Zack Cartwright - From Ambulances to Instruments to CNC.

We just finished talking with Zack Cartwright at Fairlead in Portsmouth, Virginia. The arc of this conversation went from ambulances to instruments, from music to jeeps. If it doesn't sound like that makes sense, watch this interview to the end and I promise you it all comes together.

Visit www.maritimejobsva.com to discover what career and training opportunities are right for you in the Hampton Roads maritime industry.

The Regional Maritime Training System (RMTS) was established using a $11 million (41%) Good Jobs Challenge Grant awarded by the Economic Development Administration. It is supported by $12.1 million (46%) provided through BlueForge Alliance in partnership with the U.S. Department of the Navy, $850,000 (3%) from the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA – Community Project Funding, and $3.5 million (10%) from non-federal sources.

Transcript

We just finished talking with Zack Cartwright at Fairlead in Portsmouth, Virginia. The arc of this conversation went from ambulances to instruments, from music to jeeps. If it doesn't sound like that makes sense, watch this interview to the end and I promise you it all comes together.

We're talking today with Zack Cartwright at Fairlead's Portsmouth facility. We've
actually come back for a second lap here at Fairlead. I had a great first interview
with with Jeremy Jeffries here but your name came up and you were a great referral and your background, your story I think is really important to to our audience and kind of want to dig in and hear a little bit about you and let's start with what do you do here at Fairlead? I'm a CNC machine operator. So, CNC, computer numerical, controlled, neural, tell me how does that machine work? Similar to a 3D printer.

This machine moves on three axis motion, it goes up and down, left, right, front,
back, and the computer controlled part of this. The machine takes instructions from a program and removes away metal from a blank into a finished part.

