People in Production Podcast with Ryan Nelson

Fred Stipkovits - Part 1: Industry Networks and Developing Your Own Leadership

• Circle of 5 • Season 1 • Episode 2

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The episode centers on leadership insights from Fred Stipkovits of Ultratech Aerospace, where he discusses the importance of networking, trust-building, and empowering teams. Fred emphasizes collaboration over competition to create a thriving manufacturing environment and shares strategies for enhancing employee retention and involvement in industry associations. 

• Fred Stipkovits shares his journey in building a network in Kansas City 
• Emphasizing trust-building among competitors for collective growth 
• The importance of empowering employees and creating capacity as a leader 
• Strategies for fostering a positive work culture and employee retention 
• Encouraging participation in industry associations for development and connection 
• The role Leadership plays in shaping organizational stability and success

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

All right, folks, you are in for a treat. In this episode I had the opportunity to speak with Fred Stipkiewicz from Ultratech, aerospace and man. His insights and his wisdom is just great. You're going to hear things about how he leveraged an organization to build his network in the Kansas City area and in the industry, about his way of building trust with industry colleagues. You'll hear who he says his biggest competitor is. That's a fascinating conversation there. And then what he believes is going to be the key for the US to become a superpower in manufacturing again.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

And Fred just shares so many insights, so many thoughts, so many things that are just so intriguing to me and I think you'll find them interesting too. And two more things that I think I want you to listen for. Number one how does Fred create capacity for himself as a leader? And then, who does Fred surround himself with to sharpen his leadership ability and to grow himself? Listen for those things. You are in for a treat. This is the first of two parts of my interview with Fred and I think you'll love it. All right, fred, welcome to the show man.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

It's great to see you. I appreciate the invite and having me on Good to see you as well.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

Man, this is an exciting time for KCNTMA, where things are growing, things are happening. We've launched this podcast in partnership between Circle of Five and KCNTMA and I'm just really excited about the collaborative effort that we're doing, and I know you were one of the voices that said hey podcast, it's worth a try. Let's see how we can make an impact through podcasts. So I love your support and I want to thank you for that.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

Yeah, I appreciate the same. You know you have really jumped into the NTMA and have helped out a lot in things like this. All publicity is good publicity. I think the NTMA, especially our Kansas City branch, catherine, and what our excuse me, what our Kansas City branch is doing, is really going to set the stage for some other branches to step it up a notch. I think they've got some amazing, we've got some amazing things going on.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

Yeah, I agree, and you know, I see you at events and you're just connecting with so many people and you're having so many in-depth conversations, whether it's about business models or about hey, here's a project I'm trying to figure out. Do you guys have capacity for something? Tell me, why is it that you chose to be a part of KCMTMA?

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

So you know, if you go through my kind of my journey, my career path up until I started at Ultratech three years ago, I was a global guy. I was traveling all over the world for a couple of different manufacturing companies selling and servicing aircraft, refueling equipment, and so my network was outside of the Kansas City market. I had no business contacts in Kansas City. I had no network in Kansas City. On top of that, I worked for we'll just say some of the what not to do in lessons in leadership and management. I worked for some folks that never cared about making sure their people grew and expanded and had a name outside of their four walls. So I had nothing in Kansas City, and when I got involved, or when I took over Ultratech in November of 21, I had to figure out how to build a network here, because here I am now, a leader in a Kansas City business. I had never been in the machining industry either, and so it was important to me to find the industry associations that were directly impactful to my business and my employees and our community around Kansas City, and Ultratech had been involved.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I think this year is our 40th year in membership for the NTMA, so when it was a smaller ma and pa shop. They were involved in it. Once our holding company, the Cumulus Companies, bought out Ultrate Tech and took it over, they continued their involvement. My previous CFO was on the board at NTMA and then when he left I jumped in and got involved and have just found it to be just tremendously valuable from a career growth and an exposure and really a networking event. So I didn't intend on it to become as much as it has for me or AlterTech. But here I am, you know in December of 25, I've been involved and on the board for a year and now find myself being elected as the board president for calendar year 25. It's built a tremendous network of machine shops and manufacturing companies around Kansas City. For me it's gotten my name and Ultratech's name out there as a strong player in the market and I've made some great friends and great business contacts in there.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

You know there's a couple of interesting things. I'd like to break open with you on that. First of all, what do you say to the guy who's like why would you go sit at a table or sit in a room with people that are your direct competitors? Because there's a lot of people that are intimidated by this conversation. What do you have to say to that guy? And how has your experience conversation what? What do you have to say to that guy?

