Decoding Aftermarket Success: Strategies and Reflections with Chad Sloan
In this episode of the Aftermarket Champions Podcast, host Vivek Joshi interviews Chad Sloan (Director, Global CS&I Sales) from Axcelis Technologies, who emphasizes the importance of starting with customer challenges to develop effective aftermarket solutions. He highlights that understanding customer needs allows for the creation of standardized solutions, crucial for managing limited resources efficiently. Chad points out that OEMs have a unique advantage due to their comprehensive capabilities and global infrastructure, which can be leveraged to provide tailored solutions. Additionally, he stresses the need for having the right people to build trust and relationships with customers, which is essential for successful engagement and problem-solving. Chad also discusses the critical role of the sales force, advocating for the use of tools and automation to minimize administrative burdens and maximize customer interaction time. This approach ensures that salespeople can focus on developing relationships and understanding customer needs, rather than being bogged down by internal tasks. A significant challenge identified is the "silver tsunami," referring to the retiring of experienced workers and the loss of their valuable knowledge. Chad suggests that AI could be a solution to capture and retain this knowledge, but it must be implemented carefully to avoid security risks. Reflecting on his career, Chad notes that successful aftermarket service providers distinguish themselves through a deep understanding of their market, strong customer relationships, and meticulous attention to detail. Mastery of data and detailed knowledge builds credibility and trust with customers, which are crucial for long-term success. For those beginning their careers, Chad advises being curious, open to new opportunities, and willing to embrace uncomfortable challenges. He believes that while luck plays a role, sustained success is driven by hard work and making the most of opportunities. The conversation concludes with a reflection on the balance between luck and personal effort in achieving career success. Chad's journey illustrates that while initial breaks may come by chance, sustained success results from hard work, attention to detail, and maintaining strong customer relationships.
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Hi folks, welcome back to season 2 of the Aftermarket Champions podcast. I'm
your host Vivek Joshi,
founder and CEO of Entitled. We help equipment manufacturers identify,
prioritize and sell
aftermarket and service solutions to their install base. Insights, our purpose-
built
install base intelligence platform, is used by leading OEMs globally to drive
revenue growth
and improve customer experience and satisfaction. I'm delighted to be back
finally enriching journey
into the world of aftermarket excellence. Throughout the season, we'll engage
in an insightful
discussion with industry leaders, exploring innovative strategies and
invaluable insights
to propel us forward in the industrial aftermarket sector. So, without further
ado, let's embark
on this journey together. Okay, good afternoon everybody. This is Vivek Joshi,
your host of
the Aftermarket Champions podcast. I'm really excited to welcome our guest
today, Chad Sloane
from Excellus. Excellus is a semiconductor equipment manufacturer and Chad is a
director of CSNI.
I'll let him explain what CSNI means and Chad is based in Valle Durham, North
Carolina.
With that, Chad, welcome to the show. Thanks for being our guest and love to
hear a little bit
about yourself, a little bit of Excellus and more importantly, what does CSNI
stand for and
what does it mean in the context of aftermarketing service? Thanks Vivek. I
appreciate you having
me on your show. I'm excited to be here. So, yeah, let me a little bit about my
background. So,
probably best to kind of give you a sense of where I started. So, right out of
college, I was in
the Navy and had an opportunity to spend a few years as an officer working in
reactor power.
So, I was nuclear trained, did that for a while, had great time, great
opportunities, but decided
it was time to leave and do something different right about that time when I
was transitioning out.
In 2000, Intel was building their latest factory in Arizona. I was from Arizona
originally looking
to get back there. I was able to leverage my leadership capabilities, my
technical background,
and the fact that I wanted to be in Arizona and got a job with applied
materials in the field,
working as a field service manager. So, the very beginning of my corporate
career started in the
aftermarket. So, spent a few years learning the industry, learning what it
takes to hire and train
field service engineers, get them ready to install equipment, get them ready to
support contracts.
