People in Production Podcast with Ryan Nelson

Episode 14 - Ian Reel (Part 1) When One Good Idea Changes Everything: A Manufacturer's Journey

• Circle of 5 • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Ian Reel from Kaw Valley Precision shares his non-traditional journey from industrial arts teacher to manufacturing entrepreneur, revealing how he strategically built his business while mitigating risks. As a former industrial arts teacher, he discusses the challenges facing industrial education programs in schools and the strategic approach he took in testing market demand before fully committing to manufacturing.

• Kaw Valley Precision specializes in aftermarket firearm parts with diversification into automotive, locks, oil and gas, electronics, injection molding, and food industries
• Ian's background includes growing up around his father's production woodworking business and earning a degree in industrial arts education
• Industrial arts programs in schools are facing challenges
• Ian identified underserved markets in the firearms industry
• He developed his first product by leveraging his network of manufacturing connections
• Rather than immediately investing in equipment, he subcontracted manufacturing for four years while teaching
• The business grew to approximately 15 products before Ian took the leap to purchase CNC equipment
• Ian emphasizes the importance of family support when starting a business, calling it a team decision
• His approach demonstrates how to test market acceptance before making major capital investments
• Now serving on the KCNTMA board, Ian is committed to addressing the manufacturing skills gap

Get involved with KCNTMA and the upcoming Bots KC event in late April to see students engaged in robotics competitions and help support the next generation of manufacturing talent.

Speaker 1:

Ian Reel from Call Valley Precision. Welcome to the podcast. Good to have you, man.

Speaker 2:

Hey, thank you for taking the time to talk with me and hopefully we can both learn some things and give back a little bit to this community.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I love it. So you and I have connected. Once before I've had the opportunity just to talk with you on the phone a little bit. Catherine O'Toole from KCNTMA said you'd be a great conversation, and so I'm really looking forward to this conversation today. And let's start by having you tell us about Call Valley Precision. What are you guys about?

Speaker 2:

Sure, so Call Valley Precision is essentially known for our aftermarket firearm parts. We do a fair amount of work in the defense industry. Doing various consumer aftermarket firearm parts is the lion's share of our work, but throughout the years have diversified into other industries as well. Anything from you know. We do some things in automotive locks, clocks, oil and gas, electronics, some injection molding and even a little bit into the foods industry as well. So I've really tried to diversify outside of our normal bread and butter, just because it's you know it's pretty difficult to dig a well when you're thirsty.

Speaker 1:

just because it's pretty difficult to dig a well when you're thirsty. Yeah, definitely appreciate that, and so you have a non-traditional pathway into this manufacturing space. So why don't you tell us what your career was looking like and when it took a turn?

Speaker 2:

Sure a bit non-traditional. I guess we can rewind all the way back to when I was a kid. You know I grew up with manufacturing in my blood. My dad brought me up in full-blown production woodworking, so think, kitchen cabinetry at a massive scale. So I was around that sort of thing growing up and never really got bit by the woodworking aspect of things. So I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my career.

Speaker 2:

And once I got to the end of my high school career I go well, you know, what am I going to do with this? So I was exploring opportunities and ended up getting on an athletic scholarship at a Kansas University and not Kansas University, fort Hays State University. But ended out at Fort Hays State doing track and field and then they had a industrial arts program where I just really fit, felt at home, got exposure to other areas of manufacturing and industry that I had been familiar with, and then ultimately kind of chose my path to go into secondary education teaching. So my degree was in industrial arts, with an emphasis in secondary education. So that's where I cut my teeth.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk a little bit, because industrial arts can mean different things to different people. So were you doing wood shop or were you doing more metal manufacturing? What did that look like in your context?

Speaker 2:

So the neat thing out there, it was everything. So I had introduction into plastic processes, woods, metals, foundry, cad, cam, some loosely CNC machining stuff where I did some self-pop things there, welding. So it was just kind of we'll say that I had a broad stroke of a little bit of everything, but not real deep knowledge in anything, so kind of the perfect mix for being able to be put into an industrial setting at a school, you know whatever they would call industrial arts. I would have a little sprinkling to be able to be successful there.

Speaker 1:

What's interesting is how that has changed. I'm going to date myself a little bit here, but when I was in high school in the late 80s, early 90s, you could either take I'm trying to think about the fourth one you could take home economics. There was a foods class, there was woodworking and then there was drafting. So we're going way back.

