SPADA: Marcie Washburn, Stephanie English and Pennie Burnham

Welcome to the Oyster Aero PearlCast, where we sit down with founders and leaders shaping the aviation industry. From freshly formed startups to the biggest names in the sky, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Turbo Resources in Phoenix, Arizona. Now operating in 450,000 square ft of state-of-the-art warehouse space, Turbo continues to keep the aviation industry flying and is actively buying material. Now, we hope you enjoy this episode. All right. Hello everyone. Jeff Jerge with the Oyster Aero PearlCast where we only interview founders and executives in aviation and we get kind of both today because one we have Marcie Washburn with us whose family I believe founded Nycote third generation a manufacturer for Warwatt Airbus Boeing and probably a lot more. Uh welcome. And we're also joined by Stephanie English.

And we're really going to be talking about the founding of a new alliance called Southern Pacific Aerospace & Defense, SPADA in Southern California. So, welcome. Thank you. Happy to be here. All right. Let's start with Marcie and Nycote briefly because that's where I met you and know you from. So, tell us a little bit about Nycote and how it was founded and how you got involved. All right. Thanks for having us here today. We've been meaning to do this for a few weeks and so I'm really excited to be here. Um Jeff, I love that you started a podcast because I've known you for a lot of years and the moment that I heard you started a podcast, I said, "Oh my gosh, this is going to be great." And I was really excited to follow you and to see who you were having on here. So, thanks for inviting me. Of course. Thank you. So I am the CEO and co-owner of Nycote Laboratories and my other counterpart, the other owner is my father. So, he doesn't work in the business anymore, and it's been a lot of years since he stepped away, but I'll go back to the 70s when my father and my grandfather were sharing a building in the San Fernando Valley with another gentleman who was he owned Nycote and he was kind of running the company into the ground and not really spending a lot of time with it. But it was originally developed outside of uh McDonald Douglas.

My grandfather and my father were hanging out running their other business which was a microwave component company and um they just happened to have multiple conversations with this gentleman who owned Nycote in the same building and they offered to purchase it from him and it wasn't too long after that that we still had the documents that show the purchase agreement and they purchased it for definitely somewhere under $10,000. So, it was a great deal. It was um luckily my grandfather was an entrepreneur. Um it was luck, a lot of luck that he just picked up this company back then and the product has been selling itself um because it was written into spec all those years ago at McDonald Douglas, which then it transferred into Boeing once that merger happened. Uh and then once Airbus started to come around and build aircraft and pick up suppliers, uh they started using Nycote and so on and so on. So we're with Embraer with every major airline.

So or manufacturer OEM and we're also on the MRO side as well. So yeah, it's kind of a neat product because it's not lost its impact in aerospace and it hasn't become redundant and the chemical compositions have outlasted all of the uh regulation changes. So, we are still around. We're growing. We're replacing other products that have been either cancelled or um their raw materials are just too um too abrasive to be used anymore um or they show up on the reach list. So, we have been solving problems for engineers across the the world really. And even though we're a small company, we show up and we try to meet with engineers on the products or the specifications that we know we can work with them. And a lot of the times the engineer will say, well, why haven't I ever heard of Nycote? And our answer is, well, we're a small company. We're trying to get to everybody, but there's only a few of us. And you know, out there, our products are on time delivery. We're almost 100% on time delivery. we can get a product to somebody next day in any part of the world. So a lot of people Yeah, it that's really uncommon especially for codings. So um in within aerospace codings the major brands sometimes are three four months uh backlogged or sometimes you don't even get your order for up to a year. But Nycote can be replace a lot of these old formulations or um the formulations that are just not being shipped on time and we can get it to somebody immediately especially when there's a AOG. That's happened to us a lot lately. We'll just ship somebody something next day.

It's been really exciting and our team our team loves what we do, especially for an OEM. That's actually incredible. So congratulations. Thank you. So, so while you're doing that and running this I don't want to say legacy business because it's not but this business has been well established now we have a founders itch to start up the Southern Pacific Aerospace & Defense Alliance right so um maybe just kind of overview what is that how does Stephanie fit in all this good stuff yeah I don't want to leave Stephanie out of this conversation so I'll make it quick so basically uh every time I was at dinner with other CEOs or at um industry events, I was hearing the same conversations. No matter if you're [unclear] or you're a big aerospace company, you you just have this issue with bringing employees into the pipeline and to either you're seeing people who aren't trained or you just don't have enough uh people to put in the seats that you have available. And so what I started to think was as I'm sitting around I had in that moment the last few years I had high school kids and I would I had the um honor of having a lot of the high school kids my son plays the or he played lacrosse in high school. So he would have all the kids over to our house whether it was the boys or their girls.

