Business

Peachtree Corner’s ControlRad is Making Radiation Safe for Medical Staff [Podcast]

Published

5 years ago

April 25, 2020

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

More than ever before is the general public concerned for the health and safety for the brave
men and women in our medical and healthcare system. ControlRad and CEO Guillaume
Bailliard, our guest on today’s episode, have developed special medical technology to protect
both medical staff and patients from excess radiation. Join Rico Figliolini, Patrizia Winsper, and Guillaume as they discuss the inner workings of this amazing and life-saving technology.

Resources:
Website: https://www.controlrad.com

“The way our device works is… that we add an accessory to existing x-ray units that is a semi-transparent filter… that moves in real time… depending on what the physician needs to see on the screen. So we’re able to radically and dramatically reduce radiation, unnecessary radiation to both patients and medical staff using our device.”
Guillaume Bailliard

Timestamp:

[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:03:13] – ControlRad’s Device
[00:07:48] – Input Devices
[00:09:25] – Using Existing Technology
[00:10:23] – ControlRad’s Consumers
[00:12:19] – Consolidation
[00:13:42] – Other New Products
[00:14:27] – ALARA
[00:16:14] – Repercussions of Radiation
[00:18:57] – Case Studies
[00:20:42] – Time in Development
[00:22:02] – Moving to Peachtree Corners
[00:24:08] – Effects of COVID-19 on ControlRad
[00:28:29] – Closing

Podcast transcript

Rico: [00:00:30] Hi everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of the Peachtree Corners Life. Glad that you’re joining up, whether it’s live from on this feed with Facebook or you’re joining us on our podcast or YouTube video. I would appreciate it if you follow us online, currently if you like Facebook page for Peachtree Corners Life, you get notification of our live stream so that’d be great to do. Before we get to our today’s show, great guest to follow up to a cover story that we did an issue back about vibrant technology in the heart of Peachtree Corners. I just want to introduce our sponsor for the family of podcasts we do, which is Hargray Fiber. Hargray Fiber is a company that deals in fiber optic cable, communications, IT management, bundle services, throughout the Southeast. They’re in our communities. They’re doing great work in our communities too, especially now reaching out, providing free internet services per company, doubling bandwidths for existing customers. They’re doing a lot of things out there to make teleworking way easier. To find out more about them check them out HargrayFiber.com. We appreciate their sponsorship. So now let’s join with my cohost Patrizia Winsper, who wrote the article on these technology companies and today’s guest, she’s going to introduce him. I’m going to pick them on screen right now, Patrizia go ahead and introduce our guest today.

Patrizia: [00:01:51] Good afternoon, everyone. I have the sincere pleasure of introducing to you, CEO of ControlRad Guillaume Bailliard. Hi Guillaume.

Guillaume: [00:02:02] Hi everyone. Thanks for having me on.

Patrizia: [00:02:05] How are you doing today Guillaume?

Guillaume: [00:02:07] Doing fantastic. It’s a beautiful day outside.

Patrizia: [00:02:10] Awesome. It’s such a great time to do a podcast about some positive news and some great innovations that are taking place right here in Peachtree Corners. So I hope everyone has a chance to just settle down with us for a little bit and think happy thoughts and listen to some good news that’s going on. Right Rico?

Rico: [00:02:27] Yes, absolutely. Our guest is actually in the city of Peachtree Corners and he’s at his office at Tech Park. Right Guillaume?

Guillaume: [00:02:39] That’s right. I’m here in Peachtree Corners at the office on Scientific Drive, absolutely. So we are, today we’re doing some testing inside the, our laboratory here in the office. So we’re here to support and review the testing.

Rico: [00:02:55] For sure you’re doing this socially safe and all that, I imagine, right?

Guillaume: [00:02:59] I am. I did take off my 95 mask that I have with me here, but I took it off here for this interview.

Rico: [00:03:05] Excellent. Good. So let’s, let’s get right down to it then. Why don’t we ask, Patrizia did you want to show the magazine?

Patrizia: [00:03:13] Just wanted to point out that this is a story that appeared on the cover of our February, March, 2020 issue. And ControlRad is being featured today in this podcast, and of course that’s Guillaume Bailliard, CEO. Now if we’re looking at the name of your company, Guillaume, ControlRad, let’s think control radiation. This company has come up with a medical device that actually helps the medical professionals. Who are doing these procedures on a daily basis and protecting them or controlling that excess radiation that is unnecessary and that is currently inevitable without your device. So let’s talk about ControlRad’s medical device and exactly how is it that you are performing these procedures sparing both surgeons and patients, the exposure to that unnecessary scatter radiation.

Guillaume: [00:04:16] Okay, great. Yeah, so what people, you know, through this COVID-19 pandemic are now more appreciating than ever is that medical professionals put their lives at risk for treating patients. And our technology helps radically and dramatically reduce the life altering risks associated with radiation exposure to the medical staff. So as an example, when you’re getting, let’s say, a stent deployed in your heart to open up a blockage. A cardiologist will use a cath lab, which is a x-ray unit that continuously deploys x-ray to see inside your body to deploy that stent. The patient gets radiated one time, but the medical staff, the physician and the nurses and everybody else in the room will get radiated their entire lives as they do multiple of these procedures per day and throughout the year. A typical cardiologist will get exposed the equivalent of 150,000 chest X-rays throughout their lifetime. So it’s very similar to the NFL concussion story where we knew these risks were there for a long time. It took a couple of key cases for that, for this to surface as an issue, and we’ve deployed a technology to help reduce that risk. And the risks are dramatic. There is two times the risk of left brain tumors. There’s a 50% increase in incidents in cataracts. There’s a 34% increase in stroke incidents when compared to other physicians that are not in the x-ray room. So both patients and medical staff are, get dramatic, dramatically less radiation using our device. And that’s how, and basically the way our device works is, I think to answer your question Patrizia, is that we add an accessory to existing x-ray units that is a semi-transparent filter. Thank you for showing the image that moves in real time based on where the physician needs to, what, depending on where the physician needs to see on the screen. So we’re able to radically and dramatically reduce radiation, unnecessary radiation to both patients and medical staff using our device.

Patrizia: [00:06:34] So your filter is situated under the patients?

Guillaume: [00:06:38] That’s correct. The filter is under the patient right above the tube. The x-ray tube that hits the patient. I think you’ve got to move it over just a little, right there where the extra tube shoots through the patient we retrofit and add our filters to existing x-ray units. Which is a bonus for administrators because you don’t have to go out and buy a brand new x-ray unit or a brand new cath lab unit. We can retrofit your existing cath lab or your existing C-arm.

Patrizia: [00:07:10] So your device is retrofitted on the machine right here.

Guillaume: [00:07:13] That’s correct.

Patrizia: [00:07:14] And then let’s talk about this.

Guillaume: [00:07:18] And that is a tablet and the tablet, this is placed next to the patient where the physician is and the physician can select on the tablet and basically draw a region of interest to move the filter in the right location. So basically what you have is you have a tablet that is the input device, and then you have filters that are moved based on where the physician is looking on the patient.

Patrizia: [00:07:48] Now Guillaume, I realize you deal with this every day, but to mere mortals like Rico and I and probably the general public, it’s quite fascinating how the physician is able to select the region of interest, both with just his eyes. Is it special glasses that he wears for the computer to sense where he’s looking?

Guillaume: [00:08:08] Right. There are two types of input devices. One is an eye tracker, which is a device that is actually next to the monitor. No glasses are needed or we use a tablet, so both are devices and input devices that are used to help move those filters. The device that we’re using for the first system that we rolled out. Earlier this year is using a tablet.