- So you're taking a solid block of metal of no particular shape or size and
carving it down to a very specific function, a very specific dimension. - Exactly.
- How'd you learn how to do that? - Well, when I started here, I was running a
different machine, CNC press brake, and that's a similar idea except it bends sheet
metal instead of removing material like this process. So started out over there and
after about two years I expressed interest in coming over here. So you started out
operating the machine to to set it up, get the metal put in place and then and
then turning the machine over to to form the metal, whether it was the press break
or whether it's the CNC lathe, to create the part. So you operate the machine.
- Yes. - Who does the design of the part and entering that?
- The parts themselves, the models come from our customers and then our engineers
take those and take their drawings and turn it into 3D models.
and then we take those models and make a program that the machine can understand.
- Are you involved in creating that model? - When I was working at the other shop
on the press break, I was programming that machine. But over here in this shop, we
have my supervisor, Adam, doing all the programming. - Is that something you're
working your way towards doing? - I would love to, that's certainly a goal of mine.
- This isn't the job that you started out doing it fairly. I think you mentioned
before we started recording that you came in as a welder. Yes, I interviewed as a
welder. I had gone to welding school after my last career and then applied here
thinking I was going to be a welder, but I'm actually very pleased with the
direction this is going. You grew up here in the local area. I went to high
school. - Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach. - Okay, and then what'd you do
right after high school? - Right out of high school, I had gone into the EMT
Academy for volunteer EMS for Virginia Beach, got my EMT.
- Emergency Medical Services. - Yes. - So you're running an ambulances doing emergency
medical treatment. - Yeah, answer 911 calls, yeah. - It's a pretty - Exciting field.
- It was really fun. - How long did you do that for? - Five years. - Five years?
- Yes. - That's a long time. And pretty young age coming right out of high school.
Tough job?
- Certainly can be stressful, but it is a lot of fun. You see, you get to help a
lot of people, see a lot of interesting things. - Pretty rewarding when you're there
and you're able to help somebody at a Time of crisis really for them. Oh,
certainly. Yeah, you don't see people when they're feeling their best in that job
No, you see people at their worst day. Yeah So you did that for five years. What?
What what compelled you to change careers? Well, I needed I needed some growth and
I
After talking to a couple buddies one of whom worked here as a welder it seemed
like welding was a great path and had more opportunities for advancement than where
I was at. So I went to a local trade school. What school was that?
Tidewater Tech. Tidewater Tech. We've heard that name come up several times and we've
interviewed some people that are graduates of that program or are going through
training there now. Okay, nice. Yeah, it seems like a really good program. Yeah, I
was very pleased with it. - And what kind of welding did you learn to do there?
- I learned stick and mig there. - To weld on steel, aluminum, or both? - Only
steel, in the school, yes. - Okay. - And that's part of the reason why I ended up
working on the press break, because here we do mostly stainless steel and aluminum,
so a lot of TIG work. - So this part of Fairlead is doing-- - Yeah, mostly aluminum
and stainless tig, yeah. - I know there's other parts of Fairlead that do work on
steel. - Oh, certainly. (laughing) - What made you interested in welding? - I had,
prior to that, actually just bought a welder for jeep projects. I have a jeep and
I eventually got sick of learning that projects that I wanted to do to my jeep
required a welder and I couldn't do So I was like, I'm just going to buy a
welder. And I bought a big old thing of sticks and just taught myself how to weld
actually prior to going to welding school.
OK. So the necessity for the Jeep is what drove me to want to weld.
We'd been talking a little bit before we started interviewing about hobbies and stuff
that you did and said you're a musician.
I think you're being a little bit modest there, but okay. And I had to tell you
the truth, I really expected that you were gonna say something mechanical. So I'm
glad that we did draw this out 'cause we've heard that before too. In my mind, I
don't think there's not a big separation between music and mechanical.
There's something that goes on in the brain that those two things are-- - Similar
minds get drawn to. - Similar minds get drawn to, absolutely. So, And I'm impressed
to hear that you just decided that you needed to know how to weld to fix your own
projects.
Just that sort of figure it out mentality is welcome.
Makes us feel good to hear that there's people out there that just say, "I got a
problem and I'm going to figure out how to solve it." Yeah, growing up, any time
there was a vehicle problem it was you figure it out or it doesn't get fixed so I
learned quickly how to repair cars yeah that's if your only choice is walking or
get it running that becomes pretty compelling absolutely so you still have that Jeep
I do how old is it it is a 97 it's a 1997 so what's what kind of work were you
doing on it At that point, I was putting on some bracket for a lift kit when I
was doing the lift on it. Okay. So this was the upgraded, not the fix it. Yeah.
This was an upgrade. Are there times you've had to fix it? Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh,
yes. All right. So, so you spent some time as an EMT,
talked to a friend and he recommended taking up welding and welding and coming over
to Fairlead. So you came in the door here as a welder? As a press brake operator.
As a press brake operator and how long did you do that for? About two years. Okay
and then just out of self -interest wanting to advance how did you get to be a CNC
operator? I assume that's a promotion right? It was a promotion promotion. I had
always been fascinated in machining and on my own some day I might want to have
some type of fabrication business of my own so these have always these machines are
really fascinating and I wanted to give it a shot. You got to support that Jeep
habit somehow right? Oh yeah. If you got to teach yourself to weld you might need
to teach yourself how to make your own parts.
So, what do you like about being a CNC operator and where do you think you go
from here? I really like the pace of work, obviously to some degree the machine is
doing the work for you, but you have to have someone running the machine that knows
what they're doing as to not break the machine. So that's the
challenging part but I really love the pace of work as far as get your part in
the machine, check everything, press go and then your sanding or deburring other
parts while that's going it's the day flies by. Do you feel like you're really part
