S1E47 How To Engineer Your Way Out of Boring Engineering Work | Peter Cerreta

Like any good engineer, Peter loves solving challenging problems. And conversely, hates working on boring problems. When one of his former employers presented him with one (that was going to take 3 years…all of which would be soul-sucking drudgery) he engineered a solution around it that allowed him to finish in 3 months. Hear his story as we dive into automation, entrepreneurship, fuel cells and more in this episode of Being An Engineer. Also check out his company The 3D Connectors.

Update: I made a mistake on the status of Peter’s MBA when stating he already has it; Peter is in the process of finishing his MBA.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.testfixturedesign.com and www.designtheproduct.com 

About Being An Engineer

The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us

Transcript

Presenter: 0:00

The Being an Engineer Podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people, resources and opportunities. Enjoy the show.

Peter Cerreta: 0:16

I am a mechanical engineer and mechanical engineers that I've met typically are kind of jack of all trades. And they don't like to do redundant work. Some do. But I don't like that I, to me the idea of data entry over and over again, doing the same thing is repulsive.

Aaron Moncur: 0:50

Hello, and welcome to the Being an Engineer Podcast. Our guest today is Peter Cerreta, who holds a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering and two masters degrees, one in Mechanical Engineering and another in Business Administration and Management. Peter has worked in multiple industries over the years, including industrial automation, product design and medical devices and has a wide variety of skills, including SolidWorks programming in automation, AI and learning and entrepreneurship. So Peter, welcome to the show.

Peter Cerreta: 1:23

Aaron, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be on. I've never heard someone introduced me to an audience so well. So thank you. I feel good about myself.

Aaron Moncur: 1:34

Good. I hope you do feel good about yourself. It sounds like you have a lot to be proud of.

Peter Cerreta: 1:40

Yeah, well, I'm very thankful.

Aaron Moncur: 1:44

First things first, Peter, how did you decide to become an engineer?

Peter Cerreta: 1:49

So that's a really good question. It's interesting. So I grew up with my dad, not in the house, that's probably pretty standard nowadays. And the reason why I say that is because typically when I grew up, you would have, father figures were more likely to teach him mechanical stuff, I think in general, right? Because back in when they went to school, you had a woodshop, they had auto shop. And so I grew up with just my mom, and she did a fantastic job. I had a brother. I've got three kids now. And I had no idea how she did it. My mom was actually an entrepreneur. And as a single parent, she just did absolutely amazing.

Aaron Moncur: 2:37

Incredible

Peter Cerreta: 2:38

So she'd always tell me, one day, I'd appreciate it. And as a rebellious kid, you're like, No, I'm never gonna appreciate it. Well, you really get some respect after having your own kids and you get put through the wringer. So

Aaron Moncur: 2:51

Absolutely.

Peter Cerreta: 2:52

I'm thankful. So what was interesting is when I grew up, I had no mechanical aptitude outside of just enjoying solving problems taking stuff apart. And what's interesting is my brother actually was a super mechanical inclined, and I started, my grandfather, and my father pushed me for education, right, education was a huge thing growing up. And thankfully, my grandfather had purchased us this prepaid college plan, which was super awesome. And

Aaron Moncur: 3:28

Wow, that's incredible.

Peter Cerreta: 3:29

Yeah, it was really convenient, right. And when I was growing up in Florida, they had a bright futures scholarship, if you were basically like a decent student, and you can get 75% tuition at a state college or university, and when I turned 16, they were just starting this program where you could actually go to state college or community college full time, right? So it's pretty cool. And I actually, excuse me, just wanted to do it just to get out of high school. Because I wanted to do my own thing. I would say, at 16 I had, I guess aspirations of doing great things mechanically, making inventions I got in a hydrogen fuel cell technology when I was at that age, I got into what gasification, a lot of renewal renewable energy stuff. But in college, I thought when I first started, I had done this Pinnacle Program, you go to community college full time, and basically finish up your high school diploma, and get dual credit, college and high school. So I actually got to graduate with my associates at my high school graduation, for free. That was the best part. I didn't have to pay for it. And so I don't think I realized that wanted to be an engineer until probably two years after I graduated high school. I was actually pre med. And my father is in the healthcare industry. And I got to, I love the physics, I love the science, chemistry. Math, I hate it. Well actually, excuse me math, I loved it. I was terrible at it. And still am. And so what was cool is I got to differential equations. At the same time, I was in anatomy and physiology. And anatomy and physiology two, we started taking apart cats. And I was like, I don't like taking apart cats. And it was, it was different for me, because it seemed like the route took more advantage of, I want to say just like, for me, it was more of memory, rather than problem solving. Okay, and so I was in differential equations, and I had this awesome French teacher. This was at Emory Riddle. But I was, he was a he was a professor at Emory Riddle but I was taking differential equations at Daytona State College where he taught right. And we had a group of misfits in the class. And there was a couple of young guys in there, and we have this, this really cool electrical engine, aspiring electrical engineer. And he, I didn't even know what engineers did, actually, when I was in, in that class, like, as crazy as it might sound.