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

and how has your experience proven that to be flawed thinking? So I think you you've probably heard me say it at events right, the people in that room, the other machine shops in that room, I do not view as competitors. I I view them as as partners in my, in this industry. Uh, they offer they all offer talents and skill set and capabilities, uh, that that I don't or that my shop doesn't have. I don't think there's a single person in that room.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

We we have built over the last year with catherine's involvement or in our art board, we have built an understanding that we are in this together and we're partnered together to grow and develop and expand and not steal. I don't steal people's employees, I don't steal people's business. I looked a bit on business that I don't have capabilities and that I know that somebody else in our NTMA does and may not be playing in the same market that I am, but has a capability that can benefit and vice versa. So I would say, as I did in front of many of the members, if you feel threatened in that room and you feel like somebody is going to take your business, you haven't done a good enough job of networking, becoming an integral part of that NTMA organization, breaking down those walls of competition and building the trust and camaraderie. And that's what I focus on.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I get calls. If I have an unhappy employee that may have happened to apply at a shop that's an NTMA shop, they call me and say, hey, man, I think you got a, you got a disgruntled employee or somebody that's not happy, and vice versa. I've called other shops. So you have to. It starts at the top and should trickle down, and if you're worried about sitting at that table that I'm going to take your business and you're that insecure, you've got to do some deep soul searching, man, because that's not what it should be about.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

So I want to. That's a fascinating thing and I wonder if someone has that mindset and they're at a leadership level of their organization, how do you think their organization feels about their stability if the leadership of the organization has that kind of mindset? I mean, we're speaking hypothetically. Perhaps maybe you know some specific scenarios. Obviously we're not going to talk, yeah, but you think that that leadership mindset might filter through the organization and there's a scarcity mentality within the organization?

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I think that's absolutely right. Everything again starts at the top. I come in every day. I'm my staff's biggest cheerleader, I'm proud of what we do. I like bragging about what we do, about what our capabilities are, but in the same instance, I also recognize it. In my opinion, my biggest competitor is within my four walls. We control our own destiny, the jobs that we have within our four walls, the business that we have. The only competition we have for that business is us whether we run it correctly, program it correctly, buy material correctly. And so if you're yeah, I agree, I think that if you're a leader of a company and you're sitting there worried that somebody is going to take your employees or your business, you need to figure out how to do better.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I'm not worried about my employees leaving Right now. We sit at a 95% retention rate over the last two years in our industry and in our market. That's unheard of. I'm not worried about my folks leaving. I'm also not worried about my customers shopping around because we provide them some of the best transparent customer support that we've ever provided and we have. We have grown and increased our business and the the revenue that we're doing with those accounts over the last three years three, four, five times. So there's always going to be somebody cheaper. There's always going to be somebody that's going to tell you they'll do it better, but the grass isn't always greener. I'm not concerned about my my customers leaving it. I'm not concerned about my employees leaving, and if there is an issue and I catch wind of it, I address it immediately.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

You know, one of the things that I really want to continue to call out into the manufacturing community your middle level leadership is so critical to your organization and people leave often because they don't like their leadership, they don't like their supervisors, their direct reports and that type of thing, and one of the things that I just we in this industry we've got to wrap our brains around the fact that if we recruit someone by offering them a dollar more an hour, we're going to lose someone to someone who's going to offer them a dollar more an hour. The key to keeping your team is not about the money. The money is a short-term solution and discontentment is going to rise within the next couple of months after they get that raise. So I think that the key within your organization is building a culture that values people and raises people's opportunities up, instead of just using people in exchange for dollars 100% agree.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

Money does drive a comfort level and a happiness, especially in today's economy, but there's so much more to employee retention and employee happiness than the dollar. Work-life balance benefits. We put a lot of different benefits in place that are outside of the norm from the manufacturing industry. We run four tens. We allow our hourly employees to flex schedules If they have a doctor's appointment, if they have a kid's school function and anything inside of two hours. Take the time, coordinate with your supervisor, go do your life, go live your life, come in later and make it up. We don't drive that hard, punching the time clock. We have production standards and efficiencies that need to be met, met, but you've got a life to live and you can't crack down to the point that it's chasing a buck. I want people to be happy, have a good work-life balance, produce, have a collaborative environment where people can have recommendations, have improvements that they bring to the table and they benefit from it.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