of that process because right now somebody else is designing that part right? The
customer has the need so they sort of outlined the specs for it. Somebody else is
doing the programming But it's really not as simple as just loading it into the
machine and letting the machine run. Not quite. There's certainly more to it than
that. And you're having to measure every part of the way and check things and
follow the blueprint. So a lot of the job is blueprint reading. How did you figure
out how to do that? Sink or swim over there at the press break next door. I
figured it out.
That's not exactly the answer that I was expecting. (laughing) I was really expecting
to hear you say, "I've been through Blueprint class," and they sent me that, and
no, that's not what happened? - Nope. - Nope? You know, those things exist, right?
- I would, yeah, ultimately, I would like to get some formal training on that. - But
the industry does that, right, and through the Virginia Ship Repair Association, for
example, one of the classes they have is Blueprint Reading, because that's I don't
know that that's necessarily intuitive I can't imagine you pick up the blueprint the
first time and knew all the different fields where everything was supposed to go you
can figure it out over time no first it's like a foreign language yeah some degree
yeah but once you know it it's kind of satisfying to be able to look at that plan
and know that you're gonna take that paper or electronic copy and turn end of
something you're actually gonna hold in your hands. - Oh, absolutely. - That's gotta
be rewarding to actually run the machine, but come out and turn over a part that
you know is exactly right. - It is. - Have there been times when they gave you the
plan and the part didn't come out right? - Yes.
- And who fixes that? Are you in that process? - Oh, yes. It'll be between me and
my supervisor putting our heads together to do the troubleshooting and figure out
what went wrong or what we need to do next. - So what could go wrong in that?
- Something as simple as a mis -decimal point or confusing positive with negative,
not reading your calipers right, reading out numbers and entering in erroneous
information. - So you actually are doing some of the programming, right?
Not necessarily designing the part, but-- - Not making programs from scratch, but we
have to understand G -Code to some degree so that we can edit the programs and make
changes and adjusting the size of a chamfer on a hole or something, we're doing
that in the machine. So we are doing some programming. - You mentioned G -Code,
that's actually the instructions to the machine to move in those three axes. - Yes,
that's the language that speaks. What's next? What do you want to do?
My next step would be to learn programming and ultimately I want to learn and get
some experience with making the models themselves. And that might not be here at
this company, that might be down the road somewhere else around my own time, but my
next goal is to learn to write these programs. - So you came right out of high
school, went to work in a different career field and then worked your way over to
here where you're working in the marine industry. I didn't hear you say college in
there. - No, no college. - Did you think about it? - I had gone to the,
when I was still in high school, I had done the Advanced Technology Center, did a
network administration program. So I was planning on working in IT field.
Network administration? Whoa, man, you've got all kinds of background here. But after
getting a network administration job, I realized I didn't like sitting at a desk all
day for work. And that's when I ended up switching to EMS. Okay,
so we left out a whole career opportunity. That was sure. Yeah, I forgot about that
one.
Wow, okay. So,
you're obviously not working at a desk here. You're at the machine but there's a
little bit of desk work and it sounds like you're kind of working your way back in
that direction if you want to get back into the design of it, right? Yeah, but I
figure as I age I'll probably appreciate a desk more more. So that's not a bad
future goal. So now that we've established that there's a blueprint reading class,
what do you think about a mechanical engineering class? I would certainly be open to
that. That sounds great. Maybe that wasn't something that sounded realistic or even
interesting when you were 18. I wouldn't have even thought of it. But are you
talking with the engineers here? We're somewhat removed from that side of things.
Over at the other shop working the press break we had more interactions with the
engineers as far as hey this part is not not forming up correctly or not measuring
right what's the problem here maybe we need to readjust the model or so we
occasionally work with them but pretty pretty well removed from the engineers in my
current position. Why do you think that isn't the press brake? Is that just, is
that a less exact process? Exactly. This machine, the mills,
if you tell it move a thousandth of an inch, it moves a thousandth of an inch.
But the press brakes are a little, there's more variables at play. And like even
down, even if the machine's perfect, the metal's not. Batch to batch, sheet to sheet
metal can change which direction was the part cut out of the sheet of metal, so a
lot more variables with the press brake. This one you're just carving out of a
solid block of something, but the different distortions on a press brake just makes
it, there's more art involved than that, this is a lot more science. Exactly, yep.
Which do you enjoy more? I enjoy this.
It just This seems to work Does what it does which you tell it to it's a little
bit more satisfying. We can get it right the first time it is But I got to
imagine as a press break operator a really good press break operators worth their
weight in gold. I Oh, yeah, yeah Thinking of a progressing in in the in the field
here Happy with a career decision you made Absolutely.
Ever look back and think you want to get back in the field doing what you're doing
before?
No, I have kept my EMT up so that I can go back and do the volunteer work if I
ever wanted, but I don't believe I would go back to doing that for a living. How
about in your off time? What do you spend your off time doing? We're already dug
into this and discovered that you're a Jeep guy too, So that I do like I do a
lot of hiking. I like to go out hiking in the mountains
and then Play music. Do you feel like you've got more opportunity? To pursue those
other interests in this career field than the one you were in before absolutely.
This is this job has definitely allowed me to Do more of my hobbies and interests.
Is it the time? Is it the money? Time and money, time due to scheduling.
EMS has some very wacky schedules. We're really glad to hear that you're happy with
this decision to come over into the marine industry where we're trying to attract
more people. And we certainly don't want to knock emergency services, right? Because
God's bid, one day, we may all need them so not not a knock on that and and I
imagine this probably people that crossed back over the other direction they did
