Machine Talk Blog

If you haven't seen the recent headlines about manufacturing across the Midwest, allow us to summarize: the skills gap is growing.

Jim Hoffman, MTI's Chief Metallurgist, examines a weld at the Sheridan Street lab.

Resting his face against the eyepiece of a microscope, MTI Chief Metallurgist Jim Hoffman meticulously spins a cluster of knobs, gradually bringing a customer’s latest weld into focus. He squints, rotates another dial then shifts his eyes toward his computer.  His keyboard clicks rhythmically as he adds to the notes sprawled across his two monitors.

Constanza Lengerich (right) chats with controls engineer, Ray Szajko.

Situated in a quiet office on the second floor of MTI’s global headquarters in South Bend, Indiana, Constanza Lengerich carefully examines a new batch of data from her team’s latest weld. The numbers excite and energize her – they signal pivotal progress in the company’s research and development of a new form of solid-state joining, Low-Force Friction Welding.

Jamie Clews (right) looks over the controls on a machine.

In part five of MTI's Eyes of an Engineer series, we sit down with Global Controls Technical Lead Jamie Clews.  Read on to see how an MTI college program transformed into a full-time job and a move to a new country for Jamie.

In our fourth installment of Eyes of an Engineer, we introduce you to junior service engineer James Lovell and junior design engineer Luke Barratt.  Luke and James both graduated from MTI’s apprenticeship program in February of 2018.

Discover why they chose MTI, what they learned, and where they’re headed next.

In our third installment of Eyes of an Engineer, we introduce you to Tori Zellerhoff and Margot Hughan.  They began working at MTI as part of their capstone thesis for Notre Dame’s Master’s Program in Entrepreneurship, Technology, & Innovation (ESTEEM).

Combining technology with entrepreneurship, the two developed a business plan and go-to-market strategy for MTI’s latest technology, low force friction welding. 

Find out how they got started, what they learned at MTI, and what they enjoyed most about the experience.

Every day, the engineers at MTI are working to solve complex manufacturing challenges through diverse applications of friction welding. They design the machines that help make our customers’ parts even better — and they’re passionate about their work.

Today, we’re pleased to introduce you to three of them: JT, Matt, and Susannah. They’ll tell you how they got here, and what they love about working at MTI.

In our second installment of Eyes of an Engineer, we introduce you to Jessica Miller, Dustin Bruntz, and Kaylee McConnell. They’ve all begun working as friction welding engineers with MTI within the past two years, though they’ve taken very different routes to their careers. Find out what they love about friction welding, how they got into it, and what they enjoy about being part of the MTI team.