Patrizia: [00:08:33] Okay.

Rico: [00:08:34] Okay. Wow, that sounds a bit almost Sci-fi. It almost feels like Star Trek or something.

Patrizia: [00:08:40] It really sounds super futuristic.

Rico: [00:08:42] Right? I mean, you know if I can wear those glasses and it follows where I want to put it. That’s the ultimate thing, right? I mean, even augmented reality, I could see you probably even advancing it further where the information will be right on the glass like that at some point.

Guillaume: [00:08:57] Eventually there, certainly eye tracker technology has, has an unlimited amount of potential and you know, currently they’re being deployed in actually laptops as a standard feature. Certainly the gaming world has helped advance the, the amount of funding in the eye tracking technology. And we’ve basically taken an off the shelf eye tracking technology, and are able to retrofit it with our device and use it as one of the input devices that we use.

Rico: [00:09:25] You know, what I like about it is that you’re dealing with an industry where the equipment is so expensive. And it’s almost legacy in some ways because even the operating
systems and some of the old systems, they might be based on windows, windows seven even as far back. And you are giving them an option to just augment existing equipment they have.

Guillaume: [00:09:47] That is a key point. And our ability to retrofit existing x-ray units is important. A cath lab, which is used for the procedure I was describing earlier, to help deploy stents. Can be $1 million or more. So if you wanted this feature to radically, dramatically reduce your risks of all these adverse events that I talked about, an administrator, a hospital may have a really tough time looking for capital to acquire another cath lab, it could cost $1 million. But if you’re able to retrofit your existing, your existing C-arm, then that is a massive benefit. So that is definitely a key feature.

Rico: [00:10:23] So the, the type of customers are you looking at are major hospitals, small local clinic? Or where’s your sweet spot as far as customers and industries?

Guillaume: [00:10:33] All of the above. So there are, there are more than 20,000 mobile C-arms in the US and those are used in hospitals for surgeries, spine trauma. They’re used by cardiologists. They’re also used by pain management facilities in outpatient facilities. They’re also used in ASCs, ambulatory surgical centers. So these mobile C-arms are deployed all over the place, in outpatient facilities and in hospitals. So anybody who is using x-ray to look inside the body without cutting it open essentially, could potentially benefit from our technology. To be clear, this is for fluoroscopic systems or C-arms. So this is not for dental equipment or plain x-ray. If I broke my arm and I go to an urgent care center where you’re taking one single exposure, the medical staff is not in the room during that exposure and the patient gets a very low amount of x-ray, a single time. This is for continuous x-ray in deployment of, let’s say stents, or let’s say in a pain management facility.

Patrizia: [00:11:48] We’re looking at physicians like urologists, cardiologists. Who else might deploy?

Guillaume: [00:11:56] Interventional radiologists, cardiologists, spine surgeons, pain management, gastroenterologists, pulmonologists that are using scopes to take biopsies inside the lung. I think you mentioned urologist, vascular surgeons. There’s, there’s seven to eight specialties that use mobile C-arms or fixed cath labs to see inside of body deploy devices.

Rico: [00:12:19] You know, I’ve found that a lot of the hospitals like Northside hospital and a lot of these major, larger facilities, companies are buying up smaller places. They’re setting up outreach satellite offices, essentially almost like a contractor based. Where they bring in the specialists into, they build a hub, provide all the machinery and then the specialists come and they rent space essentially is what they’re doing. Is that a good, I mean, how are you seeing that industry responding to what you want to do, what you’re providing?

Guillaume: [00:12:52] Yeah, that’s, that’s definitely, the consolidation in the healthcare system is certainly something that’s happening. As you get more buying power as a hospital and you
acquire competitors, let’s say I’m an ambulatories, an ASC and employee surgical center, or I have my own outpatient facility as a physician, but I’m not part of the hospital. Certainly consolidation is a trend in, in many markets. There’s pros and cons in consolidation. Us hospitals tend to have more buying power. I’m a big fan of, of competition, but at the same time, consolidation can help provide better care. So there’s, there’s pros and cons to those models. It’s not going to really impact us, our business, but certainly a trend is, is a, that’s a true trend that we’re seeing nationwide.

Rico: [00:13:42] Okay. You have two other products coming out? You mentioned that before we got on. Are they things you could talk about?

Guillaume: [00:13:49] Yeah, so the first device has been FDA cleared, and we’re currently selling today, and that’s retrofitting mobile C-arms. Mobile C-arms. Are smaller C-arms that are used by all the specialties I talked about. The next device that we will be releasing in the second half. We’re in preparation or preparing our submission is for fixed arms or cath labs. So it’s the same device. It’s just on a separate markets within the healthcare space.

Rico: [00:14:24] Okay.

Patrizia: [00:14:27] Guillaume let’s talk about Alara. It’s the FDA’s guiding principle of radiation safety. So Alara stands for?

Guillaume: [00:14:38] As low as reasonably achievable. And Alara, the objective of Alara is any amount of x-ray, is considered not good. So if you can get it as low as you can while not impacting the ability of the physician to provide the care that he or she needs to provide, then that is a, that is a good place to be. So the key, the key component of our device is that we’re able to reduce radiation without impacting image quality, negatively impacting image quality. Historically, a lot of people have struggled. At reducing the radiation exposure to the physician and medical staff. But it has come at a cost and that cost typically has been lower image quality. And when you lower image quality, you lower the opportunity of providing the best possible care you can. So Alara is that principle that the FDA and many other societies follow which is, let’s get x-ray radiation as low as we can without impacting outcome

Patrizia: [00:15:45] And let’s talk about ControlRad and how far they are able to reduce that level of radiation exposure.

Guillaume: [00:15:52] So in our FDA submission, we would do anywhere between 50 to 89% the radiation exposure to both patients and the entire medical staff inside the room. That is considered game changing.

Patrizia: [00:16:08] That is considered game changing

Guillaume: [00:16:10] Especially when you don’t negatively impact image quality.

Patrizia: [00:16:14] You talked to us earlier about some of the negative repercussions from the physicians who are continuously bombarded with this scattered radiation and you mentioned brain tumors, on which side of the head were they more likely to?

Guillaume: [00:16:26] Left sided brain tumor. So they have two times incremental risk of brain cancer compared to other medical professionals, and they have an increasing incidence in left brain. Why is left brain relevant? When the physician is at the patient they’re on the left side of the patient and it’s their left side of the brain that is closest to the x-ray tube. So there’s a direct correlation with exposure from the x-ray tube to brain tumors. So that is why the left brain tumor is a very meaningful.

Patrizia: [00:17:02] And the last time I had spoken to you at your office when it was still safe to be side by side and have an actual conversation with someone in person. You did mention there was at least one study out that indicated that your image quality. was not only not affected adversely, but improved for the physician that was testing the product. Have you had any other such tests or results from other physicians?

Guillaume: [00:17:27] That’s right. So we, we in our, in our first installations at the beginning of the year, the feedback has been, well, not only are you not negatively impacting image quality, but your image quality has actually gone up. We’ve actually improved image quality. And we thought this was going to be the case from bench testing, lab testing that we had done. But we didn’t really appreciate how clinically meaningful it was. And the feedback from this position was you have improved image quality to the point that you’re able to reduce the operating time. Cause if I can see what I need to see better and faster than I can actually reduce my operating time. If you could reduce operating time and time where you’re sedated, the cost of the OR and the advantages to the patient are very meaningful and very clinically important. So when we were out to reduce radiation and what we have found when we launched the technology is not only did we reduce radiation, but we actually clinically improved image quality. That is not part of our FDA label, in our FDA claims. But now we’re going to be, we’re going to look to further do additional testing to be able to provide that claim that and investigate if we can get that claim from the FDA. But very important outcome from these initial installs.