And yeah, after a few years, had an opportunity to move into the sales side of
things. So, still
in the aftermarket, still thinking about how do we position solutions to
support our customers
in a manufacturing environment, make them successful, had the opportunity to
work with a wide variety
of customers in that space, some very large, some very small. So, a lot of
different challenges
worked with a lot of different types of customers. Also, during that time,
decided that we were
tired of the brown and the heat and looked for more trees and water. And that
led to a move to
Raleigh, North Carolina, where I am now, as you mentioned. I also had an
opportunity then to move
to different industries. So, I changed from semiconductor manufacturing into
contract manufacturing,
and spent a few years selling design and manufacturing services for a large
tier one contract manufacturer.
Still in a sales role, but really moving now from a more of a farming into a
hunting role,
looking for companies that were looking to change their manufacturing strategy,
companies that were building electronic-based devices and selling design and
manufacturing
services to them. Then, COVID hit and all of the related supply chain
constraints that went
along with that. And I started noticing what was happening to all of my
customers, the semiconductor
manufacturers, and what was going on with our bonds. And that sort of thing,
and decided maybe I
didn't pick the best time to get out of the industry, had an opportunity to
come back in
with Excelis as the director of Global CS9 Sales. So, CS9 at Excelis stands for
customer solutions
and innovation. That's basically how we describe the aftermarket. It's how we
describe the solutions
that we offer once the equipment has been sold, installed and qualified. Our
customers have to
make decisions about how to support that equipment over sometimes decades. That
's where we come in.
It's interesting. You kind of glossed over something which I think was quite
creditable. You were a USNA guy, if I remember correctly.
I did gloss over that. Yes, so, an AVLIS class 95.
Exactly, which is pretty impressive. And then you're a Navy nuclear guy,
which is also not a shabby place to be because I've been around Navy nuclear
guys. And it's a
pretty demanding posting, if I would say so.
Yeah, that's probably an understatement. What I learned in the Navy was the
amount of pain
involved with your job increases exponentially with the rewards that they give
you. So, the
nuclear signing bonus was attractive for a college student. And I learned a lot
. Don't
get me wrong, but it was intense. But I'm going to digress for a little bit to
pick on this Navy
nuclear experience as it relates to services. If you think about Navy nuclear,
the service level
agreements that you need to have in place with your vendors and with your own
maintenance teams
have got to be extraordinary. Both from the perspective of reliability and
making sure
the reactors run and things happen, but safety. And so, there's a whole
complication than the
service supply chain and the service process and delivery process that I have
to believe is
probably a... We all think and tell with copy exact is a degree of demanding
perfection. I have to believe that Navy nuclear was probably one notch above
that.
Yeah, we didn't turn a valve unless a book told us to. When you think about it,
it makes sense.
If you're working on an aircraft carrier and off the coast of another nation,
the last thing
going to be doing is discharging radioactive fluid into international water. So
, yeah,
there's a tremendous amount of oversight that goes into it, but also a
tremendous amount of
training. So, I spent a year in school following my formal college education
just to learn how to
do these things. Part of my pain was personal because I was a computer science
major. So,
there was no ability to leverage that degree into learning nuclear power. So, I
was drinking
from a fire hose. But if you think about that experience and you think of you,
you were even
for... Even though you worked for applied materials, you were assigned to the
intel account as you
put in your LinkedIn. And again, intel is a pretty demanding customer. The copy
exact philosophy of
maybe it's not quite only turn the valve with a book say. So, but it's almost
that degree of
expectation that I haven't placed for making sure the process is running
exactly the way they should.
Yeah, no question. I was fortunate that I had the opportunity to transition,
working for a top tier equipment provider, working hand in hand with a world-
class manufacturer.
I mean, being a field service manager, you're in there at all of the past down,
sometimes on
weekends, and you're working closely with engineers, again, to get equipment
installed,
get it qualified, make sure it's running. They're getting the maximum amount of
value out of that
capital equipment. Then also learning, okay, I'm in Arizona, which is a high
volume manufacturing
site. Where are all the things coming from that all the developments being done
? How are those
processes working? How are they getting transferred? And back in the day, their
technology was turning
over very quickly. So, they had to have a very robust process for taking this
knowledge that's
developed by the original engineers transferring out to the high volume
manufacturing facilities.
Yeah, it was very robust. I think CopyExact is probably an accurate way to
describe it.
