Land, Lessons, and a Shop First — what two sets of plans, one rejected quote, and a lot of risk management taught me. House It started on our honeymoon, nearly a decade ago. Meghan told me she'd always wanted to build a house in the country. My dad did exactly that when I was five, and I'd wanted the same ever since. I'd owned homes for 13 years and built a shop at one of them, but building a house from nothing was a different scale of intimidating. Since we both wanted it, t

Glenn Hodge of NexusIQ and I have had quite a few discussions lately on how culture impacts the success of transformational efforts, continuous improvement, or really just operations as a whole. He referred to culture as the bedrock upon which any other effort lies. I really like this analogy, as I have seen quite a few initiatives fail simply because the culture simply would not support them, causing them to essentially "sink in the muck." Quality culture has been probably

It’s been a long and incredibly nonlinear journey to get where I am today. I’ll start by saying that I never intended to get into quality engineering. I sought an engineering degree so I could help design the next Camaro and make it super sweet and fast. But the one thing that I found greater value in than going fast is opportunity, and there has always been plenty of opportunity in quality engineering. Because Racecar A really big part of this journey was Formula SAE (FS

The culture in the Nuclear Security Enterprise (NSE), particularly with regards to quality, was without a doubt the best I've experienced. One thing that really made it great was the common understanding that perfection is impossible. While that may sound odd at face value, what made it powerful was that when issues occurred, they tended to be taken a lot less as a personal blow.

Let's paint a picture of two very different environments, whose root differences can be largely traced back to differences embedded deep in their quality culture. Let's begin with what sadly is more likely to be the default state. "Quality isn't a department" is a phrase that feels largely over-used these days (and beloved by AI), but the situation I will begin with is one where quality is, indeed, more of a compartmentalized department, silo'd outside of production, design,

One of the most important concepts I picked up designing and building Formula SAE racecars in college was systems thinking. A team could easily have "the best engine" or "the best suspension" or "the best controls" and get beat in every category by a car that wasn't the best in any particular area, but successfully integrated all components into one harmonious system. What made the winning teams' cars not only fast but exciting from a design standpoint were things like how

Learn more about Big W Engineering's values from our appearance on The 96% Perfect Podcast

Taking a vacation to the beach 3 months after starting a business is probably not something you'll find in any entrepreneurial self-help book. The best entrepreneurs, however, will remind you to never lose focus on your true north star. Partnership exists in many layers and contexts, but all stems from the same source inside of us, whether it be related to business partnerships or family. Likewise, even vacations have their own risks which need to be mitigated to ensure mi

A lot of people were surprised at my decision to leave the corporate world. I was at a great company, led an amazing team, and had just cleared some very significant hurdles on the product my team supported. When I started we were a scrappy bunch with just over a dozen quality engineers with seemingly impossible qualification tasks, the two most infamous suppliers in the organization, and buried in quality escapes and overdue CARs. Three years later we had completed the impo

A quick look into where we came from and what inspires us to do what it takes to build a solid reputation.