Aaron Moncur: 6:48

Is on trains, right?

Peter Cerreta: 6:50

Well, yeah, exactly. Mechanical engineers work on cars. But it was funny, because he started talking about all the problems he wanted to solve. And I was like, wait a minute, I want to solve some of those problems.

Aaron Moncur: 7:06

Oh, the lights went on. And all of a sudden, this was meant to do these hydrogen fuel cell problems. And yeah, newable energy. Right. Okay.

Peter Cerreta: 7:17

Yeah. And so then, I decided, I was like, Ah, that sounds like it might be for me. And somehow I wound up going into environmental engineering. As a I majored in it changed my major. And at some point in that process, after about a year, I'm like, you know what, this, isn't it. Like, it's not electrical, it's not environmental. And I was looking at UNF, which had a hydrogen fuel cell and solar panel, R&D work going on. And I was just like, and I started looking at the curriculum, I'm like, Wow, this looks awesome. I want to do that. And I did it. And I thank the Lord for he's just one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life to become a mechanical engineer.

Aaron Moncur: 8:07

But what did you see in the curriculum? That was like, yeah, that's what I want to do. This is exciting.

Peter Cerreta: 8:11

Oh, man, it was just classes on all of the different physics branches you can think of, so fluids, thermodynamics, system dynamics, modern computational methods, chemistry, what else, a transport, all of these awesome things that you take a, you take a shallow dive into into your physics course. But these are actual classes on it. And I just was captivated by it. And I thought I was gonna go to u and F, to actually go study hydrogen fuel cells and solar panels. And that didn't even come, I wasn't even close to doing that. So it was an interesting experience. So if you have to look at it, I went premed, environmental and then mechanical. And I'm so thankful that somehow I wound up in this field.

Aaron Moncur: 9:11

Yeah, yeah. It's funny how we tend to find the right fields for the skill sets that we we just naturally intrinsically have. Tell me tell me a little bit about one of the first companies that you work for Safari Land, but when I first saw the company, I thought to myself what this is some kind of like Africans of warrior, but that's not what it is at all. Tell us a little bit about what the company is and what your role was there and some of the projects maybe that you worked on.

Peter Cerreta: 9:43

Definitely. So I can definitely concur with the surprise that you have when you hear the name right. Ryan was funny was I was interning at J&J Vision Care in Jacksonville, in R&D, and I got a call from a job recruiter, and they said, Hey, we're with Safari Land. And we saw your resume. And we were wondering if you're interested in this role, and I'm like support for Safari, like I'm thinking like, it's like a, I don't know, like a zoo or something.

Aaron Moncur: 10:16

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Cerreta: 10:19

What is this? By God's grace, I didn't hang up. And I asked them about the role. And it turned out, it was actually a really interesting opportunity. And so I interviewed, got the role. And Safari Land is an amazing company. They manufacture all sorts of, I guess you would call it defense equipment for soldiers, police, anything from body armor, to ballistic plates to batanes, ladder shields, helmets. And something that they were really good at, which I haven't seen since I was there was plant acquisitions. And relocations. Hmm. And their whole operational strategy around that they were huge on acquisitions. And they were huge on lean manufacturing, if you're in a lean manufacturing,

Aaron Moncur: 11:25

Sure, yeah, I've heard of it. I don't know the details about it,

Peter Cerreta: 11:29

The the Toyota way everyone talks about. But that's really where I as a process engineer, and was able enemy factoring engineer, because it was, it was like a process slash manufacturing. I was basically tasked with looking at the current state of the manufacturing environment, and continuously improving it, whether it was to increase quality, decreased cost, or increased throughput, excuse me. And I worked with some great people there. And I haven't found a company that was as organized and disciplined in execution of continuous improvement as Safari Land.

Aaron Moncur: 12:26

I love hearing about organization and execution. These are buzzwords for me. Tell me a little bit more about that. What are some of the tools that you that they use? Are the strategies to keep themselves really organized and to ensure that they actually executed on their ideas?