So, yeah. In terms of that mindset, you worked that applied for 15, 16 years,
if I remember correctly,
applied by itself, by the way. It was not shabby in terms of its mindset, in
terms of its discipline
and rigor and just a world-class manufacturing and service experience they put
to work.
How do those experiences collectively inform you are thinking about how does
one run a service
business? How does one run a field service operation? How does one think about
spares
and availability? Because again, Navy Nuclear, you better have spares available
in the applied
situation of Intel. You better have spares available because you can't take a
fab down.
How does that influence your thinking about services and aftermarket?
I think I learned early on that the needs and the interest can vary depending
on the situation.
So, for example, when you're a parts salesperson, you hear a lot about cost and
you're getting
beat up on that regularly. But then suddenly, as soon as that part isn't
available and the
machine is down and they can't make product, that cost becomes a lot less
important and now
availability is important. So, I learned early on that there's really a balance
you need to strike
and what that means is for a customer that translates to value for them. The
availability of resources
is important, but it has to be cost effective. I think all those things are
part of the calculus
that they do to come up with the best solution for their manufacturing
challenge.
But if you think about availability is important, value is important. You
clearly have a
egregious pricing. You've got to make sure that the pricing is reasonable yet.
The premium is
unavailable because you want to make sure the line is always running. In the
case of Intel,
the reactor is always powered and running without any failure issues. In the
case of an
even the eclipse submarine or destroyer or nymphs as you were in the carrier.
You know, the thought process I've always had that carried this from my
experience 25 plus years
years ago at General Electric, which is you really needed to understand the
attributes and
the characteristics of your install base, of the machine you are maintaining
and servicing.
Because if you did, then you would have these plans ready. Then you would be
ready with the
right skill at the right place. Did that mindset go into your thinking and
apply it as well?
Yeah, I think it's an OEM story. It's not just an applied story. It's not just
an
accelerastore. I think it's those stories as well. But when you're at the OEM
and you've
built this machine and a customer has purchased it, now they're trying to
decide how do I get the
most out of this capital investment I've made. As the OEM, you have the ability
to offer
all of those solutions and they can be tailored to that particular tool type.
So
applied has many different types of tools or involved in many different steps
of the
manufacturing process. The requirement is to support an edge tool. We're going
to vary from a C&P
tool versus a PBD. A lot of different considerations that need to be made. The
OEM is usually the
best position to be able to offer the holistic, most comprehensive solutions.
So whether it's that
individual part to covering the entire spectrum of needs for a customer's unsc
heduled downtime,
for example, that's really where the OEM is best positioned. But if the OEM isn
't thinking about
those things and really focusing on them and doing the due diligence to
understand what the
most comprehensive solution is for a customer, then they may start picking off
pieces of it and
saying, "Well, I know you can give me this part or these sets of parts, but I
can get them cheaper
over here and this company does offer some supply chain guarantees, so they'll
start
pre-picking those apart." One of the other things that appeals to me about some
of the
experiences you've had, and I go back to the conversation I've had with some of
my other guests
in the last three weeks, is that as an aftermarketing service leader, being in
the field as you are,
field service and so on and so forth, at the FAMS, the only people who are in
constant touch,
who have the best relationships over a long time with your customer tend to be
the service people.
Because in your case, you were literally in the FAD, in the case of other
vendors,
the service people are the ones who are constantly or more frequently visiting
the customer,
seeing how the products are performing and so on and so forth. They're picking
up stuff in the
hallways as they call it, right? And walking, talking to Joe in the machine
shop, how does
Santa was going? Does that have a role in your thinking in terms of how you
think of the strategy,
how you think about the connectivity to your customer and going back into the
product side as
well? Absolutely. I found when I was in the sales role, those were often my
best leads in terms of,
"Hey, we've got this issue over here. They're considering this. I think we
might be able to do
this." That information was oftentimes coming from our field engineers. If I
needed to develop a
relationship with a certain stakeholder in a factory, they probably either knew
someone who
either knew them or they knew them. There's a network that the field service
engineers offer.
Exactly like you said, because they're in there constantly. They're getting the
call to go in and
work on the tools. They're working with the customer's equipment engineers on
solving these
problems. Generally, the guidance I give now to new aftermarket salespeople is
get to know your
local field service team. They're going to really help you out. They're going
to help you be successful.
