Story Time
The Time I Worked with Former KGB Operatives
I’ve been blessed to work with a lot of different people, work on a lot of different projects, and try to do some things that many thought were impossible.
One of those was electro-polishing titanium.
We were trying to develop a process to eliminate an acid-polishing step in our supply chain. My goal was to vertically integrate. We had already reduced lead time on cataract surgery needles from an average of about four months down to about 48 hours. One exception remained. We had to ship them halfway across the United States to have a company do some acid polishing, then ship them back. The shipping was expensive. The time delay was expensive. That one step represented 60 to 80 percent of the lead time on the product after all of our other improvements.
So I spent a year trying to find somebody who could help me develop an alternative process. The answer I kept getting: it’s just not possible. Titanium doesn’t take to electro-polishing. I heard that enough times that I almost believed it. But it felt like there had to be a way.
Then one weekend, I got a message from a strange account on a general metalworking forum. This was around 2007, so forums were still the thing. The message said: “Hey, I saw your post looking for someone to help electro-polish titanium. I can help with that.”
I wrote back. “What do you mean, you can help with that?”
“I know how to do it. What do you need done? We can do it.”
That was it. No hedging. No “well it’s complicated.” Just: yes, we can do that, what do you need?
At the time I was based in Buffalo. Ironically, this person’s lab was in Pittsburgh. Practically my hometown. I was back there every two or three weeks. We set up a time to run some tests.
I took my boss with me. We were pumped with anticipation pulling into what I assumed would be an industrial park. It looked sketchy. Really sketchy. My boss looked at me and said, “Hunt, you better not have screwed this one up.”
I said, “It’ll be fine. We’re two dudes. We’ll be okay.”
We got to the address. It was a dilapidated garage. I knocked. My contact answered. She had a thick Russian accent. I’m leaving the names out intentionally. She said hello, took a look at the samples, and then I started looking around. It looked more like a torture chamber than a lab. All kinds of electrical equipment. Stuff that looked like it could have forced state secrets out of us if we had any.
She turned and yelled into the back: “Igor, we have tests to do!”
The guy who walked through the door had to duck to get through the frame. He was enormous. Didn’t say much. Took the samples and got to work.
We weren’t making much progress. My boss started giving me the sideways glance. How much longer are we going to stick with this?
Then I heard Igor say, “Aha. Here it is.”
He held up a needle. A small beam of sunlight was coming through the window. When that needle hit the light, it gleamed. It looked like something out of a movie. My boss grabbed my arm. We walked over and looked at it.
“This is better than anything we’ve seen, even from our current provider.”
There were a couple of issues with the result. But when we shared the samples with our customer, they told us our problems had actually fixed two of their major issues they had never figured out how to solve. It ended up being a better process than what we’d had before. Non-caustic. Something we could bring in-house if we chose to.
After Igor finished a handful of samples, he said, “Okay. Now we must share vodka.”
We went outside. Sat at a picnic table. Did share a glass or two. I started asking my contact how she had learned to do this. What she had been doing before.
She told the story of how in the former Soviet Union, a lot of people had high-tech jobs. When the Soviet Union collapsed, most of the funding disappeared. They bought the lab. Built their own business.
I pushed a little further. “But why were you doing this originally?”
She looked at me. “Let me think. How you say… KGB?”
I said, “No.”
She said, “Yeah. We developed this for military and Central Intelligence KGB needs.”
That’s how I ended up working with former KGB agents. And I live to tell about it.
The Leadership Minute
Why My First Boss Inspired Me to Pursue Leadership
Early in my manufacturing career, I worked on assembly lines. I thought it was going to be the kind of job that paid pretty well, was interesting, and would be stable long-term. That last part didn’t exactly pan out. I started my first manufacturing job in 1995, and in the next five years, a lot of manufacturing started transitioning out of the United States.
But in that first job, I had my very first real boss. We’ll call him Joe.
Joe was a great guy. A lot of fun to be around. But I could never quite understand how he had ended up leading over a hundred people. He didn’t really hold anybody accountable. He seemed more interested in being your friend than your manager. This was back when it was common for bosses and employees to go out together after work, and Joe was routinely right there having a good time with everybody.
He was technically gifted. And I realized that was probably what had gotten him promoted. What he didn’t have was any real leadership skill. And that was frustrating to the people who actually wanted to excel.
Eventually, Joe went back to a technical role and gave up his leadership position.
It was at that moment I started thinking: I think I can do this better.