Peter Cerreta: 12:43

Yeah. Well, lean was a culture. Lean manufacturing was a culture there. And it was purposeful and intentional. And what they had was a system of sustainment to basically sustain that culture and grow it, augment it, right. So as an engineer, they would they any engineer, they would onboard, they would send to probably five weeks of lean training at the lean consortium of Jacksonville. And they had that was just to get the basics to give you like a working knowledge of lean to identify waste, to figure out how to do continuous improvement. And they had tools like the lean steering committee, where we would have a project list, and we would decide objectively what projects for the plant we want to go after. Which was really useful, because a lot of times when you get into groups and manufacturing environment, and you're tasked with improving that, it gets challenging to decide what to go after, because there's usually so much opportunity. And so something that they were really good at was turning the subjective into objective through scorecard, and allowing the group to make a decision that they can feel good about.

Aaron Moncur: 14:18

They've done numbers, not just based on gut feel. Okay.

Peter Cerreta: 14:21

Exactly. Exactly. And that takes away any, typically lack of confidence or understanding and why that route was chosen.

Aaron Moncur: 14:35

I have a question for you.

Peter Cerreta: 14:36

Sure.

Aaron Moncur: 14:37

So when I worked at a company before my own company, as a project engineer, and I can't remember exactly what the situation was then but we had to make a decision, do A or B or C.

Peter Cerreta: 14:51

Sure.

Aaron Moncur: 14:51

And we came up with a scorecard, right. This is for a medical device that we're developing. So we came up with a scorecard there were two or three of us engineers and project panager all sat down, wrote out the criteria, the metrics that we were going to use to evaluate. And we came up with a score. And we said, okay, this is this is the decision we're gonna make, it's it's B, we're gonna do B. And we presented that to the customer. And the customer said, I don't think we should do B, I want to do A, and we said, 'Well, I mean, we went through this exercise, we really think B is the right thing to do. I mean, look at the numbers we have in here, we put a lot of thought into this.' And he says to us,'I don't care about the numbers that you put in there, my gut is telling me a is what we need to do.' So how do you respond to a comment like that?

Peter Cerreta: 15:43

Well, I'm a small business owner, too. Or maybe you had a big business, I don't know. But I think in that scenario, you wouldn't have had a column or, you essentially made one with with or without physically making it. That said, is the customer line? Right? And that could have been a one or two.

Aaron Moncur: 16:04

Yeah.

Peter Cerreta: 16:05

And, or a zero or one. And when you're in a small business environment like that. You can't do anything without the customer's blessing.

Aaron Moncur: 16:16

Right.

Peter Cerreta: 16:17

So but, I think that that one of the challenges is, you typically do something like this to gather agreement. Right, from the majority. Yeah. So, part of the discipline is at the outset, getting everyone maybe do a brainstorming session, hey, what matters to us, right? What are those? What are those score card categories? And I haven't really good story about this. We had a project in my current role, where we had to select a vendor, right? And we got down to three of these vendors. And it was just, it was, there was no, it was such a hard decision, because they were all so good at what they did. And they presented so well. And I was scratching my head about it. And I went to the break rooms to grab coffee, I saw my buddy in there. And just I just mentioned it to him. I was like, what do you think about this, and he had a really a great tip of advice. And that was, see, we were really happy with all the performance, except one of the vendors was a little bit newer to the scene. And we were feeling but not able to communicate that we were not as confident in their ability to deliver or support us as the other two vendors. So he he said, Pete, why don't you just make a seven point scorecard for the vendor engagement. Right? And that. And so once we did that, it became clear, like, No, we can't, we can't select these guys. Because if you evaluate them, and that vendor engagement scorecard against these other two vendors, they're getting blown out of the water. So

Aaron Moncur: 18:11

Interesting. So the, the numbers made a very clear that this is the right vendor to go with, right, this vendor is not the right vendor to go with.

Peter Cerreta: 18:20

Right. And we had to get that feedback loop from outside of our group have one of those attributes or one of those columns that mattered, right? And so it's always good to get a fresh set of eyes on something to say, does this jive? Does it make sense?

Aaron Moncur: 18:38

Yeah. Great story.

Peter Cerreta: 18:40

Yeah, we, we get tunnel vision. I do more than anybody, because I love getting deep in the details. Yeah.

Aaron Moncur: 18:51

Yeah. Let's see, I have another question for you about different company where you were GE oil and gas. You did, I guess quite a bit of programming and automation. One of the things that you automated was CAD model creation, I guess you wrote like a Visual Basic program that automated the creation of CAD models. Tell me a little bit about that head. How do you automate the creation of the CAD model?