Yes, you absolutely have to develop the customer relationship. That's part of
the job, but this
field service engineer team is going to be crucial in helping you get there.
That's an interesting observation you made about making sure your salespeople
actually pay
attention and become friends with the local field service people. The
experience I've had
in the last 25-30 years is that the best salespeople actually understand that
relationship and
invest in it. I hate to say this, but the "run of the mill rep" doesn't really
understand that.
They're disadvantaged because of that. Have you been able to, in your sales
career, make that a
maybe training requirement is the wrong way to think about it. But some
requirements say,
"Look, you have to go talk to the person in XYZ branch," because he or she will
tell you
what's going really going on in the customer. Is that something you guys have,
you certainly
have tried to formalize if not to come to the end? I found it's most beneficial
when,
if we're doing formal training or doing workshops or having account reviews
that you have both
sales and service in the room at the same time. At the end of the day, whatever
the aftermarket
sales team is developing and proposing and selling, the service team is going
to have to go off and
execute. Their fates are intertwined. I think it's in practice, yes, that's
absolutely
hard of something that we, today and in my previous life, we've tried to deploy
because it is crucial
to our success. So you spent a few years in the Navy, you spent a bunch of
years that applied,
did a little stint in contract manufacturing, then he gave me a excelis a
couple years ago.
If I remember correctly, when you and I first met, you mentioned that this is a
maybe not a brand new initiative, but kind of new initiative, right? You always
had the
customer service and aftermarket business or department, if you may, and excel
is. But now,
with you and your colleagues, you guys are trying to make it a more formal,
more full-sum activity.
What's the situation? What's the story there? Why did the excelis management
decide to do that?
Yeah, good question. So Excel has been around for 45 years, right? We're well
established within
the industry. We're experts in iron implantation. We've been public about this
and we've certainly
benefited from all of the scaling up in power devices, thinking electric
vehicles, that sort of thing.
But I think you're right. I think it is a relatively new story compared to
maybe other
equipment providers. I think other equipment providers have been putting a lot
of focus,
a lot of structure, building a business segment around the aftermarket. I think
it excelis. We're
recognizing the benefits of doing that. We're recognizing that we have
equipment that
have been in factories for decades. It's not just an excelis story. That's, I
think, true for
pretty much any equipment provider. There's a tremendous amount of aftermarket
lifetime value
that we can recognize when we do it right. I think that's really what's driven
the recent focus.
At the end of the day, it's also all about solving our customers' most pressing
problems. If we're
not thinking about the challenges they have and crafting solutions to solve
them, it really won't
matter what we do. It doesn't matter if we're building a great hammer when our
customers need
a screwdriver. We need to be thoughtful and cautious in how we approach it.
The thought that came to my mind when you and I met many months ago and started
talking about
this whole notion of aftermarketment services is you had
turbine experience, nuclear, maybe, reactor experience. You had a bunch of
capital equipment and applied materials to make tools for semiconductor
manufacturing.
Now you're back in semiconductor manufacturing again to some degree. How much
of customer service
last aftermarket improvements that you guys are doing is related to your semic
onductor experience
or just broadly speaking services experience. What's more important in the
domain of the market
you're in or the functional domain? I think I understand what you're asking.
When you think
about the aftermarket, sometimes it can be an afterthought. Companies sometimes
are focused on
selling the equipment because that's a lot of money you can make right from
that one sale.
They're not thinking about over the long term what that asset can represent in
terms of future
value. In my experience, understanding that market, what that looks like,
working on defining what that looks like, companies don't tend to put a lot of
effort into it.
