75. I’ve Seen It All: From Apprentice to Cars, Rockets, Implants & Robots – Jim Cooney
Release Date: 03/26/2025
102. He Borrowed $1M to Save His Team: Gary Poesnecker with Spectrum Machine & Design
Machine Shop Mastery
Some machine shop owners talk about people-first leadership. Few are willing to put everything on the line to prove it. In this episode of Machine Shop Mastery, I sit down with Gary Poesnecker, founder of Spectrum Machine & Design, whose leadership was tested when the world shut down. Faced with collapsing demand during COVID, Gary made a decision most owners wouldn’t: he borrowed over $1 million to keep his team employed and protect the tribal knowledge inside his shop. That moment didn’t happen in isolation. It was the result of decades of experience across precision grinding,...
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101. Extreme Specialization: The Strategy Behind a 123-Person Gear Company
Machine Shop Mastery
Most machine shops grow by adding capabilities, chasing new markets, and saying “yes” as often as possible. Forest City Gear took the opposite path — and built a 123-person company by doing it. In this episode of Machine Shop Mastery, I sit down with Kika Young, President of Forest City Gear, to unpack how extreme specialization became the company’s competitive advantage. Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, Forest City Gear made the intentional decision to focus almost exclusively on one thing: high-precision, loose gears. That focus reshaped everything — from who...
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100. Collective Wisdom: Best Ideas from the First 99 Episodes of Machine Shop Mastery
Machine Shop Mastery
Reaching 100 episodes is more than a milestone. It’s a moment to step back and recognize what’s been built together. In this special compilation episode of Machine Shop Mastery, I reflect on the most powerful ideas, lessons, and human stories that emerged from the first 99 conversations with shop owners and manufacturing leaders across the industry. When this podcast started, I thought we were chasing a simple question: what makes great shops great? What became clear over time is that we weren’t really talking about machines or parts at all. We were talking about responsibility,...
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99. Love God, Love People, and Make Chips: The Visionary Leadership of Bill Cox
Machine Shop Mastery
Some manufacturing businesses grow because of timing, technology, or market opportunity. Others endure because of values. In this episode of Machine Shop Mastery, I sit down with Bill Cox of Cox Manufacturing, a nearly 70-year-old family business whose legacy was forged through resilience, faith, and an unwavering commitment to people. Bill shares the remarkable origin story of Cox Manufacturing, which began with a single Swiss machine purchased at auction in the 1950s and grew into a high-volume precision operation shipping millions of parts each week. Along the way, the company played a...
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98. Behind the Scenes of a Top Shop with Jayme Rahz
Machine Shop Mastery
What does a truly dialed-in machine shop look like behind the scenes? In this episode of Machine Shop Mastery, I sit down with Jayme Rahz of Midway Swiss Turn, one of the most intentional and well-run shops I’ve come across. I met Jayme at the Top Shops Conference, where Midway Swiss Turn was recognized for Shop Floor Best Practices, and after this conversation, it’s easy to see why. Jayme shares the full origin story of the business, which started in a garage with her father-in-law and grew into a highly automated Swiss-focused operation in Ohio. Over more than two decades, the shop...
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97. The Human Side of Hard Businesses: Culture, Trust, and Long-Term Leadership
Machine Shop Mastery
Staying in business for decades requires more than machines, processes, and good customers.In this episode of Machine Shop Mastery, I sit down with Bonnie and Ken Kuhn of Kuhn Tool, a multi-generation, family-owned shop in northwest Pennsylvania that has quietly endured for more than six decades. What makes this conversation special isn’t just the longevity of the business, but the way Bonnie and Ken have built it together. From surviving offshoring waves and major customer losses to steadily growing from a handful of employees into a thriving operation, their story is rooted in...
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96. From Pole Barn to Precision Powerhouse: Shane Grant’s 10-Year Shop Journey
Machine Shop Mastery
In this episode of Machine Shop Mastery, I finally sit down with Shane Grant from Machining Momentum, a guest I’ve been hoping to have on the show for a long time. Shane has spent the last decade building his shop from the ground up, literally starting in a backyard pole barn and growing it into a precision-focused operation that’s now hitting its stride in a new industrial facility. What makes Shane’s story compelling isn’t just the growth, but how intentionally it happened. He shares how early exposure to machining through a family business, followed by experience in automotive,...
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95. Why Clean Floors, Strong Culture & High-End Machines Drive Valuation
Machine Shop Mastery
One of the questions I think about constantly is what actually makes a machine shop valuable. Not just today, but five, ten, or even twenty years down the road. It’s easy to point to machines, revenue, or backlog, but the real drivers of long-term value usually run much deeper. That’s exactly why I wanted to sit down with Jamie Goettler, Chief Revenue Officer of BTX Precision, for this episode of Machine Shop Mastery. BTX Precision is one of the fastest-growing advanced manufacturing platforms in the country. Jamie brings a rare blend of perspectives to the conversation. With more than two...
