Adam Kjar on Building Supplier Stability with Mid-Career Machinists

Adam Kjar, Owner & CEO of Mountain CNC, deployed a post-acquisition playbook that flipped the typical integration approach. He started off by buying 100% ownership, which eliminated founder attachment to legacy processes, then he asked his team what had frustrated them for the last decade and systematically automated those pain points. Two estimators now handle the workload of five. New horizontal palletized machines run lights-out for 20 hours daily versus the previous 8-hour manual operations on three-axis mills.

Adam also offers his workforce strategy, which deliberately targets mid-career machinists who've been in the trade since 17-18, addressing the industry's demographic gap between retirement-age veterans and inexperienced juniors while guaranteeing customers 20-25 years of stable supply relationships. This addresses what Adam calls the industry's biggest customer risk: suppliers who liquidate wholesale when owners retire, leaving 30 days to find new sources for legacy parts produced for 20+ years. 

Topics discussed:

• Acquiring CNC machine shops using search fund methodology targeting $1-2M EBITDA businesses with strong mid-level management 
• Addressing the 70% retirement crisis where CNC shop owners lack succession plans, creating supply chain continuity risks
• Implementing lights-out automated machining with horizontal palletized systems running 20 hours vs. 8-hour manual operations
• Building workforce strategy targeting mid-career machinists with 20+ years of runway to avoid industry demographic gaps
• Operating as remote CEO through 7-10 key metrics, 5 on-site days monthly, and empowering team autonomy for operations
• Shifting from acquisition roll-up strategy to organic growth by winning customer market share from retiring competitors