An effort means understanding the details, understanding what do the factory
economics look like for
the factory and down to the tool level? What are the things that are impacting
their decisions on
that the sourcing decisions they're making? First of all, understanding the
market associated
with the aftermarket is important. There's a lot of detail in there. I think
companies tend to
try away from that because it's hard because it's complicated. We don't tend to
have good systems
to set up to measure that. If anything, my background is starting with being in
nuclear power and
having to worry about at the atomic level what's going on and tracing that drop
of water through
the system. It's trying to train me to think more about those details. I think
some of the
roles I've had in my background, starting with being in field operations and
seeing the way our
customers think, the way they approach problems, the way they approach setting
up their manufacturing,
getting the ramp complete, getting to market, those of all, I think, honed my
approach to the
aftermarket. If I'm answering your question correctly, the answer is, yes, my
background has led to
me being in this position. Absolutely. I think the next question that comes to
mind when you
describe what you just did is, there clearly was a collection of experiences
all the way back
to the Navy and applied to today that inform how you think about service and
how you think about
building this CS&I growth engine, if you may, at XLS. One of those two or three
things that
in your mind are really at the heart of how you're thinking about you and your
colleagues around
you are thinking about building up the aftermarket of services, business at XLS
. What are those
carry-fowards if you may? Good question. For me, it generally starts with the
customer. Every time
salesperson brings a challenge to me now, I find myself starting with, what is
the customer
problem we're trying to solve here? When we think about creating an aftermarket
business and how
do you approach it, it's got to start with the challenges that they have.
Fortunately for us,
we do have industry standards that I think companies tend to rely on in terms
of equipment
productivity, in uptime and downtime and how that's all measured. We can craft
solutions that are
tailored to that, which allows us to standardize those solutions. Standard
ization is important
because we have a limited amount of resources at our disposal to support those
solutions.
I start with, what is the customer challenge we're trying to solve in
everything we do?
Then we've got to think about, okay, what are the types of solutions we can
offer as an OEM?
That's where we need to think about what are the, that's really a core strength
for us. We can
offer solutions that are more comprehensive than anyone else. We have a global
infrastructure in
place. We have all these capabilities. How do we bring these things to bear to
offer our solution,
customers a solution that is tailored to the problem that they're trying to
solve?
Then how do we get the right people in place to go have these discussions,
develop these
relationships, build that level of trust where they're willing to even listen
to us,
tell us about their problems, and allow us to even discuss our solutions?
When I again go back and rewind the tapes as it may be about the conversations
I've had in the
last few months with your peers and other companies, they also say a couple of
different things related
to the last point you mentioned, which is it's one thing to have a technology
understanding and
some of them have offerings and so on and so forth like you said. But the last
part about
people is really important. To some degree, it's about getting the right people
who understand the
customer, starting with the customer if you may, as a starting part of the
process,
it's understanding people who have the empathy and the experience to bring that
to bear to the
customer. But the third thing is also coming back to the conversation about how
does it manifest
itself in terms of the delivery of service? Do your customer also is what
matters? So how does
that people role play out there? Yeah, so the people part is important because
if our sales
force, for example, or if any sales force is too focused on internal
administration or
trying to do manual things or doing things that take them away from being in
front of the customer,
that's time they don't have in front of the customer, right? And at the end of
the day,
that's the job is being in front of the customer, developing those
relationships, working with them.
So for me, one of my particular areas of interest is what are the tools that
are available? What
are the things that we can do to free up time for the sales force? Things that
we can automate
more, make less manual, things that we can maybe off shift elsewhere, but
ultimately give them more
time to spend more time with the customer and develop those relationships. So
finding those
tools and enabling those capabilities is a vital part of what we're doing.
You know, there's something you said to me, one of the recent conversations we
had,
which weirdly enough, I had a very similar contextual discussion with some
other customers,
which is companies like Excelis, supply materials, so for the matter more or
less every single customer
of ours today and the people we talked to have a huge number of what I would
say 10 year workers,
both field and office who are leaving or retiring. And I remember the classic
story you told me about
you know, this person, you guys went and troubleshooting a installation
situation. This
this is a 30 or 40 or 30 of almost 40 veteran of Excelis. And he remembered
that he'd put
something in some Microsoft shared folder somewhere. Right. How do you, when I
say you as an Excelis is
one, but clearly applied as a similar problem and tell us a similar problem,
how do companies
kind of overcome these challenges of replacing or being able to not get caught
short handed or
short-knowledge with all this stuff leaving the factory, leaving the office
these days,
right in terms of retirements. Yeah, that's a big deal by the way. That story
you told me the story
I've heard that like multiple times it is for next, right? I'm sure it's not a
unique story. Yeah,
I think it's a transition that's going on. Yeah, I think we like to refer to it
as the
as the silver tsunami. But yeah, there's this tremendous amount of brain power
that's been
developed over the years in our industry and the amount of tribal knowledge.