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94. How Losing a Machine Shop Led to Gabe Draper’s Calling
Machine Shop Mastery
Some conversations stay with you long after you hit “stop” on the recorder—and my time with Gabe Draper is absolutely one of them. I’ve known Gabe for years, but I never fully understood the depth of the journey he endured as he attempted to take over, stabilize, and ultimately shut down the family machine shop. His story isn’t just informative; it’s gut-wrenching, enlightening, and, ultimately, incredibly redemptive. In this episode, Gabe walks me through the emotional roller coaster of trying to save a failing shop, the painful impact of relying too heavily on one industry,...
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93. A Builder at Heart Pivots and Buys a Machine Shop
Machine Shop Mastery
Buying a machine shop is never simple — and for Matt Fortner, it was a leap into the unknown. Coming from backgrounds in plumbing, industrial fittings, product development, and even scrap metal buying, Matt felt a pull to get back to “building something real.” That pull led him to Progress Machining in Muskegon, Michigan — a shop he became the fifth person to attempt purchasing. Once inside, Matt quickly realized how much transformation the business needed. The shop was filled with aging machines, tribal knowledge, and 60 tons of accumulated scrap and unused tooling. Setups stretched...
info_outlineHow do you go from being the kid who couldn’t sit still in class to leading the machine shop for one of Elon Musk’s most ambitious ventures?
In this gripping and often jaw-dropping episode, I sit down with Jim Cooney—Head of the Machine Shop at Neuralink—for a raw and refreshingly honest conversation about resilience, reinvention, and the unconventional road to mastery in machining.
While Jim isn’t a shop owner (my usual guest profile), his story offers every bit of the leadership lessons, grit, and insight that Machine Shop Mastery is known for.
From his humble beginnings as a high school co-op student in Canada, Jim details how a lack of direction became fuel for a deeply hands-on journey into the world of machining. With stories of brutal old-school shop cultures, tools thrown across the room, and managers who trained with tough love (and zero patience), Jim paints a vivid picture of how adversity shaped his technical excellence and emotional resilience.
But what really sets this episode apart is Jim’s transition from traditional tool & die work to the heart of Silicon Valley innovation. His career path took him from automotive stamping in Ontario to leading critical manufacturing efforts at Tesla, Apollo Fusion, and now Neuralink. He shares what it’s like building high-stakes, high-tech parts under pressure—and how working insane hours during Tesla’s “production hell” made him sharper, faster, and more adaptable.
If you want a peek into the mindset and muscle it takes to thrive in a fast-paced, bleeding-edge manufacturing environment—or you're looking for inspiration on how to grow through adversity—this episode delivers in spades.
You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in…
- (0:00) Jim kicks off with a fun story about getting a missile export license
- (0:14) Why you should complete the Modern Machine Shops Top Shops Survey
- (1:42) Learn about Jim Cooney and his unique journey in manufacturing
- (4:35) Jim shares how struggling in school led him to discover machining
- (8:00) Stories from his early days in tough, old-school Canadian machine shops
- (10:44) Jim explains Canada’s apprenticeship system and earning his Red Seal
- (14:19) Jim’s first exposure to CNC and CAM at Massiv Die Form
- (20:04) Why Jim quit on the spot after being massively undervalued
- (22:13) How Jim moved into machining instruction at a college
- (25:46) How teaching machining and coaching hockey built his leadership skills
- (28:27) A surprise text leads Jim to Tesla during “production hell”
- (31:17) Wild stories from Tesla’s stamping department and nonstop chaos
- (34:21) Navigating the die process at Tesla (repair work)
- (38:15) Creating a game-changing apprenticeship program inside Tesla
- (40:41) Moving into the startup world with Apollo Fusion and later Astra
- (46:00) Facing burnout, broken promises, and the tough side of acquisitions
- (48:58) Quitting Astro and joining Neuralink the day he got his green card
- (51:49) Jim’s experience working at Neuralink (and their trajectory)
- (57:12) Jim’s process choosing the machinery they needed
- (1:00:15) Building and growing a team with a high standard of excellence
- (1:03:37) Skills to acquire if you aspire to be in leadership
- (1:06:33) Why you need to check out the Lights Out podcast
Resources & People Mentioned
Connect with Jim Cooney
- Connect on LinkedIn
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Audio Production and Show Notes by - PODCAST FAST TRACK