The Finish Line
The Finish Line brings you news and interviews with some of the top companies and individuals in the finishing and coating industry, hosted by Tim Pennington, Editor-in-Chief of www.FinishingAndCoating.com
Episodes
72 episodes
Shop Profile: Dallas Cooley, Georgia Powder Coating
Dallas Cooley is Chief Servant and CEO at Georgia Powder Coating in Gainesville, Georgia, a company approaching its 27th year in business and prepares for a facility expansion that will more than double its footprint.For Georgia Powder C...
Shop Talk: Stephen Sharretts, Sharretts Plating
Stephen Sharretts is the CEO and third-generation leader of Sharretts Plating in York, Pennsylvania, an electroplating operation that has lasted 100 years and weathered the industry’s many storms.Founded in 1925 as Charles D. Snyder and ...
Shop Profile: Natalia Stephen, Compound Metal Coatings
Natalia Stephen is owner of Compound Metal Coatings and CEO and Owner of PVD Advanced Technologies, both located in Ontario, Canada, and looks forward to her 25th anniversary in 2026.Stephen founded CMC in 2001, after a career that took ...
Shop Profile: Marko Duffy, TDF Metal Finishing
Marko Duffy is Managing Director at TDF Metal Finishing in Danvers, Massachusetts. He took the job in 2021 after a lengthy career on the supplier side of the finishing business and has transformed the once family-owned company in just a little ...
Shop Profile: Imran Shamsi, Premier Metal Processing
Imran Shamsi is Vice President at Premier Metal Processing in San Diego, which offers anodizing, electrolytic nickel, bright tin, chemfilm, electroless nickel, electropolish, passivation, and zinc to customers across various industries.
Shop Profile: Mark Morris, J&M Plating
Mark Morris is President of J&M Plating in Rockford, Illinois, which is a large fastener coating and small stamping operation. It has 220,000 square feet of production space, offering one-stop finishing services, and is ISO 9001:2015 qualit...
Legends: John Cutchin, Palmetto Plating
John Cutchin got his start in the finishing industry at 18, when he would bronze baby shoes in his hometown in Easley, South Carolina.Cutchin went on to start Palmetto Plating in 1964 to provide metal finishing services to the textile in...
Shop Profile: Adam Thomas, R.J. Thomas Manufacturing
Adam Thomas, Vice President of the family-owned company R.J. Thomas Manufacturing. is a Cherokee, Iowa, manufacturer of Pilot Rock park equipment that was founded in 1959.The addition of an upgraded powder coating system has been on ...
Shop Profile: Jo'Van Wiggins, EMI Plating
Jo’Van Wiggins is the Chief Operations Officer of EMI Quality Plating in Evansville, Indiana, a 50,000-square-foot business that is central to many manufacturing operations in the U.S.EMI specializes in silver, gold, and nickel plating; ...
Shop Profile: Doug Orantes, Aero Plating
Since 2017, Doug Orantes and his wife, Loida, have been trying to get Aero Plating in Lancaster, California, off the ground. Still, a miscommunication with local city officials derailed those plans until he was finally able to realize his d...
Shop Profile: Jim Leidig, Matrix Finishing
Jim Leidig is the General Manager of Matrix Finishing in Harrington, Delaware.For the last year, Leidig has had the dream job of designing and building — and now running —a hi-tech powder coating operation that would be the envy of any f...
Shop Profile: Ashley Hunsaker, HTS Coatings
Ashley and Jason Hunsaker are owners of HTS Coatings in Madison, Illinois, which offers thermal spray coating for corrosion protection.HTS Coatings is expanding and growing not only as a coating shop but also as a machining and grinding ...
Shop Profile: Guillermo Aguilera and Brenda Tapia, Metal Chem
Guillermo Aguilera and Brenda Tapia are owners of Metal Chem in Chatsworth, California, a shop that offers chem film, passivation, anodizing, electroless nickel, zinc, and phosphate conversion on the plating side, as well as Mil-Specs, urethane...
Shop Profile: Jeffrey Rubin, Testrite Visual
Jeffrey Rubin is President of Testrite, a manufacturer of visual display products located in Hackensack, New Jersey. After decades of wishful thinking about bringing powder coating in-house, in 2025, Jeffrey and his father, Larry, t...
Shop Profile: Park Kersman, Lorin Industries
Park Kersman is President of Lorin Industries, which he purchased from his family in 2006. His grandfather founded the Muskegon, Michigan coil and batch anodizer in 1943, which has over 400,000 square feet of space.Lorin Industries has c...
Legends: Gary Burton, GW Lisk
Gary Burton has spent over 50 years in the metal finishing industry, working on all sides of the spectrum, including as an applicator and with suppliers.Burton returned to his roots in running plating operations when he joined G.W. Lisk ...
Shop Profile: Carl Troiano, Trojan Powder Coating
Carl Troiano is owner of Trojan Powder Coating, which has facilities in Florida and New York.He was recently honored by the Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance (FGIA) for over 20 years of service, including many as a committ...
Legends: Jim Lindsay, General Motors, Ret.
We chat with James Lindsay, Ph. D., a retired research engineer from General Motors who has volunteered for numerous surface finishing industry groups over the past several decades.Dr. Lindsay received the National Association for Surfac...
Shop Profile: Bob Bertelsen, A Plus Powder Coaters
We had a chance to talk with Bob Bertelsen, owner of A Plus Powder Coaters in Northeast Ohio.When Bertelsen began A Plus Powder Coaters, he envisioned a simple production shop with possibly a conveyor line and a batch system. The company...
Shop Profile: Keshav Kumar, Plateronics Processing
Keshav Kumar is owner of Plateronics Processing in Chatsworth, California, which offers anodizing, chem film passivation, electroless nickel, and various other plating substrates, including gold, silver, tin, and zinc.Kumar purchased the...
Shop Profile: Alex Budd, Greensboro Industrial Platers
Alex Budd was offered a job in metal finishing while completing his MBA six years ago, and he realized it might be his calling.“I had always been interested in industries that are under the radar that you just don't think about,” says Bu...
Shop Profile: Steve Allen, Elite Metal Finishing
We talk with Elite Metal Finishing's Steve Allen about his challenge of getting the Oceanside, California, shop to attain Nadcap accreditation in chemical processing. In the finishing industry, this effort is not for the faint of heart, especia...
TechTalk: Joe Zabielski, Ronatec
We talked with Joe Zabielski from Ronatec about the new Paladin high-phos electroless nickel chemistry, which the company says offers outstanding corrosion protection and hardness.Zabielski says Paladin has passed salt spray tests up to ...
Podcast: Dan Zinman, Miles Chemical
We chatted with Dan Zinman from Miles Chemical on various topics about surface finishing.One topic is product availability that seems to be a big concern for many finishers, as well as just-in-time delivery, removing material from their ...
Shop Profile: Matt Lindstedt, Advanced Plating Technology
We had the chance to have an extended talk with Matt Lindstedt, President of Advanced Plating Technology in Milwaukee, about how the 2009 decision to reconfigure how the Milwaukee-based plating company worked with its customers and end OEMs has...