And we do that all the time. We're going to dive into a little bit more about Ultratech in a minute, but just before we leave this topic of KCNTMA, I think that people who are interested in just the kind of thinking you just shared about wait a minute that's crazy to offer flex schedules and that type of thing. That just can't work in my industry. That's part of why you go to KC and TMA to have conversations like that, not because your organization has to change to that idea, but you get exposed to things outside the silo of your organization and it challenges your norm of thinking, especially if you were raised up, if you were a tech and you moved up to a supervisor and you become part of the C-suite. You are so isolated oftentimes in that organization's experience that it is so important to have influence from outside that organization for you to be able to continue to grow to the future, because the culture is changing in the industry.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

It is.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

If we want to become the industrialized nation that we once were and the superpower in manufacturing that we once were, we can't run our manufacturing like we did even in the 80s or 90s.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I bring the NTMA I've leveraged the NTMA in a number of different ways. You'll see, even this week I think you're coming to our holiday party right, I'll have a full table of staff there with me. I'll have all my lower level supervisors, mid-level supervisors and C-suite folks at that event with me and in many of our events I bring a lot of my management staff or supervisors to these events, because all too often C-suite gets involved in these associations and never involve anybody else in the company and so it looks like just another boondoggle golf outing or another half day event there You're off, drinking and whatever, and so, being an executive which we don't do, right, so I bring, I bring my entire supervisor and management staff to two events, to the golf outings, to holiday events, to other events. You know, catherine and Casey, and NTMA has spun off the SheBuilds Women in Manufacturing group. That is phenomenal and is going to really, really change the dynamics of the NTMA, I feel, on a national standard no-transcript.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

Casey, my quality manager. She's gone to every one of the events. Ultratex launched their first meeting. We sponsored and bought everybody lunch and kicked that off. And the SheLeads group, in conjunction with our KCNTMA group, is going to set a new standard for what these association organizations should be.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

And if companies that are involved don't involve their employees, they're missing out. Because my group of employees, my estimator, my shop supervisors, my management, even my, even my accountant I bring to these events and they start to network and build a group of contacts within the industry that they're vital to the success of at this company and they talk with people and they get new ideas. And that's how SheLeads spun off. And so you know again, if you're worried about competition, if you're worried about stealing business, stealing employees, you've got to really, let's sit down, man. I'd love to sit down with you one-on-one and talk through that, because I think you're missing the intention and the big picture and you've got to get your employees out there and involved in it as well. Otherwise you don't really truly benefit from the networking and the camaraderie that you build within the industry.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

Outstanding man Love it. Thank you for sharing that. I want to turn gears a little bit away from KCNTMA, as much as I'd love talking more about it. I want to talk about your shop life and what's going on there. And I want to start just by saying, as we were anticipating this conversation, I was trying to do my research, understand a little bit about you. I came across one of the podcasts you did a year after you came with Paul Van Meter and that's on his Machine Shop Mastery podcast. You did a great job just laying the transition of you coming into the organization. We'll hit some of those highlights. For people that want to know more of your onboarding story, I'd encourage them to go look up Paul's podcast and hear that early story. And you'd also mentioned there was another podcast you did here within the last year, Remind me who that was.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

Yeah, it was with Jeff Palaccio, called the Corporate Couch. Okay, it was kind of a tack on. You know, paul was at a shop tour that Roger, with the nationwide NTMA president, executive director I'm not sure exactly, forgive me on the butchering his title, but they had an event in Kansas City. They had reached out. They did a shop tour here.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I was green, I was green in a machine shop, I was green in the C-suite and I'd never done a podcast ever in my life and I did a shop tour, opened the doors, took everybody through a bunch of shops from all over the country that were in town for a national NTMA event. Paul came up afterwards and said hey, man, I got to get you on my podcast and it was in my early days of restructuring and rebuilding and then Jeff's was just six months ago, so kind of the tail end of that, and it talks kind of about some other life. Jeff's kind of dives into a little other life lessons and you know, career path and military experience and things like that. But both, both I feel were really valuable in telling not only my story but Ultratech's story and our journey of how we've gotten to where we are now.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

So you know, Fred, I want to ask you a little bit more about this because in your podcast you've talked about how you've made yourself available to shop owners that are veterans and you've worked with charities to get resources to them and stuff. I want to talk a little bit about your mindset, because so many shop leaders believe that, as someone who's in charge of a shop, I've got to be running around frantic all the time and I've got to be too busy to be accessible, and I sometimes see shop leaders that I'm like man. I'd love to connect with that person, but they seem like their hair is always on fire and I don't want to get in the way of them being productive. How do you create capacity as a leader to shape yourself and other people in the influences that you do, whether it's at KCNTMA, working with a small shop owner who doesn't know how to make a quote and that type of thing? How do you create bandwidth for that?

