Kyle Stoff spent his high school years doing parkour and making butterfly knives by hand. By the end of his Junior Year in high school, he’d decided he wanted to get into manufacturing to perfect his knife-making process. He skipped his Senior Year and dove into a full-time program at Ranken, becoming one of my best—and youngest—students. 

Now, Kyle works full-time for Orizon Aerostructures and makes his knives on days and weekends. His knives typically sell starting at $1,800—many are auctioned off even higher. He shares his story and why he’s passionate about manufacturing in this episode of MakingChips. Because if you’re not MakingChips, you’re not making knives, and you’re not making money. BAM!

– Drew Crowe

Segments

• [0:17] Palo Alto Networks Industrial OT Security
• [3:08] How MakingChips launched Drew’s career
• [8:40] Shoutout to Mark Bosworth at Southwestern Illinois College
• [11:12] Celebrating MakingChips hitting 1,000,000 downloads
• [17:11] Introducing today’s guest: Kyle Stoff with Orizon Aerostructures
• [24:07] Check out Thomas™ Programs
• [26:52] Shifting to making knives on a CNC machine
• [31:47] Kyle inspired a curriculum change
• [42:12] Kyle’s message to aspiring machinists
• [44:03] The trajectory of Kyle’s future

Resources mentioned on this episode

• Palo Alto Networks Industrial OT Security
• Brandon Dempsey with goBRANDgo!
• Kyle Stoff on LinkedIn
• Kyle’s Instagram page
• ComFlux
• SZN1: #ThankAMachinist, 367

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