They wanted to know what I did and what why I was in aerospace and what that means. and they asked a lot of great questions. But the number one thing was none of these kids knew what aerospace jobs there were out there and they didn't know how to get into them. That's for sure. And a lot of them who were more creative thought, oh well, I I don't I'm not an engineer. I can't work in aerospace. And I would say, no, in aerospace, we have every job available. There's marketing and HR and people who need to be creative. you don't have to just be on the track to be an engineer to enter into a very good lifelong career in aerospace. And so it just started to occur to me that why aren't we reaching out to the younger kids, to the kids in our local schools. There's thousands of kids graduating every day. Why aren't they entering the pipeline? That was the question. And instead of sitting around and just not doing anything, I decided to start a nonprofit where we solved that question and just to create the uh communication in the basically in the city of what in the in LA, why aren't we having more of our kids enter into the pipeline for jobs into aerospace and why don't they know about them? So, we're still trying to solve that because we're just a year old this December. The U organization SPADA is only just one year old, but we have uncovered so much good information and I'm going to let Stephanie, our director, introduce herself and speak about what we're trying to do.

Hey, thanks Marcie. Thank you Jeff for having us. This is really fun. Uh yeah, my name is Stephanie English and I joined the SPADA team as director of development. I recently retired from LA County Supervisor Katherine Barger's office and and so Marcie drugg me into this postretirement position. Uh and it's been really really fun. We have hit the ground hard and running and we've made just uh amazing inroads to the to collaborate with with uh you know education with government with the industry obviously with uh schools and it's just been really really fun. um as part of my uh my work with the supervisor and where I ran into Marcie was working with economic development corporation and we had an aerospace um focused cluster and so I started learning a little bit about what the challenges were and talking to Marcie. So, um, it's been fun to join this effort. You know, just to tag on to what Marcie was saying about the workforce component of of SPADA's five tiers. We have five strategic goals, but let me talk about workforce a little bit. One of our educational partners told us that 50% of the kids are not collegebound coming out of high school. And um, with AI, uh, things have changed, as we all know, very very dramatically. AI is doing a lot of things like if you consider say getting a communications degree AI can do your PR and your communications and I'm not saying that that's obsolete completely but there are some I would I would call them kind of um soft educational skills that AI is taking over. So with 50% of students not going to college, tradition traditional college um and with most colleges starting to build up their trades and certificated programs, these young people are finding pathways into very meaningful jobs within aerospace and defense. However, the challenge is a lot of parents and a lot of students are not

aware of the opportunities as Marcie touched on earlier about, you know, her son's friends asking her about her job and thinking they had to be engineers. Yes, engineers are relevant. They'll always be relevant. But what we have found is the A&D industry and manufacturing in general, biotech and other uh sectors like that really need these trained um uh skilled labor jobs. these um you know these technical labor jobs. And the other part that we're trying to communicate to parents and students is that even if you enter let's say you don't want to go to college, you don't even want to go to trade school, there are and companies that will bring you on and train you, but there is a pathway to move through the industry and move your way up. And in fact, aerospace and defense companies want to retain those people and grow them. So our effort is to create a sustainable robust pipeline of talent at all levels and um to help the community, parents, uh students understand these are real and substantial jobs in a really exciting industry. So we're we're we've hit the ground and we're working on that now. We have a lot of partners we're working with. Yeah, I would imagine aviation I mean e how do I say this? So you see a lot of 30 and 40year uh celebrations at being at these companies, right? I mean still which is hard to believe. So there's that. And then the other side of that is some people come in and they learn their job really well and then they go and start their own company and they stay in aerospace and kind of it's it's really I think um if you're trying to recruit that talent um you can point where either if you're really looking for career stability and a good prognosis for a strong career, you've got it. And then there are some people that um have broken off and made a lot of money as well just by coming in and learning the business. So, um, that's that's it's a great point you make, Jeff.

It's a it's a pathway. I mean, you can learn this industry, find a niche, and like you said, go go go uh start your own startup. And one of our our pillars is to support the mid-tier companies. Um, and just just real quickly, I'll just go through the pillars. It's technology and innovation. We want to stay ahead of that and bring those folks that um are on the forefront of those conversations into our membership so that we can have those conversations about what's happening and there's a lot changing as you know. Uh one of our pillars is to build up the mid-tier companies. Uh of course one is workforce development. Um we will have a lot of networking events but they'll be meaningful networking events. We'll have speakers and uh subject matter experts and the opportunity for uh the A andd companies to kind of talk together. You know, it's an I'm I'm coming in a little bit with fresh eyes. It's been interesting to see how siloed a lot of these A andd companies are. I mean, you all see each other at air shows, but in terms of a region, there's a lot of work we can do together. And um and then the last pillar is we are working very strategically with government, education, the industry and and school districts. So um we're bringing everybody together.

