Amateurs and Experts
Amateurs and Experts is brought to you by Erica Chin and Jessica Adanich from the Women’s Outdoor Media Association (WOMA). WOMA is dedicated to encouraging women in the outdoor endeavors of shooting sports, archery, fishing, and hunting. In this podcast, Erica and Jessica share their experience in outdoor sports as well as interview female experts. The goal of this podcast is to educate and empower women who are beginners, hobbyists, and competitors in a fun and relaxed setting.
Amateurs and Experts
From Wedding DJ to CEO: The Secret Otis Path
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Have you ever wondered what it takes to go from being a wedding DJ to the CEO of a major technology company? In this episode, we talk to Brad McIntyre about his long career at Otis Technology. Brad has worked at the same company for twenty-five years and has done almost every job there. He started as a designer and worked his way up to the very top.
Brad explains how the people he worked for taught him about money, building things, and using data. He also talks about how much he loves going to big trade shows to see his friends from all over the world. The company is like a big family where everyone helps each other out. They even make all their products in New York to help the military and police. If you want to learn how to grow in your career, you should listen to this story. Check out the full episode to hear more about how Otis Technology stays successful!
Links
- Otis Technology (OtisTech.com) - Mentioned at 19:55 as the primary website for their products.
- SHOT Show (shotshow.org) - Mentioned throughout (e.g., 0:18) as the venue for the recording and industry gathering.
- Bass Pro Shops (basspro.com) - Mentioned at 19:22 as a major retailer for Otis products.
- Scheels (scheels.com) - Mentioned at 19:23 as a retail partner.
Key Takeaways
- Career longevity allows for deep, cross-departmental "tribal knowledge."
- Soft skills from unrelated fields (like DJing) are highly transferable to executive leadership.
- Authentic marketing often requires "real-world" conditions (like actually dirty equipment).
- American manufacturing thrives on direct feedback from the end-users (military/LEO).
Keywords
- Otis Technology
- SHOT Show 2026
- Brad McIntyre
- Firearm Maintenance
- Lean Manufacturing
- AS ISO 9100
- NSN (National Stock Number)
- Tribal Knowledge
- Upstate New York
- Gun Cleaning Kits
Welcome to Amateurs and Experts Podcast. I'm Erica Chid and I'm here with Maggie Reese. We're at uh SHOT Show 2026 in the Otis Technology Booth. And I am so excited to be here with Brad McIntyre, the CEO of Otis Technology. What?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01So excited. So Brad, tell us like how I know you're new CEO, but you've been with the company forever. Yep, about 25, almost 26 years. And how how did they, you know, like how how does that work when you're there for 25 years, you've probably done everything in the company.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Yeah. You know, I I was actually employee number 12. So I've wow. And that was back when the you know the family was there and Doreen's father, Jerry. Um, you know, so they heard a they needed a graphic designer. That was my background. That's what I did. So I came in and I started. Well, I was also a wedding DJ and uh I did video karaoke. So the extrovert person that they needed when they needed to call you know somebody in to help tr with trade shows and whatnot, so that's what I did. So dial ahead, they're like, you know what, we need a salesperson. He's an extrovert, he's good with people. I mean, he can you know make a two or three hundred person wedding go. Right. Yeah, so that's how kind of how I started in sales.
SPEAKER_00And I was gonna say, i it doing weddings, you were probably used to a lot of different personalities, a lot of alcohol, a lot of you never knew what was gonna get thrown at you.
SPEAKER_03And you and you know, if you can make a bride happy on her wedding day, uh you know, yeah. Yeah, you learn a lot from doing that.
SPEAKER_00That's it's so interesting because like I I feel at in this day and age, like people just don't stick with a company for a long time. They're they're here for two years, they go someplace else, and but you know, they're not captured.
