from LinkedIn and I'll be meeting her at Automate in Person.

Oh yeah. Yep. She did, a survey for a large manufacturer to try to understand why they were having such trouble filling and retain filling jobs and retaining employees. And the number one thing that she ended up getting back after talking to all these people that had left this manufacturing company was just that there was not really any communication with [00:57:00] management and they had sometimes relatively minor issues that could have been solved with some communication that made the job not a good fit for them.

And they left because there wasn't a culture of like, Hey, I can go talk to somebody about this and they're gonna care. It was just like, well, the schedule is this, the job is this. And if it didn't work for them, they would just quit and go somewhere else. Because employment at that level, if you treat it that way, is very transactional.

And yeah, I think we're, you know, hopefully seeing that like transactional nature of business or employment relationships does not really benefit people at all. Mm-hmm. It's costly for everyone involved. It costs a lot to, to get more employees through the door. So yeah. Absolutely. I look forward to continuing this community, that we are building and that we have informally between us at this point.

 We don't really have any business to do, but I just love, seeing what you're doing, seeing your face that shows, , I So you're gonna be at Automate, right? Yep. [00:58:00] Okay, well we will be seeing you in person then. We have some, some pretty cool stuff planned. Yep. I can't wait. Yeah. So, where can people find you, Sammy?

Who should they follow in terms of your page, your content, your company? Tell us where people should find you outside of your guest profile page on automation ladies.io. Perfect. Yeah. You can find me on LinkedIn at Sammy Birch and follow mission, design and automation. We're on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook.

Yeah, those are the best ways, but you can email me through LinkedIn if you wanna chat about anything ever. Yeah, and I'll say the same if you're listening to this, if you're a guest, we are approachable people. Don't be scared to reach out. Um, you know, we're, we're just, just out here. Normal people doing what we do, just like you are, even though we're on the screen or on your whatever podcast, your radio or something.

Uh, it's, it's weird. Exactly. Well, thank you so much Sammy. I appreciate your time. Yeah, this has been so fun. Great to see you. Likewise, and I'll see you in [00:59:00] a few weeks in Detroit. Super excited. See you then. Bye. Bye.[01:00:00] [01:01:00] [01:02:00] [01:03:00] [01:04:00]