something else and they went into into that field I'm sure do you keep in touch
with any of your high school friends or people you've seen over the past few years
and they knew that you were in emergency medical services before now now you're a
CNC machinist do you get that question why When I was leaving EMS,
there were certainly some whys, but at that point, I didn't know any of this
existed, really. All I knew was I wanted to go well, and I think a lot of people
don't know that this exists, that these jobs are even out here and available. Yeah,
- We've heard that over and over again, right? It's in an industrial park, it's
behind the fence, it's in a part of town where people wouldn't normally travel
through to be able to see it. And you probably didn't hear about this in high
school. - No, not at all. - Yeah. - No, we never really pushed towards trades.
Mostly, most of the push was towards college degrees. And we're definitely not
knocking going to college. And we kind of touched on it earlier, right? Getting out
and getting some life experience and understanding how those degree programs really
work. What they actually do in the real world can be tough to figure out when
you're in high school and you don't know what an engineer does. - No. - Might have
been a lot more interested if you knew that it was gonna be producing these kind
of parts. In the meantime, it just sounds like four years of school that's maybe
not that interesting to some people. - No, it's not very appealing.
- So have you been involved in any discussions with other people bringing them into
the industry? - Hmm, I've sent out a few recommendations to a couple buddies that
we're looking for jobs. I don't think I've convinced anyone to make their way into
our company though. Have you been able to bring them into the shop to show them
what you're doing? No, I feel like if I could, that would change some minds.
How would you do that?
That's a really important point, right? I came from this industry, I'm still in it,
you're in it now, so we understand that, but a big part of this is how do we
attract new people to it, and how did you get introduced? You said you knew
somebody that was working here that told you about it, tell me about that step. - I
got recommended to come here by a welder at the shop next door. - Okay,
so you knew somebody that was working at the company, And was he able to bring in
to show you the things that he was doing? No, I didn't get to see anything until
the interview, but he did explain a lot.
Okay, so we got to find a way to show people the work that's getting done to get
them interested in it. Because if they could see this machine run, if they could
see the parts getting created. It's too much to explain. It is kind of difficult to
explain but when you're standing here looking at it and then you could pick up one
of these parts behind and hold it in your hand you can say took this block of
metal and I turned it into this functioning device. Yeah. That would be pretty
useful. I think you really you really keyed on something that's pretty important that
no amount of explaining it
takes the place of being able to actually have somebody be in the environment and
see that thing happen, to see that part getting created in all those steps.
That's an important part of that, I think. There's things that we the industry can
can do better. It's not enough to just complain, well nobody wants to do this work.
We have to explain the work better and then it turns out people like yourself
really are a lot more interested in it. Even outside of machining, there's so many
different processes and industries here,
we not only make the raw metal parts, but then the parts get assembled,
they might get coated or painted, so there's other things, but then they get
assembled into all types of equipment that goes on to the ships and subs. So
there's so many parts of the process, so many different years. And that is where
your parts are going, right? These are going into ships and submarines somewhere. You
may not know where, but you probably have a better idea of what the function of
those parts are. Is that a good feeling to know that you're building something
that's going into it? It is, and I do like when sometimes we aren't going to
understand what every part goes to, but it is, I do like when I get to learn what
the part functionally does that we're making. That way it's not just a bracket, but
we know it's a part of an autonomous vehicle or something.
It can be very cool stuff. You touched on a theme that we've been trying to bring
out is that this is an entire career. You came in here as a welder, you went to
work on a press break, now you're a CNC operator, but when you talked about having
to take the measurements to make sure that it's built properly, that's quality
assurance. You talk about having to take that part and get it coded. Preservation
and coatings is a whole other career field as well with lots of opportunity and a
strong demand to protect those parts. - Oh yeah. - Somebody buys that raw metal, gets
it delivered hear that you take that and turn it into a part and that that supply
chain management is an entire career. If you had mentioned earlier about well maybe
I don't want to be on my feet for my entire career maybe maybe that desk for some
part of the day starts to look better but that's the whole career progression that
we're trying to explain to people that just where you start in this industry does
not limit at all where you can go. Yeah That's the whole world that most people
don't know about. - Your guidance counselor in high school didn't tell you any of
this? - No. - If you could go back to Ocean Lakes High School now and talk to your
teachers, talk to your guidance counselors, what would you tell them?
- College isn't for everybody and there's a lot of other opportunities out there and
after working here these few years, I'd say the shipbuilding field has a lot of
opportunities for growth and advancement and learning new things. - Maybe those are
the people we need to get in here first so they can do a better job of helping
us explain what goes on in this industrial park, in these shipyards,
in these out of the way areas that people don't see or can't see. There's
tremendous opportunity here. And maybe it's not sitting at a nice clean desk and a
nice crisp white shirt all day, but maybe that's not what we really want. Maybe we
want to get our hands dirty, get a little grit under our nails and actually wear
the safety gear and stand in front of the machine and see that thing being created.
Is that a little bit like playing music where you create something when you create
this part? You know you took it from something raw and turned it into something
useful? It is, to you're taking something from the, from a thought and putting it
into, putting it into the real world. An instrument as opposed to a tool,
maybe? Yeah. Well, they're both instruments. They're both tools. That's a great way
to look at it. That's awesome. It's an instrument and a tool. It has no life of
its own until a talented individual comes and puts energy into it. That's right.