SPEAKER_03Some of it is you want to just keep broadening your your portfolio of what you can bring to the table to get to the next level. And you know, I've stood the test of time at Otis. You know, I worked under Doreen, who's you know, the the original founder, and she's a beautiful person, and I've known her for well almost 26 years now. And the person that um replaced Doreen, his name was Len, he was a CFO, promoted to CEO, so that really gave me a broader understanding of how the finance perk works in in the business. And understanding margins and you know, just the cash flow, you know, that whole part of it. And then after Len, Doreen's brother Larry came in, he's an operations guy, it really pushed the lean manufacturing principles within the organization, AS we're you know, compliant to an AS ISO 9100 standard, so which I would have never learned that piece of the business. And then Bill, or yeah, Bill, who is our current CEO, who just you know is is out a couple weeks ago, he's an engineer. So it really showed how data can drive a business and brought that at so I've learned so many different aspects of how a business can run without having to job shop every five to ten, you know, seven years or whatever.
SPEAKER_00So well, and they gave you that growth pattern and and celebrated it with you, you know. So you have to have that path and a company that allows you to come into your own.
SPEAKER_03And I've so and then back in 2005, Doreen and her sister Denise took me to lunch one day out of the blue, which wasn't out of the blue, but they were like, you want to go to lunch and to lunch? And they said, you know, our dad Jerry, who's an icon in this industry, everybody knows Jerry Williams, uh, they said, We want you to take over for dad on the law enforcement and military side of the business. Okay, because I had been Jerry's right hand for about a year, and it was just we traveled well together, and um, so they asked me to step in and take over for him. So that was kind of where I first jumped into being responsible for for the sales piece of the business. So that's what I hope to bring to Otis at the next level is you know, we're we're lean, we're efficient, we do good things. Uh-huh. I can I have an eye on how sales, the sales process works. So now I'm step in and drive some revenue and capture the market space.
SPEAKER_01It's it's really cool that you uh firsthand uh were taught in this industry all the different you know aspects of it, and now you can put it, you know, you can put it into your style.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know what the weird the I it was actually started in November of 2024 when this process, Bill announced his retirement, and the family had a chance to think about what they wanted to do next to hire their next CEO. And when they asked me, it was something I never saw in myself. I you know, I love sales. I love it at SHOT Show yesterday. I met with a whole bunch of my different Poland and Guatemala and all my these aren't just customers to me, they're friends. I've known them for so long and done so much that uh, you know, I I saw my I always saw myself as just a salesperson until the day that I retired. And when somebody sees something you don't really see in yourself, you're almost me? You you want me to and the customers and the partners and the relationships I've made for the last 25 years have come because this is my 25th SHOT Show to take out COVID, and just the people that have come to me that um you know, a a friend of mine who worked at the State Department now works for Magpole, and he saw me when I was grabbing a cup of coffee and he congratulated me, and it's like it's just it's flattering and it's humbling.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's what I love about SHOT Show too, is because it's like the only time of year where you get to see certain people like face to face because you're on the phone or Zoom or email or whatever, but you come to the show and then you get to hang out in person and go grab a you know a bite and all that stuff. So that's a family reunion. Oh, yeah, it absolutely is.
SPEAKER_03It absolutely is. It was like it was like, you know, as you know, when you do it, it can also be grueling by the time you get to the end. You know, so like the COVID year, people were having these mixed emotions like no shot show this year, could be a relief, but man, I'm gonna miss it. And then midway through, you're like, man, this is kind of weird not having a shot show, and then it's all kind of a blur now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's a love-hate relationship because like when you're in it, you're meant you're like, man, this is go, go, go, go, go. Yeah, and then you're like, I just want to get out of here, but then you look forward to it too.
SPEAKER_03And then you always think about the shot show crud on the back end, and everybody always gets something. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh what do you do to prepare for shot show? From a health side or from you know both.
SPEAKER_03You know, so for me, you know, I always do the, you know, reach out to all my contacts, you know, swing by, and you know, we always we have a reception today, but I always like to tell people swing by, let's have a beer, you know, catch up, talk about, you know, what's new, what what happened. From a health side, I you know, I just try to make sure you get the vitamin C in you, the zinc, and the you know, all the all the things you you try to do to stay healthy, the hand sanitizers and all.