Peter Cerreta: 19:19

Yeah, so so what's beautiful with SolidWorks. I don't know if your audience is familiar with SolidWorks. But SolidWorks is a 3d CAD platform computer aided design platform. And it's even more than that. Now, you can do physical simulation through like stress analysis, fluid dynamic modeling. There's even electrical routing you can do in it. So it's a pretty amazing engineering tool, and SolidWorks One of the neat things with it is that you can actually tie into what's called the advanced programming interface. The advanced programming interface. I'm not a programmer. So I might might be getting that wrong, pretty sure it's API advanced programming interface. You can, you can basically get into this library of commands. It's an object oriented programming language of your choice. But the model, or the language that I chose was Visual Basic. And basically, if your CAD models are parametric, like, you have a widget, right? And you have dimensions, A, B, C, D, E, right?

Aaron Moncur: 20:40

Right.

Peter Cerreta: 20:41

And your product offering is variations of the same parametric relationships, but with the values ABCDE, changing.

Aaron Moncur: 20:53

Okay

Peter Cerreta: 20:54

A might be the length B might be the height, C might be the width, you can actually turn those into equations that you can then tap into with the API. And you can say, Hey, take this table that has those values in it, and generate me, an infinite number of solid models. And then you do that, and then you say, Okay, now I want an infinite number of these mechanical design drawings.

Aaron Moncur: 21:32

Really? So you can automate the creation of the drawings as well.

Peter Cerreta: 21:35

You can. Yeah, I mean, you can't do it, I wasn't able to do it as well as I can do it personally. But for big bulk projects, where you just have basically the same thing, but just little parametric variations.

Aaron Moncur: 21:53

Okay

Peter Cerreta: 21:53

It's a huge time saver, like. And I don't even know if they will end up going with that. But when I left that role, I just created a bunch of assemblies for them, what we were trying to do before I left was actually automate what's the, the meaning of the parts, or the other parts in 3d? Yeah, and I think, honestly, that is probably going to be coming soon, with what I've seen with, now we have the cloud infrastructure, you're able to put so much horsepower behind AI, that they have these optimization programs. Now, for instance, for like, Fusion 360. I can't even remember the name of the Fusion 360 program. But basically, you can say I have an endpoint here, I have an endpoint here, here's the load, generate me, infinite number of these parts that work for this condition, and optimize the weight and the topology of it. And it's, it's pretty amazing. And I think we're gonna see more of that.

Aaron Moncur: 23:04

I talked about I can't remember the name of it either at this moment, but it produces this almost like an IT. There you go. Yeah. No chip design. Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, How did you, how did you start the, the automation of these? I mean, did someone asked you to do that? Or were you just working and realized, all these things are most of the same? I bet there's a better way to create all these these parts of drawings?

Peter Cerreta: 23:35

That's a great question, Aaron. So so I am a mechanical engineer, and mechanical engineers that I've met typically, are kind of jack of all trades. And they don't like to do redundant work. Some do, but I don't like that. Tto me, the idea of data entry over and over again, doing the same thing is repulsive. And, I, I, it's it's inspired me to figure out easy ways to do things. I know, there's probably a bunch of people listening that have done this. So when I was an intern at J&J, we had this big data migration project. I was in my master's program at USF for mechanical engineering. And I just got married. And I came home one day and I told my wife I'm like, they want me to put in numbers in a spreadsheet for like the next, we calculate it would take three years to get the job done. Right, and I'm like, there's no way we can't do.

Aaron Moncur: 24:43

The fortress.

Peter Cerreta: 24:44

Yeah. And my poor wife, she's been watching me work on this stuff. First, coming home and running simulations and programs on my computer. But that was what first drove me to learn programming. I took C back in college, but actually learned VBA for that role for the data migration project. And we were actually able to condense the project down to three months.

Aaron Moncur: 25:12

Three years to three months.

Peter Cerreta: 25:14

Yeah, yeah. And it was, that was where really I started seeing the power of programming and automation. And in that role is actually when I started my company. And there was this program. So we, this is a really interesting story. So we had these guys come in, and we wanted them to help us with the data migration, right. And they want to charge like,$100,000. And and I was looking at what they were doing. And I was just all in awe, right? Like, Oh, this is so cool. And we're basically just doing macros, right? And so really, it was just not wanting to be in the pain of doing it manually. And I wanted to I was, I was doing my master's degree, and I had homework to do. And I couldn't see doing that so. And something that drives me. If people say, no, it's a bad idea. And I know, it's a good idea, or no, it's a bad idea, and it won't work. That gives me a lot of fire to just do it, just to prove

Aaron Moncur: 26:24

To prove them wrong. Right. Challenge accepted.

Peter Cerreta: 26:27

Right? I'm retty competitive. 'Been that way my whole life? And, it's, it's been good, because a lot of times, people just don't know, and so you have to prove it to them.