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I think my wife asked the same question, because most nights I leave work and go straight to some kid function and then, you know, I'm not getting home till seven, eight o'clock. But that's the life of a father with two young kids and my wife has a thriving career, so we're always running it's. I think it's a lot simpler than people think. I know that when I'm gone I was just gone last week for Thanksgiving. I went back to Pennsylvania to visit my family. I hadn't been back for an extended period of time in three years, so I took all last week off.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I have a director of operations, a production manager, a controller, quality manager, engineering and customer support manager that I don't have to worry about. I know they come in every day, they give me 150%, they believe in the plans that I've put in motion, they see what success looks like. They're all empowered to make decisions. And you know I can spend an hour here and nobody's knocking on my door, because if there's an answer, somebody. There comes a point where you have to. I would sooner you make a decision, stand behind your decision, and maybe it not be right, but talk about how you work through the process to get to your decision versus you not making any decisions whatsoever.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

And so I don't. You know I don't micromanage them. They're all empowered to make decisions, do what they need to do to run their departments and they know. They know what my expectations are and I can go out of here for a week. I don't, don't get me wrong, I still work, but I can. I can leave here for a week. Now, don't get me wrong, I still work, but I can leave here for a week and know that building's not going to burn down and customers aren't going to leave and things are going to get done, because they know, when I come back, that if they didn't do what they're supposed to do and they feel bad about letting me down, they know that what I've put in to make sure that they have a successful career as well.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

Yeah, listen, I love this. I tell you know that transition and you will talk a little bit about your role in the story at your company, but you didn't come into a mom and pop shop of eight people and build it to several dozen. One of the things that leaders that I talk to really have to understand is that when you're building a team, when you get to that 10, 12, 14 people on your team, one of the best things you can do is go on vacation for a week or two and come back and see what broke, because as you're getting ready to go, you're trying to get all your ducks in a row, you're trying to raise up people so that they can make it a sustainable thing while you're gone and then, when you come back, you get to learn what's broken and then you get to improve your systems so that in a few months, when you take your next vacation, you get to see how have we grown as an organization. What's your thoughts about the importance of leaving just to see how healthy your system?

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

is oh, ryan, 100% agree, and I think you know I've even. I think Elon Musk is the one that made a comment that said you know something about I don't remember the exact what it is, but if, if you're gone for two weeks and nothing happens and and then you know really what are you doing? Absolutely, there's things that are always going to go awry. New things are always going to pop up. We're in a very complex industry and you're going to walk back to a fire, but hopefully, you know, your team is empowered to keep that fire to a smolder and not a raging inferno. So when you walk back, it's just cleaning up and tidying up a few of the loose ends and that's it.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

So there's always going to be that, and if you can't do that, then you probably need some help on developing your systems and your team, because you're and the other thing, if your company is so dependent on you that you can't go away you've just got a job. You don't have a business that you can't go away, you've just got a job, you don't have a business. And for those small shop owners, if the organization falls apart when you're not present, you don't have anything of value to sell to someone else. You've got to figure out how to establish it so that it has a value without you if that organization is going to be worth something.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

Yeah, it's a tough. That was very hard for me to even get my head around because and for clarification, you're not even an owner in your organization, correct?

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

No?

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

right. I mean I have a stock option, but I don't have any skin in the game.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

But I just want people to understand it's not just owner, it's other levels of leadership too. Right, that's the point, but continue with your thought.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

It was. No, that was a very hard thing because I mean, part of my transition here at Ultratech was re restaffing and in the first 10 months I replaced 50% of the employees in this company. And so to build a team and and get a team on board and one of my managers has been here. She wrote through the storms of hell with me, casey, as I was restructuring and was 100 committed and my other staff are all relatively new. You know, year two years, um, on my management team, leadership team, but that was to to. It took a long time to peel back that onion, to get to a point where I can go out of town and not worry about the wheels coming off and Well, and you were in a rebuild to begin with, so it wasn't just a.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