Patrizia: [00:18:54] Absolutely.

Rico: [00:18:57] So do you, do you have several clients that you’ve been selling to? Can you talk of any case studies right now, Guillaume, of successes that you’d like to mention?

Guillaume: [00:19:08] Yeah, so we have installations in surgical fields. We also have it in outpatient facilities. By pain management in a pain management field. And the utilization and the reductions and radiation that we’re seeing are matching what we claimed we were able to do. And we’re very pleased with that and we’re getting additional outcomes like Patrizia just
pointed out regarding image quality. So we’re very pleased with the outcomes, both in being able to deliver a very high radiation reduction and then provide better image quality.

Rico: [00:19:48] Do you have, what are you looking forward to? What developments are you, beyond the two products you’re working on, you know, long range. Do you have long range plans that you’d like to be doing in this field as well?

Guillaume: [00:20:01] Yeah. So in the next iterations we’ll be looking at further developing for other types of C-arms. So there’s a whole host of different types of C-arms and x-ray equipment. So we’ve launched it with a mobile C-arm, a GE mobile C-arm. We’re going to be doing it with a fix C-arm cath lab at the, at the risk of prying too much information is going to be on it fixed CRM with a Siemens, another vendor. And we’re in talks with all vendors and we’re getting interest from a lot of different parties and are looking to collaborate more with some of these C-arm OEMs to further expand the reach of our technology.

Rico: [00:20:42] How long have you guys been in business?

Guillaume: [00:20:46] Well, we’ve, the technology was originally launched in 2010, by three Israelis, our research development center’s in Israel. Our global headquarters are here in Peachtree Corners. And so we went through a very long period of development, which is very typical for medical devices. The ramp up in technology, in research and development of medical devices can last decades. And we are now just getting our 5, 10 K clearance, as I shared last year, and now in the midst of a commercial launch. So we’ve gone through a very long period of development and now we’re at this very exciting period in our company where we’re now launching the technology and seeing the fruits of all our labor. You know, really taking hold this year, which is really exciting. And fortunate for us, we raised our last capital round with a VC in the fourth quarter of last year. So we’re actually well capitalized and certainly wouldn’t want to be doing that fundraising now behind us in the fourth quarter. And we’re well capitalized to you know, to move the company forward and fuel the commercial launch.

Patrizia: [00:22:02] Guillaume your headquarters here in Peachtree Corners is rather new. Talk to us about why your company shifted from, was it Pennsylvania?

Guillaume: [00:22:12] Yup, Pennsylvania.

Patrizia: [00:22:13] Why Peachtree Corners, Georgia?

Guillaume: [00:22:15] So originally the, our research and developments are still in Tel Aviv and our global headquarters prior was in Radnor, Pennsylvania, which is right outside of Philly. And I was working actually for a company called Monica Technologies, which is a French medical device company based out of Paris, but the US headquarters was here actually in Atlanta as well in Duluth. And so I was already here in Atlanta. So when I joined the company as the CEO, we moved the headquarters from Radnor, Pennsylvania down here to Atlanta. I had found that,
you know, when you peel back the onion here in Atlanta, you’d be surprised at how much medical device talent you actually have here in our own backyard. Certainly it doesn’t match what you have in Boston or in San Francisco, but you’d be surprised on how many medical device talent there is here. The cost of living, it doesn’t compare to what it looks like in Philly. The weather doesn’t, you’ve got the Atlanta airports that’s, you know, for a lot of that does a lot of global travel, is very convenient. So we found Peachtree Corners in particular are very well centered, right north of Atlanta, access to 141 is very useful. 141 miles will be an interstate. I can get to the airport in 35 minutes, 40 minutes if there’s no traffic, of course. But I’m playing around traffic, so that’s okay. And you know, we have people that work here in the office that live inside their perimeter that lives North of us, that lives West of us, that lives East of us. And we find ourselves actually pretty well centralized here and certainly the cost of labor and in this building that I’m here in Scientific Park is fantastic compared to what’s even inside the perimeter, but certainly a lot cheaper than in Philly.

Rico: [00:23:59] Sure.

Patrizia: [00:24:00] Well, we’re glad you decided to settle here.

Rico: [00:24:04] And in this time of COVID-19 Philly’s not the place to be.

Patrizia: [00:24:08] Let’s talk about that a little bit. I don’t mean to be a Debbie downer, but it’s happening and it’s among us.

Guillaume: [00:24:18] Yeah.

Patrizia: [00:24:19] We stopped human activity across the globe. So how, if in any way, has COVID-19 effected ControlRad?

Guillaume: [00:24:26] Yeah, certainly COVID-19 is going to, has impacted everybody. I mean, our premise is pretty simple. We see the light at the end of the tunnel. This too will pass. And we just have to get through this period of time. Who knows what that period of time looks like. But we have to get through this time and be as productive as we can during these times. We have found that for us as a company, we’re very fortunate because we’re just launching our technology. So we had nominal cash, predict, forecasted for this year. So our burn rate in our runway is really not impacted by COVID-19. Our team in Israel and our team here in Atlanta are working very effectively remotely. We’re able to come into the office as I am today to do conduct testing on our x-ray equipment that’s here in the office. So we can, you know, very carefully and with very few people conduct what we need to conduct. Are we at 100% productivity? No. But we’re doing extremely well and find it too. And have found, frankly, in our building of habits of things that we weren’t doing prior, that we’ll probably will keep on doing. Are there meetings that I would typically have gone to that I didn’t really need to go to? Probably. Are there, you know, we’re comfortable conducting all company meetings with a team in Israel. Having a chance for team members to meet each other that probably wouldn’t had a chance to meet, probably
should’ve been doing that before. So there’s habits that we’re actually building up that we’re probably going to be building up even once we get outta here. So we have found, just stay pretty productive and are pleased with how we’re performing.

Rico: [00:26:06] It’s a, it is a tough environment. I deal with a lot of different companies and their sales staff. Just reaching out to people. There’s no landline to call anymore. You have to have someone’s cell phone essentially, or an email. So it’s a little bit more difficult to do. Are there other things that you’d like to share, Guillaume, about the company that we haven’t covered yet?

Guillaume: [00:26:32] No. I mean, listen, we’re excited to be here. I’m very thankful to be on this podcast and be part of this community. There’s a lot going on here. I’m sitting across here from Atlanta Tech Park, which is where we were before we were in this building. It’s exciting to see all the investments and energy in this place. I’m amazed at all the construction that’s going on just north of us. It certainly gave us a lot of different lunch opportunities. So it’s great to see the investment and excitement here. My kids go to Wesleyan across the street, so it’s excited to be part of this community and thanks for having me on.

Rico: [00:27:10] I appreciate that. There were several people, Robin Benfay, from Atlanta Tech Park moving Ashley Young that recommended your company, part of this profile that we did in the last issue. So they were able to speak up about you and your company.

Guillaume: [00:27:27] Great.

Rico: [00:27:28] So, and you’re right, there’s so much going on. I mean, Atlanta Tech Park with the one and a half mile Curiosity Lab track. I mean, some of the stuff is just like your technology because what’s going now there’s going to be even a bigger appeal for some of this stuff, right? We were talking a little bit before earlier about the safety of medical staff. It’s a big deal now. You know, not having the N95 mask or the protection equipment. This falls in line with that, right? We’re keeping staff safe.