And you know,
people are getting to the point where they're thinking about, okay, what am I,
you know,
I think I'm ready to go do something different. But you know, that knowledge,
that capability
walks out of the door. What do you do to replace it or harness it? You know, my
perspective is AI
offers potential solutions for that. I think it also offers some, there's a lot
of concern
around AI and what it means and how to use it, right? So I think one of the
challenges that I see
companies struggling with is how do we take advantage of all the capabilities
this offers,
but in a way that doesn't, you know, undermine or inadvertently divulge
sensitive information
to others where we don't want it, right? So I think that's kind of the space we
're in.
It seems like, you know, there's this capability, but how do we deploy it
safely? How do we tap into it
without the point of the company? Yeah. You know, if I would also think about
your career over the
last 20 plus years, you've got, you've had some pretty amazing experience in
terms of the people
you've been working with, right? The contract manufacturer applied, applied
with Intel, the Navy,
now XLS. You know, you've seen a, what I would call a pretty high level of
performance in terms
of aftermarketing services with all these companies you've been at. Or you may
have been exposed to
other people as well who maybe don't perform as well as your previous
experiences in terms of,
you know, service of market. What in your mind is the differentiator or separ
ator,
breathe those, what I would call aftermarketing service champions versus those
that aren't,
right? Because you've probably seen in your career a pretty good spectrum of
performance,
if you may. What's the one that separates champions from the others?
Yeah, no, great question. You know, I think there's probably a few things that
I would key in on it.
And first, it starts with, I'll say, kind of understanding the sandbox that you
play in, right?
So, knowing where does my aftermarket story begin and where does it end? Who
are the sources of
competition within that space? And how can I differentiate what I have to offer
from all these
other solutions, right? See, you have to work hard to also define your market
opportunities,
right? Understand, you know, where am I selling into? What is it I'm selling?
And then who am I
selling to, right? So, again, customer relationship is crucial. And this is
something that's saved
me more than once in my personal career, where when your customer really wants
you to win,
that really goes a long way. You still need to do the work to enable them to
convince their
internal stakeholders. But having that relationship and at the right level of
relationship is vital.
And finally, I think the other thing I'll say is what I've seen in terms that
differentiates
those who are really successful from those who are mildly to otherwise is
really understanding
the details of the aftermarket, right? So much of what we do is built around a
lot of mundane,
boring, but a ton of data. When you really have mastered the finer points of
that data, it not
only brings credibility that, you know, when you're engaging with your
customers and you can
demonstrate that you've mastered all of this information around this market
that you're playing in,
you know, now they build trust with them. And ultimately, that's what enables
your success.
So, you know, I tell my boss this regularly. I think it was Edward Stimming who
said,
"In God, we trust all others must bring data." So I love that quote. I kind of
built a career
around it. Absolutely. But I think it was actually interesting. So a lot of
people have definitely
pointed out the notion of relationships and who you sell to, who you serve with
, what else,
you know, all the stuff that goes along with that. But I think the point he
just made is actually
really important also attention to detail. And, you know, the way I also think
about it is,
and by the way, I'm hardly the paragon of what I'm about to say, but attention
to detail matters.
And, you know, it's like the little things, if you do the little things right,
then people
around you will have trust that you can do the big things right. Right? And so
to some way,
I think being able to get that credibility, bring forward the context and the
context of confidence,
your customer that you've done all the little things right, the detail stuff
right,
will give him or her confidence that, yeah, yeah, chat, excel, wherever it
might be,
can really serve me at this higher level that I expect them to. And I think
that's an under
appreciated aspect of execution, by the way, yeah, when I think about it.