I started studying leadership alongside my engineering classes. My extra time became reading. Books on management, on accountability, on what actually made a team work. About three and a half to four years later, I got the chance to prove I knew what I was doing.
My team set all kinds of records. And we had low turnover. That became a kind of hallmark of my career. Most of the people I lost were either promoted, internally or externally, or the occasional person I had to let go. And that part matters. You have to hold people accountable, because your star performers, and even your average performers, they respect that you’re doing everything you can to put a strong team around them. If you let the wrong people stay, you lose the right ones.
It was a poor leader who inspired me to become a leader.
As you read this, the question is: what inspired you to want to lead in your organization?
Why a Watch?
Time Is the Only Resource We All Have Equally
Wearing a watch on my wrist symbolizes how valuable time is.
You’ve heard it before. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. The same 168 hours in a week. It’s just in how you use them.
So having a nice watch serves as a tangible, visible reminder of how valuable that time really is. Maybe that’s part of why I think it’s well worth spending thousands of dollars on something you don’t even need. A watch is more than a status symbol. It’s something where you can literally watch the most valuable resource you own tick past.
When you see that second hand sweep, see that minute hand advance, and realize all you’ve been doing is scrolling social media or watching YouTube, hopefully it serves as a little kick in the pants. I’m wasting my most valuable resource. The one thing I can’t get back.
Short of getting in better physical shape, there’s really no way to buy time. You can’t add more. You only have what’s fixed. And the only thing better health does is potentially add time to the end of your life, which is still a good trade.
That’s why I think everybody should have a watch. And not just a cheap one. Probably not an Apple Watch or a smartwatch. A nice timepiece that stands as a symbol of how valuable your time really is.
Tips and Traps
Why It Might Be Better to Consign Your Watch
Eventually, most watch people get to the point where they want to sell a watch. Maybe upgrade to something new.
I get a lot of people reaching out wanting to sell me a watch. And there are a couple of problems with that arrangement. One is vetting. If I don’t know who you are, I can’t put my reputation on the line and just assume what you have is legitimate. That usually means I want to see the watch or have it sent to me before I commit. Sometimes we can vet each other through public or private communities, but in that case the person is usually a dealer.
The other issue is price. If I’m buying a watch for inventory, I’m going to offer less than what you could get selling it yourself. I will say I typically offer significantly more than what a jewelry store will. I picked up a watch recently and paid $700 more than what the seller had been offered as trade-in credit at a jeweler. Not even cash, trade-in credit.
So there is value in working with independent traders. But where it really becomes a win-win is consignment.
When you consign a watch with me or with another watch trader, you get the benefit of our knowledge, our marketing, and our network. We’re happy to take less margin because we didn’t put any capital into it. What you’re paying for is our skill and our reach. But you’re not waiting on us to cut you a check. We take a fee, and you keep the rest. Normally that amount is at least as much as what we would have offered to buy it outright.
If you’re thinking about getting rid of a watch, it might be worth considering consignment. It could actually be the best way to get the most out of it.
On the Wrist
Ball Engineer II Marvelight: The Explorer You Might Not Have Considered
Ball is known for being very successful in the railroad pocket watch industry, and then they moved into wristwatches. They’re not technically a micro brand at this point, but it kind of feels like it. For me, they’re at least on the level of Longines, or even Tag Heuer in a similar category.
I have one on my wrist today, and it’s a genuinely impressive watch.
It’s got the feeling of a Rolex Explorer at about 80% less. Still 904L stainless steel. Still chronometer-certified. Still anti-magnetic. Full stainless bracelet, white dial, high legibility. It even has a cyclops magnifier over the date. Same 40mm case size as the Explorer.
Is it inspired by the Explorer? Yeah, probably. Having it on my wrist, it feels an awful lot like one. But it’s got its own distinct look. The indices are more legible and visible. They stand out more than on the Explorer. The second hand carries their signature RR for railroad. And it’s made in much lower volume than almost anything Rolex produces. The one I have right now is a limited edition of 100 pieces.
I’m not a huge Rolex fan, but the Explorer is one of the watches I genuinely appreciate from their lineup. After wearing this Ball for a couple of days, I kind of feel like maybe I don’t really need one.
If you’ve always wanted an Explorer but didn’t want to spend $8,000, $10,000, $12,000 for one, check out the Ball Engineer. To me, it’s 90% of the performance, 90% of the look, at 20% of the cost.
What’s your favorite watch that’s inspired by another watch, that you actually like better than the original?