Tim Vargo returns with Stryten Energy to discuss the interwoven world of automation, infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, and the evolving energy industry.
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Danny:
- Well hello and welcome to today's IndustrialSage Executive Series. I am joined by Mr. Tim Vargo who is the CEO of
Stryten Energy. Tim, thank you so much for joining me on the Executive Series.
- Great to see you again, Danny.
Danny:
- Well I'm excited to jump into this. For those who aren't familiar with Stryten Energy, tell me a little bit about who you guys are, what you do.
Tim:
- Sure, happy to do so. So Stryten Energy is a company that has 13 different manufacturing plants in North America, in the United States, over 2 million square feet. We supply a variety of energy storage needs across several different platforms. So we have multiple chemistries solving multiple problems, and really excited about our future given all the challenges we're having with energy storage today.
Danny:
- There are certainly a lot of challenges.
Tim:
- That's for sure.
Danny:
- I think you guys have a lot of work cut out for you, but a lot of great opportunities. Let's talk a little bit about—we can go into a little bit of the pandemic. What I think is interesting is just hearing from companies about how things have really altered that future for you. Some, it's completely changed it. Some, we're still the same. What was that effect for Stryten?
Tim:
- Our company is one of the essential manufacturing companies in the infrastructure of our company for both the military and stored energy. Our plants never closed. Our plants were open every single day from the beginning of the pandemic until now. We've had virtually no lost work days from a plant perspective. The demand for our products has been exceptional across the board in every segment that we serve. Our challenges have been, through the pandemic, two-fold. We all had to learn to work from home. That turned out to be a lot easier, I think, than everybody thought. Frankly, it's a little harder to get people back to the office now because everybody likes to work from home, me included. I think we're all sensitive, though, to the need to make sure that we're continuing to build the team. Communications are always a little better in person than they are just, how many Zoom calls can you do in a day?
Danny:
- Exactly, yeah.
Tim:
- Having said that, our other challenge is just getting a workforce that is robust enough to handle the demand for our products. Like all manufacturers around North America that I'm aware of, we're all short-staffed. We could probably all make more products if we had the employees to staff all the shifts and all the machines that we have. All of us are accelerating our plans to automate certain functions in the plant, so it's not an automation play that's designed to reduce the number of people we have, but I think we've all recognized we're probably not going to get too many more people. Yet our demand is very robust, so we've got to figure out a way how to automate and use the people that we have to make more products. So that's pretty exciting stuff in addition to the products that we're making have huge demand and a really, really bright future.
Danny:
- Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about the bright future, too. One of the things is that, this whole idea of going with net-zero carbon emissions by 2035. What is Stryten's role in that and your stance on it?
Tim:
- Sure. I'm going to focus just on the United States.