Guillaume: [00:28:02] I mean, frankly, we believe the sensitivity to our technology coming out of this thing is going to be higher than it was before. Not that people didn’t care of the medical staff. And these risks that I talked about were very well documented and known. But certainly coming out of COVID-19, there’s going to be a even higher sensitivity to protecting the medical staff. So we definitely believe that that will benefit us.

Patrizia: [00:28:29] Truly innovative, truly remarkable, and absolutely touching that you’re protecting the people who are saving lives every day.

Guillaume: [00:28:36] Yes, absolutely.

Rico: [00:28:38] Well, we appreciate you coming on the show with us. For those that want to read the full article, you will find the digital edition on LivinginPeachtreeCorners.com. Go to our digital page and you’ll find that issue. The February-March issue that was held up.

Patrizia: [00:28:56] Residents may still have in their home somewhere and you can read all about ControlRod and four other very innovative companies in Peachtree Corners.

Rico: [00:29:07] Yes, yes. And we’ll be posting it to the website shortly also. So there, we’ll have the series of articles online. Guillaume, I appreciate you coming out and coming out socially safe online. It’s not zoom, but it’s close, right?

Guillaume: [00:29:23] Yeah, absolutely. All right. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

Rico: [00:29:28] Take care. Bye.

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How NetPlanner Systems powers businesses with tech-forward services and solutions

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NetPlanner built some of the earliest networks in the area.

“This was back in the days before there were any standards for this,” Bridges added.

Two tech workmen in a large empty conference/classroom. They are standing at the front of the room next to two large screens on the wall, discussing audiovisual installation. — Installing audiovisual; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

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In addition, things like security and access control, video surveillance and similar systems all work on IP networks.

A workman in a white hard hat and neon utility vest standing on a ladder installing a video surveillance camera in the ceiling of a business. — Installing a video surveillance camera; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

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With ever-changing business technology needs, NetPlanner successfully keeps current with trends. With heightened security concerns everywhere, the company installs biometric readers and smart camera systems for access control.

“We provide a wide variety of smart camera systems, where they can do recognition, license plate recognition, facial recognition — all those kinds of intelligent systems for commercial spaces,” he said.

Building relationships with a wide variety of manufacturers who provide different types of software systems is how NetPlanner meets the needs of its clients.

“We work with whatever software system the particular enterprise feels is most appropriate for their needs, depending on whether they want to do license plate recognition or face recognition,” said Bridges. “We do a tremendous amount of security camera work in schools all over the southeast. And that is becoming more top of mind in school systems now.”

A workman in a white hard hat and neon utility vest on a ladder outdoors installing an antenna system at a business. — Installing a distributed antenna system; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

But there’s more. NetPlanner also provides distributed antenna systems (DAS) to improve cell phone coverage in commercial spaces.

“Cell carriers are concerned about not just signal strength, but also channel capacity — the ability to have a much larger number of users that might be around a particular cell tower at any given point in time,” said Bridges.

When installing a DAS, NetPlanner’s proficiency in coordinating with the carriers ensures compliance with carrier requirements and optimizes signal strength and coverage throughout the building.

Evolution of the technology-driven company

Anyone who knows Clint Bridges shouldn’t be surprised that he’s right in the thick of the technology boom. He started his first company at 19 and attended Southern Tech for a while before focusing on entrepreneurship.

“My passion for technology goes back to my earliest years. I’ve been fascinated by electronics and computers since I was very young. And I always had a home laboratory in the basement of the house as I was growing up,” he said. “I knew when I was in high school that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. During my time at Southern Tech, I started my first company and realized that’s what I wanted to do more than be at Southern Tech.”

NetPlanner is not only a local company. It operates fully-staffed branch offices in Augusta, Columbus and Savannah, as well as in Nashville, Tennessee; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Tampa, Florida. It has also provided services in every U.S. state, as well as parts of the Caribbean, Canada, London and Puerto Rico.

“We do projects all over the country, including some that are for companies that need to do national rollouts,” Bridges said. “A lot of our customers want to see the exact same approach used consistently throughout all their facilities across the country. So they’ll look to a company like NetPlanner to go and provide that consistent installation of all their communications technology needs in all their facilities across the country.”

Community commitment

Whether it’s working with manufacturing facilities and distributors, some of the largest big box organizations in the country, small retail businesses or anything in between, NetPlanner never loses sight of the local community.

With a home base in Peachtree Corners, the company has strong community involvement — including adopting a roadway section for clean-up efforts and participating in local chamber of commerce activities. NetPlanner has been active in several community events, such as shoe drives, food drives and charity walks, demonstrating its commitment to giving back.

Workmen in hats and neon utility vests on the side of the road near a pick up truck, doing roadside clean up as part of the Adopt a Road program. — Adopt a Road program; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

“Since 2018, we’ve adopted a roadway section in the community through Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful,” said Michelle Bruck, marketing specialist at NetPlanner. “We go out about five times a year, clear debris off of that roadway and just make sure that it’s beautiful and that it’s safer for people who are walking or driving in the area.”

Nationally, NetPlanner participates in Toys for Tots and Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

“Not only [do we give back] in our headquarters location, but all of our branch offices look for ways to help, get involved and support our communities that we’re part of,” Bruck added.

NetPlanner’s marketing efforts include social media, direct marketing and trade shows, with support from Vox-Pop-Uli for branded materials and printed media.

“When we first started using Vox-Pop-Uli, we had just a straightforward vendor relationship, but they very quickly became a partner to us,” said Bridges. “Vox-Pop-Uli has actually set up a company store on our behalf where our employees can purchase branded material, branded clothing, ball caps and those sorts of things. And they also handle printed media — things that we would use at trade shows.”

Looking forward

With technology moving at a warp speed, NetPlanner relies on a lot of repeat business.

“Bandwidth requirements are increasing year after year,” Bridges said. “Fiber optic cabling that we might have installed 10 years ago won’t support the data rates that are needed today, so it needs to be changed out in many cases.”

Many of the customers that he’s been with for several decades use NetPlanner’s services over and over.

“We’ve gone into the same building and re-cabled it over and over again as the different category levels of copper cabling have advanced,” he said. “The demands on fiber are now way beyond what they were even five years ago because the capacity has increased so much.”

And as everyone is embracing artificial intelligence, Bridges said he’s working to keep up.

A tech workman in an orange hard hat, black shirt and neon utility vest standing in front of an open access control panel — Wiring an access control panel; photo courtesy of NetPlanner

“Everyone is well aware of what’s happening in the artificial intelligence space. And what’s really amazing to us is the number of new data centers that are being built across the United States by all the major players,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to imagine even being able to keep up with all that. We do a lot of data center work ourselves, and are trying to engage with more of our customers to help build some of these newer data centers.”

He added that the artificial intelligence boom is causing so much additional strain on the network infrastructure across the country, there are concerns about how it’s all going to be powered.

“I think everyone’s concerned,” he said. “Everyone that’s involved in this is wondering how we’re going to meet the bandwidth demands, the capacity demands, the power demands to make all this work.”

Staying ahead of the curve

With decades of experience, Bridges offers advice for all types of businesses starting out — put technology needs into your business model early on.

“The companies that struggle the most with technology are the ones that wait until after everything with the building is developed and completely built before they realize that they need Wi-Fi or some other network installation done,” he said. “It’s just a much more efficient process if we’re involved as early as possible to help design the network, along with the building structure itself.”

He also emphasized the importance of staying ahead of technological advancements to avoid falling behind.

“As fast as technology moves, if you get behind the power curve, it’s really hard to catch up,” he added.

The Local Thread: This business profile series is proudly supported by Vox-Pop-Uli, championing local stories and the communities we serve.