Speaker 1:

When you get into drafting class with protractors and stuff like that Boy. This niche of that line of work has really expanded from what it was decades, just a few decades ago. So it's interesting to me to see how there are pathways in that high school level that are introducing people to the manufacturing space and other production spaces. Do you have any thoughts on why that's changed and how important that's been?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think there's all sorts of theories, but I don't know why things have changed. But I can tell you from experience. When I graduated college with my degree, there was only eight other students within my degree field and they all had jobs. I was the only one that didn't take a job and I continued on and got my master's in education as well and then by the time I was finishing up and actually looking for my first teaching job, there was only one new teacher available in the whole state of Kansas that would teach industrial arts.

Speaker 2:

So think wood shop or anything like that. There was only one and it was me. So I had opportunities to really just kind of pick a school district if they, if they had a job available. And unfortunately a lot of the schools were faced with either finding a teacher or closing the program, and that's kind of where a lot of the schools have kind of found themselves. And then once those programs close, they're so capital intense they never come back, or come back in the same capacity that maybe you would remember your woodshop looking like at that time when you went through.

Speaker 2:

maybe you would remember your woodshop looking like at that time when you went through.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate innovative programs, like some of what KCNTMA is partnering with to help to create apprenticeship programs and to collaborate with other awareness and education programs and stuff, because we need our young adults to be looking at this career pathway. A because we've got so many people leaving the industry and B just we don't have a workforce that's inclined towards this type of labor because there's stereotypes around it. But it's a great career path that many people are having great success and it looks a lot different than it did 30 years ago.

Speaker 2:

Oh for sure, and I mean to this day. I still remember taking taking students on field trips into industrial facilities and they had no idea anything like that existed, and to just see their the light bulb go off in their head and and then see a real world application to where, hey, actually maybe I could make a living doing something like this, because it, you know, the technology that we would be able to show them in school, either with our technology, our equipment or through the internet or YouTube or whatever, is only a small portion. Once they actually can see, feel, smell, you know, get immersed into a shop environment that is, you know, actually generating income and providing, you know, value and lifestyles for people, it completely changed. You know the way they looked at it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's great and you know it's such a different world and there's so many opportunities and whether it's from the engineering side or even sales side in manufacturing or running robots and doing all the production itself and that type of thing, it's such a diverse opportunity field and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this. Kc NTMA is hosting Bots KC event coming up in late April and prior to that event we're gonna be having a joint session with KCNTMA and St Louis chapter of NTMA and we're gonna spend a couple of days together with them and that'll flow right into the Bots KC event. And that Bots KC event is students who are learning robotics and they're gonna bring their robots together to beat each other up in the cage that they're building and stuff like that. So would encourage people to check in with Catherine, keep an eye on the calendar, because that's gonna be an exciting event to see students who are actively engaged in this stuff.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about your transition, man. How did you get from being in a um in a salaried position in a school district to running your own shop? You initially didn't start with that intent, from what I understand nope.

Speaker 2:

So Essentially it started with a part-time job. I had a part-time job when I was in college in a gun shop and I started to identify little sectors of the firearm markets that I thought were being underserved.

Speaker 1:

Did you do that? By listening to customers coming in saying do you have something? Or just you had time to think and you thought what if, what if, what if.

Speaker 2:

More of the what ifs. It was borrowing ideas that were maybe used in the market that weren't being executed in a way I thought was as good or could be done better. So I took an idea and, with my background of being able to do some design and CAD work 3D modeling, that sort of thing was able to design out a competing product and then use some resources that I had through you know my dad and through the college and through other people that I had met in the manufacturing sector, to say, hey, you know, is this part manufacturable, can we make a go at this?

Speaker 2:

And the initial product.

Speaker 1:

I want to just hit pause for a second here because from what I know of your story, we're going to come back to this again. But you just pointed out the importance of developing a network of relationships to be successful in this industry.

Speaker 1:

And so you shared about it and, like I said, I think we're going to come back to this later in our conversation but you shared that when you had an idea, the network around you was critically important to bring it to life and I just I want people not to miss that. Are you naturally a networker or did you just kind of stumble into?

Speaker 2:

that, not naturally, but always been like a garage tinker. So I've always had a building mindset. I see something and could probably solve it, or I may not know how it completely works, but I can probably figure it out. So I've always had that. I think that probably comes from my father and then did a lot of work on a farm growing up.