Aaron Moncur: 26:41

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm sure your employers love that. Right?

Peter Cerreta: 26:45

I think they do. Yeah, I'm gonna watch what I say. Small, having my own company. It's, it's a little weird. It's a little odd. Having to be in a role where you're, you just got to say, Yes, sir.

Aaron Moncur: 27:08

Yeah, right.

Peter Cerreta: 27:09

Or as you wish. Yeah. Well, I have employees, in my company, that I just, I just tell them what they want, what I want, and I'm on the other side of that.

Aaron Moncur: 27:21

Sure.

Peter Cerreta: 27:22

It's, it's an interesting dynamic. And I think I'm growing in it. But there's, there's a personality type, I think, that comes with strengths and weaknesses, for entrepreneurship. And one of the fun experiences with having that, having that mindset is that you can actually kind intrapreneur in a corporation, if they give you enough flexibility, right, and you can solve problems. And that's been one of the best things with my role is my, my, they can be so much freedom. It's enough freedom to succeed or fall on your face. But that's, that's life. I've got, I've got a great mentor, Ed Hurnik. And I think he did an interview with you, and one of the, one of the best engineers I've ever met in my life, one of the best guys. And he's probably saved me years in acclimating to the culture of my current role. And he's what's really great about him is that he's the manager that will be in battle with you, if that makes sense. where, he'll be in the trenches, right? This guy's an engineer, he can do everything that I can do, and he can do a lot of stuff better than I can do. And so that's, that's really who I think you want mentoring you. And really leading people, because I think a lot of times you get management that may not really understand a role, or, the work of a role. And so they don't know how to properly appraise it.

Aaron Moncur: 29:13

Yeah, we have some customers, and typically, we're working with the engineers, not the project managers, and a few of our customers, they have project managers who aren't engineers themselves. And it can be difficult to work a project when the project manager doesn't really, and from an engineering standpoint, what needs to go into the development of of a new project. project managers are really good at understanding budget and schedule and scope. But if they don't have that, then

Peter Cerreta: 29:48

Yeah.

Aaron Moncur: 29:50

The good one, please. Yeah, but, uh, contrasting that with, we also have customers where the project managers are Engineers and they are so much easier to work with, if if, of course, we don't like when this happens, but every now and then the budget gets exceeded because things came up during the course of r&d and development that just nobody foresaw. And with the with the non engineer PMS, it's a battle to the to get more funding to finish a project. So whereas with the engineering project managers that, they get it that still don't like it, but they're like, okay, yeah, this is part of development. I get it, so I hear what you're saying.

Peter Cerreta: 30:34

That's exciting that you're in a role. I heard you mentioned R&D. It's exciting that you're, you must be in a scenario where you're having to deliver, but at the same time, do a little bit of R&D to deliver, right?

Aaron Moncur: 30:46

Exactly, yeah, yep.

Peter Cerreta: 30:48

Those are the best projects also, the most stressful, you can do what you want with the stress, but those usually produce the most results. I feel like because you have pressure to deliver quick, right and right with quality. But you have unknowns, and you have to you have to be you have to engineer through those. Right.

Aaron Moncur: 31:09

Exactly.

Peter Cerreta: 31:10

And that's, that's actually a good point. So my current role, that's all we do. It's, we in customer experience, we look at opportunities that are going on right now. And from a quality stamp quality system standpoint. And we say, what can we do right now to fix these problems? And what does that mean? Well, it means you got to be creative. You got to be disciplined, and you got to be quick. Right.

Aaron Moncur: 31:37

Right.

Peter Cerreta: 31:38

And some roles within larger medical device companies, or in general, people sometimes talk about how close they are, and my role is not that, but it's a great level. And I love level

Aaron Moncur: 31:56

Yeah. Case in point, told me about the very late night you had working through some engineering problems that is not push.

Peter Cerreta: 32:02

Right. Right. Right. But you know what? It makes me feel I don't have to question if I worked hard or did a good job.

Aaron Moncur: 32:11

Yeah. Yeah, I just got there for sure.

Peter Cerreta: 32:15

Right, that I do have to manage and balance that, right. So I have, I've got three kids, I've got three kids under four. And I tend to do things in burse. So I'll like go really hard at work for a time, whatever that bracket is, until I deliver and then I'll slow down. And so, I'm trying to grow out of that into a more steady state as I get older. But

Aaron Moncur: 32:46

Tell me a little bit about about your company. Because you you have a really interesting situation. You both work full time at J&J. And you have your own company. So The 3d Connectors, tell me a little bit about that. How did it get started? What do you guys do there?