Business

Peachtree Corners Business Shines on “The Blox”

Published

1 week ago

April 4, 2025

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

A man with chin-length blonde hair wearing a blue shirt and a cap standing in front of an illuminated archway.

Peachtree Corners resident, Bill Frey, founder of Illuminating Design Inc., has stepped into the limelight on the acclaimed reality series The Blox to vie for the coveted title of the greatest start-up company in the nation.

The program follows Frey and his fellow contestants as they tackle a series of high-stakes business challenges, offering viewers an unprecedented look at the trials, triumphs and transformation of an emerging entrepreneur.

Now in its sixteenth season, The Blox bills itself as “the largest live-in entrepreneurship competition in the galaxy.” Over the years, it has evolved into a trending docuseries, available for viewing on multiple platforms — the free mobile app (for Android and iOS), on Prime Video, at betablox.com or on Facebook at BetaBlox.

Joining The Blox

Twenty years ago, Frey saw an opportunity to bring exceptional service, quality design and accountability to a rising lighting industry. Guided by his entrepreneurial spirit, he has sought opportunities to take his business to new heights and found just that in The Blox.

Unlike conventional entrepreneurial competitions, The Blox, a brainchild of MTV reality star and entrepreneur Weston “Wes” Bergmann — best known for his appearances on shows like The Real World and The Challenge — offers a new, groundbreaking format. Participants are immersed in a unique environment, living together and confronting a series of challenges that test their entrepreneurial acumen.

Frey’s talent and vision propelled him to be among the fortunate few selected to compete on show out of an impressive pool of 50,000 applicants.

“I am humbled and honored to be a part of The Blox, a game-changing platform that has given me the opportunity to evolve both personally and professionally,” he shared. “The show has been an incredible learning experience, and I am grateful for the chance to showcase my business and its potential on such a remarkable stage.”

You can follow Frey as he is featured competing in different entrepreneurial challenges throughout the series, which is divided into an eight-episode arc that premiered on March 23. New episodes are released weekly.

For more information about Bill Frey and Illuminating Design, visit illuminating-design.com.

Business

Expanding Horizons: How KGM Technologies Balances Defense, Medical, and Precision Manufacturing

Published

2 weeks ago

March 27, 2025

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

Kyle Grob on innovation, diversification, and the future of skilled trades

In this episode of UrbanEBB, host Rico Figliolini speaks with Kyle Grob, CEO and founder of Peachtree Corners-based KGM Technologies, a precision manufacturing company specializing in firearm suppressors and expanding into medical device production. Kyle shares insights on growing a business during COVID-19, navigating ATF regulations, and how Georgia fosters innovation in manufacturing.

The conversation also explores the future of skilled trades, the challenges of hiring motivated workers, and KGM’s commitment to workforce development through partnerships with vocational schools. Whether you’re interested in business growth, advanced manufacturing, or the evolving job market, this episode is packed with valuable insights.

Key Takeaways & Highlights:

Adapting to Change – How KGM transitioned from automotive and defense contracts to firearm suppressor manufacturing and medical devices.
The Impact of ATF Regulations – Digital processing has drastically reduced wait times for suppressor purchases.
Workforce Challenges – The decline of skilled trades and the difficulty of hiring motivated employees in manufacturing.
Medical Technology Expansion – KGM’s role in producing stroke rehabilitation devices and scaling medical manufacturing.
Networking & Diversification – The importance of industry connections in finding new opportunities.
The Value of Trade Schools – How partnerships with Maxwell High School and other vocational programs are shaping the next generation of skilled workers.
Patents & Innovation – KGM’s goal of filing at least one new patent every year.
The Role of Suppressors – Their use in law enforcement, hunting, and protecting hearing health.

Kyle Grob (Photo by Rannulf Media, George Hunter)

Transcript:

00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Urban Ebb here in the city of Peachtree Corners, just north of Atlanta. I appreciate you joining us. We have a great guest today, a Peachtree Corners-based business, very different and unique industry, Kyle Grob. Appreciate you being with me, Kyle.

00:00:18 – Kyle Grob

Oh, thank you for having me. Glad to be here.

00:00:19 – Rico Figliolini

It’s going to be a good discussion on a bit of company, a bit of work, and manpower, the lack of. But before we get into that, I just want to say thank you to two of our sponsors, EV Remodeling, Inc., and the owner, Eli, who lives here in Peachtree Corners also. His family does. And he does great work from design to build. Whole house renovation, or if you need an extension on the house, he’s the guy to look for. They’ve done over 260 such renovation work. So check them out, evremodelinginc.com. And then also Vox Pop Uli also family owned, also in Peachtree Corners. And they’re a company that if you have a brand and if you’re a business and you need to bring that brand to life, pretty much you can do it. 1,600 vehicle wraps I think this past year anything you can want, imprinted, embroidered, silk screen, whatever it is. If you have a logo and you want it on an object of any sort, challenge them. I can’t tell you how many different things they’ve put logos on. So all great stuff. Check them out, voxpopuli.com, where you can find them. So, now that I’ve taken care of the sponsors who support us for our journalism and podcasts. Kyle is the founder and currently CEO of KGM Technology. Yeah. So, based in Peachtree Corners, tell us just quickly a little bit about what the company is.

00:01:42 – Kyle Grob

So, the company started in 2012 as a kind of a fabrication, job shop, machining fabrication. And we kind of evolved out of the automotive space and got into the defense world and slowly grew over years. And then we moved into this building in 2019 and have been growing ever since.

00:02:03 – Rico Figliolini

2019, COVID.

00:02:05 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so COVID was actually very good for us. It was wide open, running multiple shifts. While many businesses were shut down, we couldn’t hire enough people, we couldn’t build enough products.

00:02:17 – Rico Figliolini

We’ll get into that because it may be a bit of what you’re going on now. So your business is military suppressors, which is the biggest part. You told me once at one point when I took a tour earlier, a week ago, you said we’re precision manufacturers.

00:02:34 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so the back end, the wholeness of the company is precision manufacturing. Our forward-facing product is suppressors. That’s mainly what we sell to commercial, law enforcement, military, overseas, all kinds of stuff like that. But we’re in all kinds of stuff. Contract manufacturing, medical device manufacturing and supply, all the way down to machining and research and development. And it’s just a little bit of everything. But again, forward facing is the product line, yes.

00:03:02 – Rico Figliolini

Sure. And you’ve done this since 2019, right? Actually before that.

00:03:07 – Kyle Grob

Well, no, no. Yeah. So we started suppressors in 2015, 2016. And then, but it was kind of a side product to what we were doing. Really grew in 2019. And then really kind of just kept growing through COVID. And this is kind of where we are now.

00:03:22 – Rico Figliolini

Interesting. So your family is steeped in military? In all branches, I guess?

00:03:25 – Kyle Grob

Yeah. Army and Navy.

00:03:27 – Rico Figliolini

Army and Navy. And you hire veterans?

00:03:29 – Kyle Grob

We hire a lot of veterans. We have a lot of veterans that work for us. I try to hire as many as we can. They make very good employees. But, you know, it could probably be a whole nother podcast in itself, what happens to veterans when they come back from service. And so we try to search them out and give people a chance.

00:03:34 – Rico Figliolini

Getting involved in this type of market since, you know, you started, has it changed in the way you do business?

00:04:03 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, because we are so highly regulated from, you know, the ATF regulates us pretty heavily. The ability for consumers to essentially purchase the product and all the paperwork and background check that goes in it has evolved since we started. It used to be nine months, 12, 15 months to get a product. So you buy it, wait for your paperwork for a year or more. You’d almost forget about the product. And then all of a sudden it’d pop up one day. Well, last year, everything went digital. And so now everything’s digital. You go from months or years wait time to days, hours, weeks.