SPEAKER_00I sent Erica to the store. I I was driving out here and I was like, Erica, I I forgot my airborne. Like I had like and I had like my list of supplements and things that I needed, like just to just to stay healthy throughout the show.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I started I start a couple of weeks early and start with the C's and the D's and the Bs, and then uh my husband is an ER nurse and he also does home IVs. So I pre-gamed it and he gave me an IV with a bunch of vitamins.
SPEAKER_00He flew out last year and gave us IVs during the show, and I was like, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me.
SPEAKER_03So so last year was horrible. My wife and I we planned a trip to Puerto Vallarta to Mexico the week after SHOT Show. I ended up getting COVID last year, the last day of the show. So I had two or three days to, once I got home to recuperate, well, as luck would have it, or unluck would have it, my wife caught it as we were getting into Mexico. So four days at an all-inclusion resort, she's just wiped out. And yeah, so trying to avoid that this year. Don't do it.
SPEAKER_01Lots of hand sanitizer, I feel like. Yeah, washing the hands. I try not to put my like there's so many guns here that you just want, you know, you're like so excited and put it right up to your face. I try not to put guns to my face anymore. Like, there's there's a couple of things that you have to take into consideration. Sure do. Are you gonna, you know, what are you gonna touch that uh a thousand other people have that might have that cootie bug? Yep, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00So what's your what's your firearms experience? Like, what do you are are you a shooter, a hunter, a sportsman?
SPEAKER_03Yep, so a little bit of everything. I don't hunt as much as like my son, he's a big hunter, he loves to hunt, bow, rifle. I don't like being cold. We're from upstate New York, and and I'm just I can appreciate that. I'm 50 now. The days of me wanting to go out when the rain and the snow is coming right sideways to hunt a deer is not my thing. I love I love Canada goose, uh snow goose hunting because you don't need to be sitting quiet, you know, you just wait until the guide, if you're if you're hunting with a guide, says, you know, birds, and you just kind of hunker in your blind until it's time to get out and shoot. I love pistol shooting, I love trap shooting, shot yeah, probably pistol and uh shotgun are my favorite. Okay. But yeah, I it's just working in this industry, you know, every now and then you get this, hey, I want to send you something, and you you find out that somebody sent you a firearm because they want you to test it out and they appreciate your opinion, and you know, they want you to have a piece of history that you know, so all kinds of things, you know. Otis owned a gun company DRD for uh for a couple of years, and um, you know, so that's kind of cool. So, you know, look did a few build home build AR builds and stuff like that. So, yeah. And how often do you clean your guns? So on the spot here. So so funny, so funny thing, you know, it's you know, we we we have an FFL at work with an SOT, and we you know, we've got machine guns and everything, so we and suppressors and all that good stuff, even being in New York, so which is pretty neat unique. Yeah. Um, but you know, we do, we you know, we had you both met Heather, you know, we have a marketing team in-house, video, graphics, the whole everything. So we always need dirty guns for video content and photo content. So believe it or not, dirty guns are a are uh are a are a value at Otis if you can bring them in so they have you know content with uh so bringing dirty guns. Exactly. So I so I make a point to never clean my guns because they may need them for videos.
SPEAKER_00Need it for camera. I know.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome. Isn't that awesome?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's super cool. I would take advantage of that too much.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Well, sometimes, you know, when we're we're we're always trying to grow our portfolio of chemicals and hardware and stuff, so sometimes you the dirtier the better with what depending on what you're trying to you know to bring to market.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Yeah, and especially if you clean it like really good, I feel like I would definitely if I lived around you guys, I would definitely drop all my guns off.
