U.S. Navy's Captain Deichler on AM in the Submarine Industrial Base

Very good answer, and I wanna double-click on a few things you said.

One thing that kinda popped into my head as you were talking is y- do you think it may, it may even be a long-term advantage to have lost that industrial base and now having almost the chance to rebuild an industrial base with the latest and greatest advanced manufacturing technologies, whereas other adversary countries may actually be stuck with, uh, conventional technologies because they have the workforce that works there, they have the facilities, they have made the investments, and therefore, they may have a short-term advantage, but in the long term, you know, rebuilding a industrial base with advanced manufacturing, it really puts the US in a prime position in the long term to potentially become a bit more agile when it comes to manufacturing capacity, right? To your point, to push the limits of certain applications and parts that you couldn't do with, uh, with the conventional industrial base.

Is that, you know, is that too far-fetched, or, you know, just listening you, to you talk, that kinda popped into my head.

No, I don't think so, Fabian.

I think y- y- you're onto something.

And, and what I talk about, uh, a lot when I go and see fac- factories and really get involved in the, the manufacturing side, I, I-- When I grew up, I graduated high school in 1995, graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 1999.

Um, my parents wanted me to go to college, uh, and wanted me to really do that type of work, uh, that, that a college mathematics major would do, right? So they, they weren't pushing me towards those manufacturing jobs, so I didn't see what was out there.

Mm-hmm.

Now, fast-forward 25 years, and I get a chance to really go out and see what's being done.

First of all, I, I'm flat-out amazed at what, what people create.

I'm the end user on a submarine.

I was the captain of the USS Pittsburgh, and I used to say I, I really didn't know the challenges out there on manufacturing 'cause I, I lived in a place where there was a voice-activated system.

I would say, "I need a part," and a part would appear.

I didn't put much thought behind what it took to get that part.

So when I would go to manufacturers, and now I see it, some of my memories, uh, growing up in Pittsburgh were of the blast furnaces and the steel factories and the dirty jobs that my grandfathers would have.

My grandfather worked in an auto factory, firefighter, uh, worked in mills for a period of time.

Those were dirty jobs that impacted their health, their longevity, and really their desire for their children to go into those careers.

They wanted something more for their kids.

"Get out of this.

We know it's unhealthy." So we started to move away from that for a number of reasons as a society, and as I get out there and I see these advanced manufacturing techniques, they're faster, they're innovative, they are built on skills that we're training our kids, whether we know it or not, every day.

You know, my kids love to build Legos.

Well, okay, we're building upon those skills that we're teaching them in creation and imagination, and all those things that we valued, uh, for college people are now being applied at the manufacturing level in clean jobs, right? So advanced manufacturing, completely clean process, right? Completely contained.

We contain all the fumes.

We contain all the, the dirty work inside of that, and out of it, you get a clean product.

Uh, you see this in a lot of advanced manufacturing techniques, your cold spray techniques, your automation with cobots in welding.