00:04:38 – Rico Figliolini

So you can order this stuff online and get it shipped to you?

00:04:41 – Kyle Grob

No, so you can’t really ship it to your house. So you still have to go to a dealer or go like that. You’re still submitting fingerprints. You’re still submitting your photos. But the process is now all digitized. There’s no manual entry on the ATF side. Everything goes through much faster. And again, we’ve seen, you know, three hour wait times. Where you fill out your paperwork, go to a long lunch and all of a sudden your suppressor is approved.

00:05:04 – Rico Figliolini

So if you have a gun permit or a carry permit, does that make it easy?

00:05:08 – Kyle Grob

It doesn’t really because it’s a completely separate background check. So this, every suppressor you purchase is its own background check. So you treat it like a firearm purchase every single time, except it goes through a kind of a different, it goes through the FBI on the NIC side, which is their background check service. But it goes through separate checking on the ATF side as well. So it is a little bit more involved process than buying a handgun or a rifle or something like that. But similar agencies touch it, I guess.

00:05:38 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. This being the state of Georgia, other states have different ways of doing things. You’ve been to trade shows. You’re involved in the industry a bit. Do you see Georgia being a good place to do business here in this market?

00:05:52 – Kyle Grob

Georgia is a very friendly state. And even just manufacturing in general, you’ve seen all the companies that have moved here. You have, you know, most major automotive companies are either building or about to build here. You got SK batteries. You have some big companies that are moving to Georgia. And then film. I mean, film is massive here now with all the tax breaks. And so you see a lot of stuff coming to Georgia from an industry standpoint, but it’s also very firearms friendly. There’s a lot of big companies here in Georgia. You have Glock here in Georgia. You have Daniel Defense. You have a lot of really big companies. I think Remington’s got a place here. So it is very, you know, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina. There’s a lot of very friendly states when it comes to manufacturing and firearms.

00:06:35 – Rico Figliolini

So how do you go about selling your product then? I mean, if you go to trade shows, RFPs?

00:06:40 – Kyle Grob

So on the military side, it’s more RFPs, it’s more contract basis. We partner with a lot of firearms companies because a lot of submissions for weapons systems require, you know, we’re viewed as kind of an add-on to a weapon system. Yeah, it’s an accessory. And then on the law enforcement side, we go demos, we have dealers. And then on the commercial side, we have distributors that distribute to dealers. And then we have dealers that essentially are walk-in brick and mortar stores. And we sell directly to them as well.

00:07:07 – Rico Figliolini

So for most people that may not know, why would someone want a suppressor on the gun? Why would a police officer, let’s say a SWAT team, want to suppress it? What makes it?

00:07:17 – Kyle Grob

Really the biggest one is health and safety. It’s the biggest one. So from an officer-involved shooting, or say if he shoots without ear protection, every shot is permanent hearing damage. So if he shoots one in his entire career, he’s permanent hearing damage, he’s on disability from an auditory standpoint. You look at, you know, what you could do, and then you look at, you know, God forbid all the school shootings we’ve had and school resource. When you shoot inside of a building, it’s even magnified. So it’s very, very loud in general, and then you put it inside of a building and it gets worse. So there’s been cases where you’ve seen lawsuits where, you know, a SWAT team or someone’s gone into a house or a building and essentially, you know, saved someone, but they discharged their short barrel rifle inside the house. And then everyone that’s not wearing ear protection, i.e. the family, they’re all deaf or hearing damage, and they end up suing the city. And we see it a lot. And so from a health and safety standpoint, there’s that. You could look at accuracy. And then you look at, on the hunting side of being more courteous to neighbors. It allows you to hunt closer to, you know, other people and stuff like that. Yeah, so there’s so many things that add to it. And then you add, you know, on the military side, it helps with being able to, you know, hide your location and just be more effective. Suppress flash and stuff like that. So a myriad of uses, but really the bigger one is the health and safety side of things.

00:08:40 – Rico Figliolini

I was speaking to a person today that on his old farm he used to shoot his rifle and stuff. And he told me he said, this ear? Pretty much gone. He says now hearing aid. Because he didn’t think that he needed a, you know plugs or anything. A suppressor probably would have helped him. Well at least the plugs might have helped a little bit. But no one thinks about that.

00:08:59 – Kyle Grob

You don’t, you don’t. And you look at the law enforcement side and kind of the heat of moment, you don’t think about it. It’s not something, you’re either fighting for your life or, you know, your split moment decision. Like you don’t think about putting your plug on or throwing a plug in or something like that. It’s a split second decision. So with suppressors, you can really mitigate a lot of that risk. Now, does it make it the Hollywood movie side? No. The only thing that gets even close to that is 22. And it’s because the subsonic is very quiet like that. Any centerfire rifle cartridge you’re never going to get away from supersonic crack. It’s only so quiet you can get it. It is a suppressor, not a silencer. And that’s a probably a very heated topic. It’s a movie thing, yes. But in practical application they do a lot of work for the size of the product and what you use it for.

00:09:50 – Rico Figliolini

So now going from suppressors to the medical industry. You know when you showed me around and you talked to me about mechanical therapeutic systems for a company you’re doing work for inside the perimeter. That you almost had to double the size of your floor space, essentially.

00:10:07 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so it’s kind of an interesting story. We go back to, we’re a precision manufacturing company. We make contract stuff. We do defense. We do a little bit of everything. And it was kind of a friend of a friend. Their business was scaling and really needed help scaling the manufacturing side of their product. And it was really a right place, right time. It kind of fit in our warehouse. While it’s not exactly what we make, precision assembly, scaling, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, all that stuff. That’s what we do every day. So I’m just building something a little different versus what I have been building. So it was a great opportunity. Again, the right side of the perimeter is Atlanta company. And it was just a really good right place, right time. Good fit for what they were looking for. Good fit for us on the diversification side. So it’s just it really worked and we’re growing weekly. Yeah, we’re blowing walls down and yeah we’ve tripled the space twice now since we yarded in like October of last year. So it’s very very quick.

00:11:07 – Rico Figliolini

When I walked through and you gave me the tour, I mean there were quite a few people just in that place doing the assemblage. I think you even told me, you said well, how far down can you? Millionth of an inch? Precision?

00:11:21 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so it’s like our EDMs and some of our stuff, we calculate microns, millionth of an inch.

00:11:27 – Rico Figliolini

So that’s an industry, obviously, you want to get more into.

00:11:30 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, it is. It was interesting. I had kind of heard about the medical manufacturing side, and the more we dug into it, the more I realized how many companies like the company we’re helping are out there. And they have a great idea, a great concept, but they’re either doctors or they’re pcs or biomedical. You know they’ve developed great product but they don’t know the manufacturing side or they don’t know how to scale the logistics. Yes, scaling. So it’s, there’s so many good ideas that maybe never ever come to market or never could reach the potential they could because they don’t know the back end. They don’t know the manufacturing, they don’t know how to. Make five of something is very different than making 500, is very different than making 5,000. And it’s just a different skill set. It’s a different knowledge base. And we’re very good at it. And it was a really, really good fit. And it’s something we believe in. We believe in the medical stuff as much as we believe in the defense. Every day we’re building something to help someone else.

00:12:29 – Rico Figliolini

And to get people to understand a little bit, this particular thing was a therapeutic.