SPEAKER_03Well, we actually we have a small hardware store that's a you know a half an hour up the road. And we do uh every year we do a you know a session where people can bring their firearms and they show how to clean the firearms and and wait for employees or yeah, so we have yeah, a few people from our like our ins inside sales team. It gives them experience. Yeah, and uh yeah, so the people from the neighborhood will come by with their firearms, clean them for them, and eventually it's pushes them to go inside and buy the products. But it's a it's a pretty neat thing that they're always like, do you want to put this out there?
SPEAKER_00Like so many people are gonna be showing up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a pretty it's a pretty it's a pretty unique thing that they do.
SPEAKER_01And is that like what when is that once a year?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like it's a once-a-year thing that they do. They have like an open house, uh, yeah. It's a hardware store that's got, you know, it's you know, tons of firearms, ammunition, accessories. Hardware. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I love it. I wear guns. Well, there's different parts of the country where it's like, you know, guns, gas, your your bait fish, right? Burritos. You're like, hey, it's all in one place. This is so cool. Skins. I remember.
SPEAKER_01Deb Deb Ferns, the founder of uh Woma, she is um I like we've taken several adventures with her. So um I'm I feel pretty sheltered when it comes to adventures as far as Deb Fern's adventures. And um, I had never met anybody like her, but I never say no because it's so such an adventure, like I don't want to miss out, right? And um, so we were driving like cross country, and she's like, we stopped somewhere, and she's like, Oh yeah, I stop here all the time, and I'm like, uh, what is this place? It was a gas station, it was like the the old, old gas station. And then you go inside and she's like, Yeah, go inside and check it out. There's like skins on the wall, and there's like all these things, and then they have um they they have all this deep fried food, and then out back they um pour their their grease out back, like their old grease that they fry everything in.
SPEAKER_03I've seen people take that grease and make biodiesel people out of it. That was big for a while.
SPEAKER_00I can run a truck on it. Only Deb.
SPEAKER_01You can run a truck on it. Oh god. So, you know, Otis has been a longtime sponsor of She Never Quit and Um The Walmart, and we really appreciate that. Um I I know that you talked to Deb a little bit before here, um, just the culture of the company and how important that is. Yeah, and um, you know, it started, you know, by a female, this company started with a 16-year-old.
SPEAKER_03And um, you know, is there something that you like your heart or you know, something that uh so you know for me I I quickly became fond of the the the message, the passion, the industry, and you know, I I owned a shotgun and a 22, uh Marlin Model 1622 and a Savage Stevens uh bolt action shotgun. That was that was it before I started working Yotis. I've way more than that now, but that was that was how I started. And when uh I remember one day, you know, we had we had ordered a bunch of the black uh soft cases, and the tractor trailer came to to drop them off. Well, they opened up the gate, this the gay lord that they came in had exploded on the truck, tort. So all of a sudden the door goes up, uh Doreen knocks on the our my door to my office and she says, Hey, can you give us a hand a minute? We have to get these off the truck so the truck can leave. She was the first one on the back of that truck loading up the boxes and picking everything up, and I said, you know what? A, I aspire to be that kind of a leader who's willing to be the first one in, and I've always kind of led by that in my 25 years of managing different teams that I have, and that's the message that I'm gonna take, you know, forward, and just the culture, and it just they they they practice what they preach, and I and I get behind that every day. I think that's great.
SPEAKER_00I mean, as far as and and leading by example, you know, well, and I think it also filters down to the products too, because you see stuff that's really usable, that's really functionable, um, you know, that that serves a purpose, that serves a need for the community. So it translates outside of the company.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, that's the nice thing about everything being built in upstate New York, is you know, I my my main background is selling to the military, law enforcement, and international customers. I can tell you there were so many times you'd be talking to a young soldier, a young Marine, and they'd be like, I really need a piece that does this. And I would go back, and we would we would put it together. And we had send samples, they'd try it out. You know, back then it was we were fighting a war in two countries, and all of a sudden be finding we got an NSN on a product because you've you found a need, you filled the need, you're supporting the troops, you're doing what feels good, and you know, you're building out products just because you're doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_00Right, it's it's beyond just trying to make a buck, but actually trying to really implement something that's gonna be useful out in the field.