You came and acquired something that was in extraordinary shape. And again, listen to Paul's podcast and listen to the other parts of your story. But, yeah, and I think sometimes the team that's on the shop floor or the supervisors don't understand the exposure that leaders have in those transition points or in the launching phase and they're like man, the man's getting rich off me. Well, it's also the man that took huge risk and invested a lot of sacrifice to help bring the stability that the organization has.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

Yeah, it's. You know I didn't learn all that stuff on my own. I mean I'm involved in to add to my pile. You know I'm involved in three different peer advisory groups outside of the NTMA. I'm in a Vistage CEO group where I more of an entrepreneur group called the Kansas City Mavericks, led by a gentleman named Scott Havens who's kind of the connector of everybody. But I'm in that group and that group I feel like the old dog in that group and I'm also one of the few that have a real corporate structure in that group.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

Everybody else are true grassroots entrepreneurs, which is not my area of comfort at all.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

And so the experience and the knowledge and the outside of the box ideas that I get from that group, coupled by the Vistage group where we're all learning and growing together.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

And then there's another group called the Heartland Heroes by that that I'm in, that is filled with some very, very senior like ex-Sprint, ex-ceo, you know just top notch Multi-billion dollar corporations, multi-billion dollar corporations, right, right, you know so I have that high tenured, has seen every single thing you can think of group with those folks. The middle group with the Vistage folks that we're all kind of early on in our CEO careers. And then the Mavericks group. That's an entrepreneurial group that gives me an entirely different perspective outside of a corporate structure. I mean, I spend you know that's a tremendous amount of time as well, but the personal growth and development that I've gained out of each one of those groups because they all offer a different mindset has been, has really, really been, beneficial. So, you know, I encourage people to get involved, find a good career coach, a good coaching organization that you can join, where you can have that, you know, that mindset shift or get you outside of your comfort zone and learn a different way of thinking. That is not your traditional style.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

Yeah, love it, and I think there's such an importance of making sure you're picking a coach. I've had a few coaches in my career and some have had huge alignment with where I'm going. The one I'm working with right now I really value, but I've also had some coaches that would push me a direction they wanted me to go instead of the life that I was trying to build, and you have to really be discerning when you're going through that journey. But you teed this up so well. I have to mention this.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

One of the things that I do is I offer a free manufacturing peer advisory group for those that are in mid-level leadership or production leadership, and it's really intended not necessarily for that C-suite level, but those guys that are just running operations and they're making decisions and helping to build the culture and creating the experience that everybody in the shop has. And that's something that we do once a month and that's a free one we have. I do a little bit of teaching content and then we do a hot seat at the end of it where someone brings their issue and we just ask questions and help them unpack the dynamics involved in that. And so if there's anyone, if you are a shop leader or if you want your shop leaders to have a support network around them. This is something that this particular one is free, just to help these guys have a community, because I just recognize so many of them were in silos and we needed to get them connected.

Fred Stipkovits w/ UltraTech Aerospace:

I think that's you know, the fact that you're focusing on the middle level. They don't really have a group. There's not right. The CEO groups are all established and out there and that's what they cater to and so I mean that's a group and we need to talk even further, because I'd love to get some of my other shop level folks involved in that, because I don't feel like there's enough attention for that type of personal development and growth put on that middle rung.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

Yeah, and that's really where I'm trying to help stand in the gap because I've been that second and third chair leader in organizations. In the gap because I've been that second and third chair leader in organizations and I understand that tension of wait. How am I growing in this organization and what's my trajectory? And so, yeah, I'd be glad to talk. And, for anyone interested in checking that out, the circleoffivecoachingcom slash free is where they can get on our email list to be a part of that free manufacturing peer advisory group. There you have it.

Ryan Nelson w/ Circle of 5:

That is part one of the interview with Fred Stipkiewicz from Ultratech Aerospace. Loved his perspective, loved his insights and how he is just growing himself and the people around him on his team. Here's what I'd love to ask for you If you would subscribe to this and whatever vehicle you're using for the podcast or if you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe to it there. And then also, I'd love for you to just encourage Fred by leaving something that he shared today in our conversation that encouraged you to grow or to become a better version of yourself or to do leadership in a different way. Take some time, leave some comments, let him know that you appreciate him. Thank you so much for being a part of this. Stay following what we're doing, because the next episode is going to be part two of our interview with Fred.