00:12:34 – Kyle Grob

Yeah it’s a, without going into too much detail, it’s a stroke therapy device. It’s used for rehab of stroke patients so that they can actually rehab at home versus having to go into a therapy office. And so it’s just grown immensely and that’s, the product’s done well.

00:12:50 – Rico Figliolini

So how do you go after that market? You know, so if another business person, you know, when you, when you diversify, it’s not easy, right? You’re all set in one way. You have 100% of the direction going one way. How do you do that? If another company was listening to this, how would they be able to diversify? So what challenges did you see?

00:13:10 – Kyle Grob

The challenges, like I said, we very much stumbled into this one. Not saying we weren’t looking, and that’s kind of how we did it, but honestly, it was network. And the guy that owns this company, owns another company and he’s an investment group with another other. So a lot of it is networking and being open and willing to take on a challenge that you may not. Be like, oh I have no business in that, well if you’re good at what you do over here and you can see you can cross the lines you can compare, you’d be surprised what you can do. And then you go to the trade shows. Like there are medical device trade shows. Go to those and walk around and say, hey I’m a manufacturer, or I’m this, I’m looking at getting into this market. Do you have a need for X, what I do? Putting yourself out there and going like, look, this is out of my market, but I’m good at this. I would like to try this and just be open and willing to, A, to fail because you’re going to fail more than you succeed, but be willing to try. And that’s the big thing was the leap. Like we took a leap to do this. I had a good feeling that we could do it. But at the end of the day, like you still have to take the leap.

00:14:17 – Rico Figliolini

You’re a CEO now and you were a founder, but you were on the board. You were chairman of the board?

00:14:22 – Kyle Grob

No, no, not chair on the board. I was more on the technical side. So as we were growing the business, I was CTO. And so we were heading kind of down a different path and it was just a the board kind of wanted to see a different change in the way the company was run. And again, my background, why I said, I wasn’t running the day to day, most more on the manufacturing side and technology and patents and stuff like that. And so, board made a shift and I took back over the company. You know, I go from running it many years ago, to running again. Which happens a lot in small companies. And it was a, we wanted to head down the manufacturing path and that’s what I know. So we made a change and I stepped back in last year and been riding the train ever since.

00:15:11 – Rico Figliolini

Good, good. It’s great to have a company expanding and doing well in Peachtree Corners.

00:15:13 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, yeah. Happy to be here.

00:15:17 – Rico Figliolini

Being an employer of veterans, being steeped in family military and stuff, you do outreach, you do community fundraising in that field, in that area.

00:15:29 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, we do, again, more in the defense space, but we do some charity work with several organizations. And again, we donate product. We do stuff for raffles and fundraisers, and we do a lot of stuff like that. Because I really do believe in giving back to the market and giving back to those people. So it’s something we do a decent amount of. I would like to do more this year. That’s kind of what we’re trying to find some other organizations that do stuff with. But we try to do as much as we can. There’s one group, and I’ll be happy to say the name, but Guardian Group. And it’s Guardian Long Range. And they have a precision rifle series. It’s a shooting competition, but it’s for fun. And they have four or five stops all around the U.S. And we outfitted all their rifles that they let people use for trials and stuff like that. We outfitted all the suppressors. So maybe their first competition experience is with a suppressed rifle. So we do stuff with them every year. A guy named Gary is the one that founded that. So great group. But he has a lot of, most of his stuff is for foster kids. He’s a foster kid himself, and he does, every single dime of that goes right into helping foster kids, helping place foster kids, and stuff like that.

00:16:41 – Rico Figliolini

Wow, that is neat. That is cool. I didn’t think about that. So, you know, leadership, company, what comes to mind when you’re, you know, when you’re looking ahead for the next few years?

00:16:55 – Kyle Grob

Really, my biggest push is diversification. Is trying to grow the medical side for sure, grow my contract manufacturing, and really try to build some stable streams around. Everyone knows the firearms industry goes up and down. It’s always cyclical. And so trying to build a larger company where I can have some overlying pathways and diversify and stuff like that so that I can clip the waves and be able to grow the business without relying as much on a very cyclical market. So that’s really the big try. We’re pushing a lot of technology. We’re trying for a patent a year, or a patent every two years. Yeah, we’re four deep already, with two more applied. So we do a lot on the patent side, a lot on the testing and development side. But yeah, growing the medical is really the big one I’m focusing on in the next year or so.

00:17:45 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, one of the things you have in the house is a firearm range. You told me, and you can put a .50 caliber?

00:17:52 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so we shoot up to .50 caliber indoors. Yeah, so we have a, it’s a lab as much as it is a range where we can do all of our instrumentation and we develop based on data. So we use it. We shoot it in almost every single day. We’re doing testing and development. We do, you know, demos for customers and stuff like that. But yeah, we’ve, pretty extensive room back there.

00:17:54 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, it’s amazing. Small. Smaller than this conference room.

00:17:58 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, yeah. It’s not, it’s not very big. It’s not a big long range, but it’s heavily instrumented.

00:18:22 – Rico Figliolini

I can’t even imagine shooting a 50 caliber in there, how that would sound.

00:18:25 – Kyle Grob

Oh it, unsuppressed it’ll lift the ceiling tiles. It’ll pressurize the room, yeah so.

00:18:31 – Rico Figliolini

So lots of work yeah expanding you’re looking towards the future and stuff. One of the biggest problems I guess, and we’re going to go right into that is finding employees. Finding skilled employees or motivated employees. Maybe not even skilled, maybe motivated. How does that?

00:18:49 – Kyle Grob

I’ll trade motivation for skill. I’ll trade because what we do is kind of unique. Even on the manufacturing side, we have very nice machines. We do things to a very, very high tolerance. And even with machining background, we’ve found that some people have either preconceived notions or bad habits or stuff like that. We’re getting to the point now where I would rather have someone that has a little bit of mechanical aptitude, some basic knowledge, or someone out of trade school, and I’d rather just teach them. And finding someone that’s willing, even on the medical side, I’d rather have someone come in that wants to just come in and work every single day, take pride in the product they put out. You don’t have to even be that knowledgeable about what we do. I’ll train you and do whatever we need to do, but someone to actually come in and do it is one of the biggest struggles we find. We’ve had you know, multiple staffing agencies and all stuff like that. And we have people, we had some people the other day that came in for four hours, just left during lunch, never came back. And yeah, just it’s, the workforce is, it’s been disappointing, I guess. And seeing, especially on the technical side, I mean, the craves, the trades, the crafts, like a lot of that stuff is dying. Like people are not, you look in the like tool and dye. Oh, that’s enough. That’s no, so most people don’t know how injection mold stuff works and like that. The craftsmen that build those tools, that is a dying art. There’s only one or two schools in the U.S. that do it. I don’t know any of those guys that make less than six figures. None of them. And, you know, you look at plumbers and electricians and welders. I come from a welding background. I knew plenty of welders in the nuclear field that have multiple houses in multiple states. They never wanted for money. They always had plenty of money because it’s such a very small niche thing and there’s not many people that go into it. And so what we found with the growing, we’ve had to do a lot of automation because we cannot get the people. So we’re putting robotics in, we’re putting automation system in just because I have a certain number of parts that I have to make a day and we’re not hitting the numbers with the people we have. And it’s really hard to find people that want to come in and work. And we have a climate control facility, the nicest machines, our oldest machine, CNC machine is from 2018. It’s the oldest machine we have in the whole building. Most stuff is within two years old. So we work highest machines, highest quality product this, and just having someone come in every single day and want to work. It’s been very difficult to find. And that’s it. It’s been. I guess upsetting a little bit of how hard it’s been.