Very cool. And so I mean I would imagine companies would want to just jump right in because especially like if you're the big big ones um you can kind of have this uh extended reach I would imagine. And then so what kind of companies have have sort of jumped in and helped out? I mean, this is a nonprofit, so you obviously would be seeking some sponsorships and things like that, but what kind of companies have jumped in so far? Yeah, thanks for asking that. Um, we've we've made some great inroads and we're getting a lot of attraction and attention. Um, just to back up before I answer that question, in March, we had a launch event where we had Congressman George Whitesides as our keynote speaker who came from uh NASA, of course, if if you know his background and Virgin Atlantic. And then we had OJ Sanchez from Alied Skunkworks and we had a a large uh auditorium was very well attended and it was a fantastic uh kind of fireside chat with the two of them and one of our board members moderating. So we launched very fast and very very strong and we're really thrilled with that uh initial event. But in terms of the companies that are engaged now, like on our board, we have a Flamemaster, we have Thaylor Defense Systems, we've got um TA Aerospace, uh Chris Air, um who am I forgetting, Marcie, uh Aerotmf, um of course Nycote, um we kind of kicked off the whole uh nonprofit. Yeah. So Pennie Burnham, who is Nycote's VP of North America, the two of us are the founders of SPADA, and we just had that vision as the moms with these high school kids, which all of us in aerospace, a lot of us have high school kids right now. Uh that seems to be a theme. If you show up to an aerosp space event, you're worried about your high school or 20-year-old kids. But um so we all kind of feel the same way. How do we how do we encourage our own children to enter into the workforce for A and D? So, my son is

actually attending a school for um airframe and power. It's called AMP um and it's a trade school. So, he did he chose not to go to a traditional college route and he's really enjoying um this program that he's in. And he's more than halfway through now. he's considering circling back once he has that certificate and doing um his courses at university. But either way, he can enter into the workforce just with this 18-month certificate. And I think that makes him feel really good. Yeah, it's great. That's fantastic. I that's the one license I wish I'd always gotten. Like I flew, but I I wish I had also gotten my AMP. That that that's going to serve him well. So, um, well, I guess first off, what do they say? Ideas are great, but people that actually, you know, get out there and start doing something about it, it are few and far between. So, um, that's really Thanks, Jeff. Yeah, that's that's amazing that you all uh have recognized a problem which I think is well reported um that talent sourcing in our industry has been a problem and you're actually trying to do something about it in what I I believe Southern California is probably the largest or close to um the the second largest aviation um cluster that Stephanie had said earlier. So, we are and people are really um like Stephanie was saying kind of siloed in our different towns within LA County and they we don't know each other and what in this short time this year that we've um been throwing events and gaining members, we've learned about new aerospace comp not new aerospace companies, but they're new to us because we don't know everybody. So a lot of the time when we're at the Paris Air Show or Farm or MRO, you end up meeting somebody who's your neighbor and you

didn't even know that aerospace company existed down the street from you. So that's the other element for us that we wanted to create for SPADA was to really put a call to action for the aerospace companies in in San Frernando Valley, in Santa Clarita, all the way down to Long Beach. uh we're working with everybody and we're saying join as a member, become a member to support this organization so that we can work together to learn about each other and do business together, but also to build a robust uh situation where we are bringing these kids in and telling them there are jobs for you and and we will see more people enter into the pipeline. That's our hope, right? And what we see, I think what we're seeing now is individual companies doing their best to work with workforce agencies or schools or or EDC's, economic development corporations. But what we need is a collective voice. We need everybody to come together to create a synergy in the educational arena, in the communications um systems for parents and families, in government because we definitely want to keep aerospace and defense growing in Southern California and throughout California.

Um you know, we're working we we have to get that collective voice because that's where the power will come from. Sure. You know, we we met with somebody um the other day and they said their number one problem in recruiting kids into their training program that they maybe had a list of maybe three training programs and I think this is um near Elsa Gundo. They said the number one issue is the counselors at the high schools just don't understand. Yeah. They don't know that these jobs are available and even if they're given the information, they don't know how to tell the kids about it. So, one of the reasons that I have so much passion for SPADA is I I'm encouraging the other aerospace CEOs, executives, ops people. It doesn't matter what title you are. Come join SPADA so that you can make a difference in the kids that are just in your region, just in your neighborhood because they can. There's aerospace companies all over and they're most of them are all hiring right now.

There are jobs and most of the kids, the 20-year-olds who I talked to can't get a job. So, let's work together with SPADA. We have the tools already to provide people with training centers. at least the information where they can go and have, you know, a certificate, a 18-month course, and then they can enter into an aerospace job. So, that's what we're doing. We're organizing the information, and then we're giving that information to our members, and that's already in our website and on our portal. And we're also, you know, getting a lot of feedback from various companies. That's critical to our success. While we see some a lot of general themes and a lot of similar needs and a lot of the same stories, we we need the input from the industry to continue to um guide how we're we're going to be um operating and moving forward. Sure. Okay. Well, this is awesome. And at the end of this video, I'll make sure that I put your website and a link to be able to contact you because I would imagine um you know, you're just going to continue growing. But I want to thank you both for really jumping on this and trying to solve a problem. And I think uh you'll do very well with it. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate it.

Yeah. I'm so glad that you invited us to talk about SPADA. All right. Well, thanks for joining us. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks. Have a great weekend. Bye.