SPEAKER_03I've I've actually said that, you know, working within the military, um, I have probably given away one kit for every kit that I probably have sold in sales. Yeah. I I wouldn't I wouldn't doubt that a bit. But that's you know, that grassroots marketing that, you know, the cost of a kit versus you know dropping an ad in a publication, it it just that grassroots marketing is is kind of one of the foundations of this of what we do here.
SPEAKER_00This has been so much so much fun for me because I feel like I I mean I we've worked with Otis for years and years and years, but I didn't realize some of this stuff like internally, and so I've loved like Heather's stories and your stories. Like it's it's really cool when you think about it.
SPEAKER_03So it's you know, I have a before my promotion two weeks ago, three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00Was it really that?
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh! I mean it's been in the works for about a year, but but yeah, the end of the the it was January 1 was the official day. Yeah, uh, you know, Nancy, um, she's my government contract manager. Great job. She's been with the company like 23 years-ish. Uh, Greg is my government sales manager, he's about 20. I'm 25. So in my department, we had you know, we had like 70, 80 years of knowledge, and you know, some it was easy to call us in and be like, what do you guys think about this? It was like, we kind of went down this path about 10 years ago. I don't recommend it. Uh-huh. I mean things evolve and things change, but right, you know, you just it's awesome to have that that much tribal knowledge in an area, you know. We've all sat in different seats, we've done different things, so you know, we bring that, and we're all passionate about they have both, they all hunt, they you know, so we're not although we're on the government side of the business, you know, we're still users every day of the product, shop in those stores. That's the deal.
SPEAKER_00You probably know more about each other and your personal life. Oh, for sure. For sure, for sure.
SPEAKER_01It's almost like you grew up together, right? Yeah, without a doubt. No hiding anything. Oh, yeah, without without a doubt.
SPEAKER_03Like, you know, I've I've watched, you know, so actually I was, I mean, it's funny, you know, I did the wedding stuff, but I also being in graphics, photography was a big thing. I was uh I was the photographer at Nancy's wedding, and I so Greg had a band and it uh his wedding, and when the band was done, I set up and finished DJing his wedding. So it was like, you know, yes, but yeah, very, very close-knit company that we work for. Everybody's very close. Everybody's everybody's looking out for one another, doing the right thing. And we're in a small community where we are upstate in New York too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you can't hold back with each other.
SPEAKER_01No. So if somebody is looking for products, where would they find them?
SPEAKER_03For our products? Yes. Oh, you know, we're obviously the big box stores, you know, the Bass Pro shops of the world, Shields. Um, but you know, we we we've got as much emphasis on working with the small dealers, the mom and pops, uh-huh. You know, a lot of the a lot of the cop shops, the you know, the the law enforcement focused retail stores as well. Um can they can they reach out to you by um OtisTech.com? They can, yep, yep. It's our website. Um quick Google searches, everybody's using AI now as well. You can uh, you know, uh Heather and her marketing team do a really good job of being of making sure that messaging goes out and they're using it's way beyond my like you know, I'll use Chat GPT and copilot from now on to help craft the messaging and things like that. But they they're in the do. They they're dialed in there. That's what they do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, thank you so much for being on our podcast. We really appreciate it. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03This this is my very first podcast that I've ever done. I'm sure I'm sure it will not be my last, but this is my first one. So I was like, I was telling Heather, I'm like, so what do I what do I say? What do I do? She's like, it'll come naturally once you start the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for being such a great sponsor, also. I mean we couldn't do it without you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I, you know, when I when I come by and I see all the activity that's going on here with the Otis in the background, and what you guys do, the it to support the shooters, the female shooters, the it's outstanding. And it's you know, it's the it's the it's a it's an important piece to this whole thing, you know, in youth sports, and I see a lot of that in the few you know with different companies as well. So it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thank you. Have a great show. Thank you.