00:21:25 – Rico Figliolini

I think we talked a little bit about that when I was here last time. And you’re on the board of Maxwell High School Technical, I think?

00:21:33 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so Maxwell High School, it’s a vocational high school, essentially. It’s a trade high school. They’re over in Lawrenceville, I think. So high school kids in Gwinnett County, if they want to go to that program, I want to say it’s junior and senior year. If they are heading down that path, they essentially will get bused to Maxwell for half their day and come back. And they have machining and welding, hvac, nursing, culinary, carpentry, all kinds of stuff. And you can get some vocational certificates in high school over there. And so I sit on the board over there and I help advise of curriculum of what do kids need to learn if they want to head down this path? They want to head down, I don’t care if it’s machining or engineering or anything like that. Like what are basic skills. I mean we have people that come in their 20s that don’t know what a screwdriver is. I mean, it’s like, that sounds crazy, but until you meet people and you know, I don’t think the school systems are doing people favors. And so I’ve been really trying to help where I can and you know, try to like, look, let’s try to teach people young. I didn’t have that when I was in school. Like I had to learn everything the hard way.

00:22:42 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. And you were talking about this. You started at 15, I think.

00:22:46 – Kyle Grob

Yeah. So I started machining in, you know, high school. I started welding at 12. I grew up on a farm.

00:22:51 – Rico Figliolini

12.

00:22:52 – Kyle Grob

And so it’s one of those that, you know, I had a very good upbringing. Like I was shown, my great grandfather was a master carpenter. Great uncle was a master machinist. Like I grew up in a trade family. And so like, I got exposed to that stuff very, very young. I was very lucky. A lot of people aren’t like that. Most of their parents are maybe in IT or finance, and they want to go be a machinist or be a welder or something like that. So there’s no, you know, maybe the parents don’t know how to get into that. And so the kids find out at a later date. Well, what if they could start finding out in high school? They start learning, you know, your STEM schools, your vocational schools, that kind of stuff.

00:23:31 – Rico Figliolini

I think like Paul Duke STEM, for example, they’re a hybrid school, right? So it’s, you have kids that are technically STEM kids, but then you also have other kids who are learning CAD and 3D printing and stuff like that. So more of technical stuff that they can actually leave the high school knowing that stuff and then find the job doing it. So that’s the only place I know that’s like that, short of the Gwinnett Science and Technology High School. I forget where that is now. But when I grew up, I mean, granted this, you know, my high school was 50 years ago. Half a century. That’s horrible. Okay. But when I grew up, we had shop classes. So metal class, printing class. In fact, I took printing. I should have taken the auto class because that really works now. But I took printing. And when I was going to college, I worked at the print shop right around the corner. So I made good cash because there weren’t that many people that knew it. And I literally could run two or three presses at the same time. They were small presses. But there were even people back then that would be like, well, what are you in a rush for? Why are you doing what you’re doing? And I’m like, because I’m getting bored running this long run in this one press. I could do this other one while this is going. So it is to some degree motivation, some degree technical knowledge.

00:24:50 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, but a lot of it still drive. Strive.

00:24:53 – Rico Figliolini

Yes. For sure. To be able to make that money. I mean, most parents think, well, I don’t know about most parents. What I think is people got into this four-year college degree thing. Which is way more expensive now than it used to be. And you’re looking at people, who was it, the head of OpenAI, was essentially saying you don’t have to go, the head of NVIDIA was. It was like you used to want to be able to send your kid to do computer programming. And he’s essentially saying, you know, you don’t need to be doing that anymore because it can be done in plain english on OpenAI, essentially. So where are they going?

00:25:36 – Kyle Grob

Good question.

00:25:37 – Rico Figliolini

I see signing bonuses for 10 grand on HVAC here in the metro area sometimes. How do you solve that? I mean, you’re on the board of the high school, but how do you?

00:25:48 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, but it’s one high school. And it’s one high school in a state. And I know there’s other vocational schools in other states. A lot of it just seems to be the state has to look at it holistically in the whole state. And go like, look, this is worth putting money into. This is not football. This is not baseball. This is not your support sports like that. It is an alternative path that is not your commonplace. So it really has to come. And I’ll give the state of Georgia and even Gwinnett County very, very good accolades of, you know, taking the leap on that school and funding that program and pushing it and keeping to push it and grow it. And so, but it has to start at a state level. The state has to be able to go,this is worth putting money into to future. Because you have to do it now for the kids that are coming up. You know if you want to get, if you want that kid that’s in elementary school right now to look at that that program, it already has to be in place so that he will know about he or she will know about it by the time they get into middle school and then by the time they get in high school they can apply for it.

00:26:50 – Rico Figliolini

I think the stigma, but the stigma needs to go away also, right? Because there’s a stigma of like, you’re not going to college?

00:26:57 – Kyle Grob

Yeah. You’re not going to amount to anything if you don’t go to get a four-year degree.

00:27:02 – Rico Figliolini

And it used to be okay if you knew computer engineering and programming. You’d come out of school. Some people, some leaders in that industry would say, don’t waste the four years. We’ll train you during the four years.

00:27:13 – Kyle Grob

Come work for me now.

00:27:15 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Google used to do that. Some of these other companies started doing away with four-year degree minimums to be able to do that because they weren’t finding what they needed. But now they’re finding it in a different way. But I agree with you. Funding that type of stuff makes a whole lot of sense but it’s taking that stigma away to say, you know.

00:27:33 – Kyle Grob

It’s okay to be a plumber. It’s okay to be a carpenter. It’s okay to, you know wash cars. Because I have a friend of mine who started washing cars then he managed a car wash. Now he owns six of them.

00:27:46 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah again, it’s a bit of drive.

00:27:50 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, but he had the drive and he knew that he had to start somewhere. And I think a lot of people are scared of starting at the bottom of something. And but, it’s one of those that like they’re all these crafts all these trades are very inviting they want people. They’re begging for people to come work.

00:28:06 – Rico Figliolini

You know what? You don’t you don’t need to drive as much. You need to be able to, I think take pride in what you do. You don’t need to go into something and say, well, I want to start my own business because some people don’t want to. They want to do a nine-to-five. That’s fine. They can make lots of money doing nine-to-five.

00:28:22 – Kyle Grob

They can make good money doing nine-to-five, yeah.

00:28:25 – Rico Figliolini

Check out the company. Alright, so we’ve sort of come to the end of our interview. Is there anything I’ve left out that we haven’t talked about that do you think you should mention?

00:28:37 – Kyle Grob

No, I said I can go on for days about the labor and trade schools and stuff like that. But no, I said this. It’s kind of a little bit of my story and kind of where we’ve come from, where we’re heading and what I’m passionate about individually and what I want to do for the community.

00:28:52 – Rico Figliolini

Excellent. So if you all want to find out about the company, check out the website. I’ll have the, actually, what is the website?

00:28:58 – Kyle Grob

It’s kgm-tech.com.

00:29:01 – Rico Figliolini

I’ll have the link in the show notes as well. If you have any questions for Kyle, just email him off the website. Or leave your comments in the, you know, depending if you’re watching this on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, or if you’re watching this on audio podcast, just send the comments to me and I’ll forward it to Kyle. So, but thank you everyone. Thank you to our sponsors as well, to Vox Pop Uli and to EV Remodeling Inc. Appreciate you all being with us. Share this UrbanEbb podcast with your friends. And if you look, if you know anyone that’s looking to get into the technical field, Kyle could be a good mentor probably. I would think. Thank you Kyle.

00:29:41 – Kyle Grob

Yeah. Thank you sir.

00:29:41 – Rico Figliolini

I appreciate it. Thank you guys