Peter Cerreta: 33:06

So, so that's an amazing company. We do amazing work. And what's so interesting is that company I started when I was doing my internship in R&D at J&J. And what happened was, I had finished engineering school in 2011. And I got out and really, Jacksonville was just recovering from the recession. Right? So I got out my first job in an engineering world, I was making like 14 bucks an hour. Like, I think you could like work at Wendy's right now. And get free lunch, and you get free lunch benefits. And so So anyway, so I worked two years at that first roll. And I started my master's, got the internship at j&j. And at that time, I was working part time as an intern, I was making more money as a part time intern at J&J then I was a full time project engineer, doing international business and capital equipment, project engineering at this small firm I worked at, which was IBC. And so, I was in this role, I was just about to get married at Johnson and Johnson, I was in my master's and I was like, I looked back, I was just thinking back to how college and high school. And I had been starting organizations my whole life. And at some point, it hit me. I'm like, wait a minute. I've started multiple organizations and handed them off. Now. I have to like beg for work for hope. Hope that works gonna come in and I have all these skills and I can go do anything really. And so I was motivated just to start a business start figuring out, and it was really the, the uncertainty of that time and the the thought of how ridiculous it was that I went to school for four years. Really, I went much longer than that. But you know, and I'm, I'm in a position of, I'm on the lower end of the bargaining table, And I thought, why would I do that? So let's start a company, which I've started many organizations, let's start a company, let's see if we can do something. So I started that company in 2014, with the intent just to do project engineering, just like I did, right. Basically, to outsource that I was actually going to go back to my old employer and see if they just wanted to contract with me because I had good standing. And at some point, when I was at J&J, we had discovered we were working on this migration project. And I, we found this software, it's called Macro Express, right? And Macro Express is a really cool software. It's like training wheels for programming. And it's, it's almost like you can do block diagram, logic programming. And it yeah, it was easy, right? And you can, you can really, you can do it efficiently and quickly. And you didn't have to know a lot. And so I thought that software was awesome. And I was like, 'You know what, I'm gonna sell this software with my company.' And that's how my company got into software sales. 'Didn't sell a single copy. And I was getting ads from Pandora to sell maker bought 3D printers. Do you remember maker about 3D printers, right?

Aaron Moncur: 36:53

Sure. Yeah.

Peter Cerreta: 36:55

And I was like, What the heck, why don't I just try to sell 3D printers. I'm not selling software. So we send in a reseller agreement or an application, got the reseller agreement, we were a static, we filed a DBA doing business as fictitious name for the company. We called it The 3D Connectors. And we got maker bought and didn't sell any microbots ever in the company.

Aaron Moncur: 37:26

So no software, no maker bots, The 3D connectors is off to a roaring start what happens next?

Peter Cerreta: 37:33

So so so it's beautiful. So, so I don't know if I'm an opportunist, or whatever. But I said, crap, we're not selling any maker bot 3D printers, they're going to dump those soon. We need to go convince all their competition that they need to sell through us too. Or not really sell through us, but maybe have the potential to sell through us.

Aaron Moncur: 37:56

Okay.

Peter Cerreta: 37:57

So we went on a brand acquisition campaign, not like acquiring the companies, but just to get new brands to sell. And we added probably like 10 to 20 different vendors, right. And I'm paying people overseas to do the website. I'm doing the website. I've caught, I'm doing all these agreements, not actually making any money whatsoever.

Aaron Moncur: 38:19

But spending some

Peter Cerreta: 38:20

Spending some, absolutely. First year we lost nine grand. So then yeah, so what happens is we get this company called Printer Bought, right? and Printer Bought was our first real break because Printer Bought would not give hard quotes to government. They they said, Look, you have to buy through a shopping cart would have to give me a quote, right. So we were on their website. So what does that mean? That meant that they all the government customers could come to us and say, Hey, you were on the website. They couldn't give us a quote? Can you give us a quote? Right? Oh, God, right.

Aaron Moncur: 38:59

Oh wow, yeah.

Peter Cerreta: 38:59

We're, we're selling printer bots like hotcakes. And yeah, we're not making hardly any money, but we're making some money. So we, we then took that and we, we just tried to amplify what we were doing. And long story short. In 2016, we got a cold call from someone saying, hey, you should take your 3D printers and go sell them on the GSA schedule. Are you familiar with the GSA?

Aaron Moncur: 39:44

This is some kind of government contracting list, right?