Fully agree. So, you know, you think about your career again, you've got some
amazing experiences
and, you know, there's clearly somebody who's now a 22 to 25 year old who's now
coming back and
coming into the workforce for the first time. And they may stumble into
services like you did,
right? They may stumble into one of the situations where they wind up in an
Intel applied material
situation where they're kind of thrown into a fab. You know, once the advice
you'd give them in
terms of how they should think about career progression, because, you know, you
took a path,
you kind of stuck with it and done really well, right? And so, once your advice
is somebody early
in career and who may want to build up an aftermarketman services background
here?
You know, I guess I would say what I've found that's been effective for me is,
working hard, first of all, right? It goes without saying, but also being
curious, right?
Trying to understand why do people do what they do, you know, because as
companies are people,
we're all working together. What is your motivation? Why are you doing that?
Why are you saying that?
You know, being open to the next opportunity. None of my opportunities really
have
gone looking for. They've all kind of found me and I'm so, well, that sounds
interesting.
But also, every opportunity has sounded scary, right? I mean, I still remember
the day when I
stepped on a plane as leaving West Phoenix to drive to fly to Maryland. I'd
never been on a
plane by myself before and just feel like I'd been punched in the gut. I was so
scared.
That worked out okay, right? So every crucial decision in my life, I found that
that's paid off
is started with a really uncomfortable feeling. So I would say, you know, stay
open and, you know,
if the hairs on the back of your neck are standing up, it's probably a good
sign. So you see where that
goes. You know, the open desk thing also has been mentioned by people. You've
got to be open to
new ideas, new experiences to change, you know, rolling with the punches is
another way to put it,
which is you're going to learn as you go along, right? And his discomfort is
actually
sometimes not a bad thing. You know, even I'd like the feeling when you go into
that, but it's not a
bad thing over all of the career. You know, when I always like to end this
thing with my
favorite question, right? So I'm a big podcast listener. My favorite podcast is
How I Build This
with Guy Raz, you know, comes on a different podcast now. And he has a classic
question of,
you know, if you think about a career and think about a life, how much of it is
because of your
intellect, good looks and charm versus how much of it is just, you know,
sometimes things are all
lined up in the right place at the right time, luck. Right. What's your
Oh, that's a good one. You know, I guess I got to say my, when I think about,
yeah, my journey,
my, my origination story really was all about luck, right? I was fortunate to
have been born
into a country that encourages individual achievement and education and the
government,
meaning a taxpayer base willing to fund my higher level education and take the
risk on me and give
me leadership opportunities and continue investing in me through nuclear power
education. You know,
then I guess I was fortunate in terms of timing, right? My transition just
happened to,
my transition and interest in moving back to Arizona happened to coincide with
when
this major semiconductor provider was building this, this, this factory, you
know, but from there,
I guess I would say it's kind of become more making my own luck, right?
Creating those opportunities,
making sure that I'm open and in a position to be able to consider whatever the
next step is.
So I'll have to go with it. It's a hybrid. That's my final answer.
I think, and I think that's a good answer because play luckily is an important
role in everything
we do, including the first break you get a second break you get. But what you
do with it eventually
is what it's in your own control, on own destiny. So I think that's a great way
to wrap up this
conversation. So I think, you know, and I listen to your story, I listen to
some of the things you
mentioned about understanding the customer because people are people that they
're going to buy from
you or they're going to trust you, potentially to detail, you know, being open
to ideas, being
able to kind of work hard to deliver above and beyond what they what people are
expecting.
But I think the, it's actually an important, important aspect. And again, maybe
it's because
you're a background in Navy and Navy, Navy, Navy, Navy, Navy, Navy, Navy, Navy,
Navy, Navy, Navy, Navy is because of applied materials and copy exact, but then attention to
detail, by the way,
is an important aspect that a lot of people kind of overlook. It just kind of,
it's a take it for
granted. Right. And I like that, I like that emphasis that you made as well. We
're trying to
put atoms where they belong. So yeah, detail matters. Putting atoms with it
along this way.
Well, Chad, this is a fabulous conversation. I really appreciate you taking the
time to tell
us a story and take us through your career in terms of how it evolved from the
USNA to
Navy nuclear to, you know, civic equipment. And I think it's a fascinating
story. And I think a
lot of people will enjoy listening to it. So thank you very much for your time
today. And
looking forward to continue this discussion. All right, you bet. Thank you. If
I enjoyed the time.
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