Speaker 2:

So you know you were you didn't have access to the right parts all the time, so you had to make things work with what you had. So there was some ingenuity and some garage ingenuity that we'd come up with. So part of it was just asking the right questions, the right people and, for whatever reason, the right people happened to be around me at the time.

Speaker 1:

So that's great, so I love that. Thanks for letting me hit pause on that. Continue. So you had this idea, you started working your network and you it all started with an idea. For one part, is that correct?

Speaker 2:

One, one product, yep. And so then reached out and and developed some shop drawings and then had contract machine shops bid and then got lined up with a machine shop to to go ahead and make things was the one of the scariest checks I've ever written. So I, you know, withdrew some cash and was like, oh man, I'm gonna make a go of this thing, am I making the right decision?

Speaker 1:

And that was all in You're literally in that spot where before you can start selling something, you have to have that inventory. And obviously we all know you can pay for five of these things, but it's not going to return its investment if you just get five of them. So you have to get so many and it's all just on hoping that the market will accept what you're bringing to it.

Speaker 2:

Correct, that's right.

Speaker 1:

So and that that's intimidating for any company. But when you're a one man shop just starting with an idea, there's a massive element of fear in that and I appreciate your candidness with that.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, and I look back on it hindsight being 2020,. You know, and I look back on it hindsight being 2020, you know, I was scared of losing quote, unquote, everything but. I didn't have anything. So what was what was the greater? What was the greater risk? Not doing anything at all, or or giving it a shot. And I was young and I go, man, I'm going to give this a shot. I think I would regret not trying over trying and failing.

Speaker 1:

So I just gave it a shot and again, at this point, you wouldn't consider yourself being in manufacturing. No At this point, you would consider yourself a retail person who now has a product that they've deeply invested in.

Speaker 2:

Correct, okay.

Speaker 1:

So let's connect that dot from. Hey, this is starting to take off. Hey, I need more order. Can you guys hurry up a little bit? When did it shift for you that?

Speaker 2:

hey, this should be a manufacturing move sell the parts, I would reorder the parts and, you know, take all the profits and loop it back into buying more and having them manufacture more, and it just never seemed to keep up. I was always out. Sales were always outpacing what I could have manufactured. And then I was bringing more parts to market. I was having more designs, more designs manufactured, and then I had a dealer network that started to get large enough that new ideas. I couldn't limp into the market with 50 parts. I had to limp into the market with 250 or 350 or 500 parts, 150 or 500 parks.

Speaker 2:

Well, if the part was unproven and it was still just a prototype, it was hard to write the checks to get 500 of those in the hopes that that would be good. So that became kind of a daunting task and I was doing all this, you know, part-time, still, while teaching, and from 2013 to 2017. So I did that for four years continue to develop parts, continue to essentially subcontract that everything, all the machining work, and what I was doing was was customer service, order fulfillment and and that sort of thing, and continue to design parts in the evenings.

Speaker 1:

Were you literally inventorying all this in a spare bedroom or something? Or did you have a storage unit? What did that look like?

Speaker 2:

Basement of a rental is where I did a lot of the distribution out of and then towards the latter part, before leaving teaching full-time and doing this full-time, I did have a space that I rented and actually had two employees, two employees that were working in Call Valley Precision while I was at school teaching Just doing fulfillment services for you, yeah, fulfillment billing, inventory, qc, that sort of thing. So fulfillment type stuff.

Speaker 1:

All right. So we're getting to the part of the story where you're like I'm going to take the next leap and I'm going to invest in my own thing and walk away from teaching how many products were you offering at that point in your journey?

Speaker 2:

So I was around 15 products, probably give or take 15 products. And, and it really came down to this crossroads I was in was like, okay, I need, I need to diversify across more machine shops, more people need to have their hand because I need more volume. And then it really came down to well, how much money do I need to bring to the table to get all these new inventory streams flowing? And you know, that's that could be one option. The other option would be well, what would it look like to go purchase a CNC machine, figure out how to run this thing and then, you know, machine my own inventory Because I mean, there's margin to be made there too.