Peter Cerreta: 39:49

General Service Administration. And I don't usually take sales calls like that or soliciting and by God's grace, I took this one And it was a really interesting proposition. The proposition was give us $6,000. And we'll get rid guarantee you government work. And where we had some money in the bank, we had grown from just selling 3d printers. I think that year, we were up to like 300K in sales, and we were selling all sorts of crap. Basically, contract manufacturing, 3D print 3D printers. And we said, what the heck, we have some money in the bank, this might work. And we called a bunch of their clients, and they said, 'Yeah, it's a great thing.' So we, we did it right. And a year later, we actually got a contract for the GSA schedule. And that changed the entire focus of our company, and the revenue stream to government. Right. So now, the company was entirely focused and still is focused entirely on government. 3D printing solution sales, and its printers. It's Billa Material Reverse Engineering for Additive. That's where we we might go look at military parts, like the, I think it's C2 Hawkeye or E2 Hawkeye.

Aaron Moncur: 41:14

Okay.

Peter Cerreta: 41:16

They're gonna say, Hey, here's our here's a bill of materials. What can you 3D print on this list? Right. And it's more complex than that. But we've really led printer sales with the government. And dominated the desktop channels.

Aaron Moncur: 41:35

How interesting.

Peter Cerreta: 41:36

Yeah. And so are leaders in those sales are lols bought, if anyone ever needs a Lowe's, but we were one of their biggest sellers. And we really ceded them to the government. And then we also created the demand for the fusion 3d printer, not the HP fusion. There's a fusion design 3D printer. And it's it's like a, I would say, a prosumer industrial, it's a business printer. It's not really for like the hobby, it's got a large build volume.

Aaron Moncur: 42:09

What's it's called again?

Peter Cerreta: 42:11

That's the fusion. F-406. Let me check real quick.

Aaron Moncur: 42:19

That's something I want to check out from my own company. That sounds

Peter Cerreta: 42:23

Yeah

Aaron Moncur: 42:23

If it's similar at all to the HP fusion machine.

Peter Cerreta: 42:27

Oh, no. Not even close.

Aaron Moncur: 42:30

Very different machine, huh?

Peter Cerreta: 42:32

Yeah, yeah, fusion. Let me just check. I know, we got them on our website. But what we're really trying to do with that company now is I'm just an advisor, and I sold half of it in 2016, and I got some great partners. And so now I'm just helping you set the strategic vision. It's the fusion 3F410. But what we're trying to do now is one, expand government sales and to get back in the private sector. So we've been on hiatus, from private sector sales. And we're trying to pull in talent that we can have synergies with. We're looking at merging with a company in Texas right now are selling. And they're basically a big engineering company. And we have a synergistic product offering and skill set. Right.

Aaron Moncur: 43:36

Yeah, that's fantastic.

Peter Cerreta: 43:37

That's the new services. Yeah. And yeah, so it's been interesting.

Aaron Moncur: 43:44

Well, Peter, I don't want to take too much of your time today. So we'll, we'll start wrapping it up here. Maybe one more question for you. What are some of the biggest challenges that you have at work? This is something I asked everyone. And I think it's an interesting question, because we can all learn something from this, but what are some of the biggest challenges that that you encounter at work?

Peter Cerreta: 44:08

It's a good question. I would say, toxic people are everywhere, we can even be toxic ourselves at times so avigating through the, the effects of potential toxicity to get the work done, effective way where everyone's happy, right. So you're gonna have people that are hard to work with at every company, especially in technical roles.

Aaron Moncur: 44:42

Yeah. Sounds like dealing with politics, almost.

Peter Cerreta: 44:46

Yeah, politics. Thankfully, I've got a good mentor, who I get to, I guess, duck under him and not take any of that fire yet. I think as I noted, It all started taking more of that. But I think that managing perspective or in perception, no matter what you do, if someone who matters thinks it's B, and you think it's A, you have to do the hard work of convincing them that it's A, right?

Aaron Moncur: 45:22

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Cerreta: 45:23

Whatever that looks like. You can't just say, that's not important, because it really is important, you could get fired. Because someone has a misconception about the work you do. And

Aaron Moncur: 45:39

So you've actually got to experience both sides of that, right? Because you are an employee at J&J. And so if your boss says it's A, you can't really say, no, it's B, you have to go along with A, but you also are now an advisor, but, previously an owner of The 3D Connectors, and so you're the one that got to say it's A, and if your employees didn't agree, Well, too bad for them. What, maybe what lessons have you taken, getting to see both sides of those equations in terms of dealing with people?

Peter Cerreta: 46:14

Well, you definitely said the plus side of it. And I'm actually I'm still an owner, someone like an owner advisor. And so I still actually have conversations with employees.

Aaron Moncur: 46:25

Okay.

