EP 8 — HHI's Trevor Scott on Using Defense Tradeshows to Discover Who Needs What and How You Can Help

Small defense manufacturers face a relationship continuity problem that costs them contracts: your primary contact at a base rotates out every 2 years with no formal transition to their replacement. Trevor Scott, Senior Procurement Manager at HHI Corporation, rebuilds these institutional relationships through a three-pronged approach: trade shows, on-site base visits to understand actual problems, and strategic cold calling to find new decision-makers. His procurement workflow runs from initial customer contact through estimate facilitation to drawing release, where production management takes over.

Trevor reflects on how his welding background creates bidding advantages invisible to pure engineers, including revealing cost traps in RFP drawings that can sink profit margins. He explains how his team uses AI specifically for proposal refinement on government contracts by writing base content themselves, then using AI to clean language and verify requirement coverage across 50-page submissions. He also offers his management test: can the team run independently for 3 weeks without you? For teams built on respect and accountability rather than micromanagement, the answer is yes because people care about outcomes, not merely compliance. 

Topics discussed:

• Managing defense procurement relationships through the 2-year contact rotation cycle using trade shows, base visits, and cold calling
• Building aircraft maintenance stands and fall protection systems for customers across Air Force, Navy, and Army
• Implementing AI for proposal refinement on government contracts while maintaining human-written base content
• Leveraging welding and fabrication experience to identify cost traps in weld symbols and blueprint specifications during bidding
• Outsourcing CNC machining and advanced manufacturing capabilities while maintaining in-house control of core detailing and assembly work
• Creating accountability-based management systems where teams can operate independently for weeks without constant oversight
• Navigating DIB procurement challenges where knowing the right program office contact becomes obsolete within 2 years