Speaker 2:

So it was. I asked a lot of questions, started getting RFQs on machines, talking to machine builders, talking to people in the area that had done this before, and then, just I basically did a math problem with my wife at the dinner table to zero and to see how much I needed to bring in and what I was walking away from, where she needed to pick up some slack and in the budget, and we ultimately decided, hey, let's give this a shot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think people need to understand that when you go into business, it's not just you going into business, you're taking your family into business with you and there's a vulnerability there and it requires that team participation and I see people trying to do it on their own as if it's not a team thing and a lot of times that's so taxing on the relationship that either the relationship or the company has to be sacrificed, and either of those scenarios is a healthy scenario. So I appreciate you bringing to light that, hey, this was a mutual conversation because the risk involved both of us and she was willing to help provide some of that stability in case it was a slow lead up to success.

Speaker 2:

For sure, and I should also add my path to a CNC machine shop, or my first machine wasn't. I had an idea, bought a CNC machine, then hope the market liked it. It was designed apart, subbed out everything, had four years of sales data. That said, hey, whatever you're doing is good, keep doing that. Then bought the machine to then support a business that was already established with four years of sales data that were all trending up.

Speaker 1:

And you're just changing your sourcing from a vendor to yourself. And now you're changing your financial model as a result of that proven crack.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

That's great. I love thanks for that distinction. So you don't have to risk everything without testing the market. It might be a slower build, but you can have more certainty in the process.

Speaker 2:

Well, and at the end of the day, I mean, a machine tool is a risk and owning a business is a risk. And if you can have other people make good parts for you and you can work on some of the other stuff, that's very difficult to develop, like you know, the market, a website, employment, shipping, fulfillment, quality control you know all those things that are burdened in a business. You know there's a lot to it, so I wouldn't. And I've had a lot of entrepreneurs come through the shop and have ideas and I say, well, you just might as well. Let me make some of these parts at first. Versus, you know, going and burdening yourself with, you know whatever. Tens of thousands of dollars manufacturing machine, all the spend tens of thousand dollars in inventory again, I mean you're spending the money either way which one's going to lead you with. Leave you with less risk.

Speaker 1:

So Love it. So here's what I want to do. I am going to we're going to get back to this whole transition point of when the shop took to life, but I want to talk a little bit. You are currently on the board of KCNTMA. Is that correct, correct? And is this your first year on the board 2025?

Speaker 2:

First year.

Speaker 1:

All right. So what prompted you to get involved at that next level of being on the board for KCNTMA?

Speaker 2:

Well, I was asked and it's kind of interesting, I find myself with a little bit different perspective. I don't know if it was age or what, I don't know, but I start to see the people that frequent these events. They're interconnected. I needed a way to network within the industry. These individuals that are on the board and regularly attend the NTMA events are just people that I found myself being drawn to. And then when they asked, hey, I think you have a skillset where you could give back to the community, I was all in. I was like okay, let's do it.

Speaker 1:

I love that You're saying the caliber of the people on the board. You recognize that it would be good to rub shoulders with that caliber of people.

Speaker 2:

That you know you start seeing some of the outreach stuff they're doing with the younger individuals that are in high school and that can be kind of intimidating for some other business people. It's not intimidating to me, I mean I kind of get that age group of kids pretty well and I can speak their language. I've been there. So an opportunity to give back and also kind of give back to the community. We talk about the skills gap, we talk about all these things, but then there is so at times the action falls short. So it was something I felt like I could join the board, I could join the NTMA, I could, you know, put into action some of the things that people were saying that the industry was missing.

Speaker 1:

You know I talk a lot about this principle of you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and that's a principle Jim Rohn had said it years ago and a lot of people share that and I think just being really intentional about are you just accepting who's around you or are you curating the people that you choose to let into that inner circle so that your thinking is affected by people who are thinking forward rather than people who are stuck in what they used to be? And I don't know, that may not be the sole driving factor of why you did the board, but I do hear that, hey, you saw some thinking that was heading in a direction you liked and you wanted to be a part of that and you wanted to bring something to that. And to me that's personal leadership when you're choosing to put yourself around people that are next level thinkers. So thanks for that example and for sharing so much of your journey to that point. So any other thoughts on that before we move on?

Speaker 2:

No, I mean we just have got so much stuff, so many positive things, both working and continue to work, that it's going to be an amazing year with the NTMA, so looking forward to it.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. So we're going to finish part one of our interview here, and in the next part we're going to learn more about how your shop grew and what your journey has been like since the time you opened up and went full-time in manufacturing. So we'll look forward to having people join us for that next section.