Peter Cerreta: 46:27

I think one of the most wonderful parts about that role is you can show a little bit of mercy, right? That makes everybody feel good.

Aaron Moncur: 46:38

Yeah

Peter Cerreta: 46:39

Example is, we have this employee, Jobelle, and she's based in the Philippines, and she has been with us for over a year. She's basically running the entire administrative side of the business in the back of the house.

Aaron Moncur: 46:56

Okay.

Peter Cerreta: 46:57

She's, she's a mom, she's got. She's about to have another baby. Right. So something really nice is we can really treat her well. So we said, I spoke with my partner. And I was like, hey, Jobelle, we got to give her time off, and let's give her a bonus. Right? And it's, it's good to be able to surprise people with kindness. And and then sometimes, you may or may not get that in your role, or my role, working as an employee, right.

Aaron Moncur: 47:32

Yeah, that's huge. I love that it's good to be able to surprise people with kindness. What a huge management tip there.

Peter Cerreta: 47:40

Right. And, so we, I had to convince my partner, and I was like, yeah, you know, what about like, four to eight weeks, maybe time off, paid.

Aaron Moncur: 47:50

Big deal.

Peter Cerreta: 47:51

Yeah.

Aaron Moncur: 47:51

For a mom that, yeah. Wow.

Peter Cerreta: 47:54

And you know what, here's what I've learned. You cannot pay enough. And I heard this and, and it clicked with me right when I heard it, but it's even more evidence. Now. You can't pay good people enough. Because they bring they carry their own weight. Yeah, right.

Aaron Moncur: 48:13

Yeah.

Peter Cerreta: 48:13

So that's where we're really trying to grow right now is finding talent. That is looking for the opportunity, right? We don't want to cycle through people. We want to hire one person and have them stay with us forever and have them grow. Right? Absolutely. That's the best scenario we can possibly have. But unfortunately, those people are hard to find. So we are totally, in our company operationally. And I think this goes for J&J too. J&J is more top heavy, and way more further along than we are. But we're trying to set up a culture with a long term vision that's built on employees being happy, that stay, right.

Aaron Moncur: 49:07

Yeah.

Peter Cerreta: 49:08

Because if you can't keep your employees happy, you won, you're gonna have a miserable workplace, they're not going to be as productive. But to what's the point? Like, like, I can go to work, and I can, whatever happens happens, but, I don't want my employees to, to, I want them to get healthy grief, right? To produce, right, because they're going to us we're planning on and they're depending on us. But at the same time, it's just it's just really a good feeling to be in both sides, right.

Aaron Moncur: 49:44

Yeah. We have a few core values at Pipeline and the first and foremost is we treat our customers well, but we treat our team members better.

Peter Cerreta: 49:53

Yeah

Aaron Moncur: 49:53

I think it speaks exactly to what you're saying. It's creating that culture where people enjoy being there, right because if you don't enjoy, you spend so much such a large percentage of your time at work if you're not enjoying it, why be there?

Peter Cerreta: 50:07

Right. Yeah, what's the point and she's got this beautiful family, she's growing, we're happy for her. And that just it was it was really a blessing to us to be able to be in a position to do that. And it was actually from her hard work and hard work. So

Aaron Moncur: 50:21

That's, that's awesome, man. I love hearing that. Peter, we should wrap it up. Thank you so much again, for for being with us today. And sharing your experiences and stories. This has been awesome. If people want to get ahold of you, maybe they want to learn more about J&J. Or maybe they want to learn more about how to buy 3D printers from The 3D Connectors, how can people get a hold of you?

Peter Cerreta: 50:43

Well, definitely check out our website at www.the3dconnectors.com. And definitely check out my LinkedIn. As we're going down the road with my personal company, we're going to be looking at getting into more engineering services. And we're, we're looking at artificial intelligence as a service, we don't know if we're gonna do that yet. But I'm interested to find out if any of you guys out there need any machine vision, AI advice. I'd be really interested to talk to you about that. So you can get me on LinkedIn, feel free to reach out and maybe I can just help you get to where you're going. But in the past year at J&J have learned a ton about the landscape. And obviously, I can't give you any of the secret sauce. But I could certainly give you some general information and tips that will save you time.

Aaron Moncur: 51:43

Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, there you go. Peter Cerreta, expert on AI and machine learning, give a shout. I'm Aaron Moncur, Founder of Pipeline Design & Engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please leave us a positive review. It really helps other people find the show. To learn how your engineering team can leverage our team's expertise in developing turnkey custom test fixtures, automated equipment and product design, visit us at testfixturedesign.com. Thanks for listening.