Chief_Engineer

Engineer (ChE,ME,IT,MBA,PMP) CTO, USN-Inventor- Christian, Dad, Husband, Patriot Gen-X
*Amazon Associate. I earn from qualifying purchases.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

A 17 year old account rarely used with a single follower.

Then one day a Tech Bro posted something insulting and vile about American Labor I couldn't hold back.

16 months to 30,000 followers from 1.

From Engineering to an account where we discuss, respectfully disagree, educate and learn about labor, policy, history, and the self - interested corruption of our elite.

Thank you for the support and willingness to fearlessly add your viewpoints for everyone to engage.

We will win this fight through incremental, unending, continuous effort and improvement.

We do it for ourselves | We do it for the prosperity of our youth | We do it until we win

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@BravoTwoKilo What knucklehead?

Siemens spun us off to the highest bidder a private equity firm.

They milk it.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

**Engineering Wednesday**

I left a private-equity company to go to a tech company in southwest Florida.

A company where the last product took 7 years to develop and still had issues. I stepped in and started fundamental waterfall and agile training and execution. 17 products in 3 years.

The second it worked in a lab or on a bench it went to the customer to give feedback. TRL 3 to 9 go go... We were having a blast and our customers loved us- I took the semiconductor philosophy to another field.

We were doing product development for international customers including governments, our own, as well. The work required real certifications and intense testing. Revenue moved from about $15 million to $51 million. That meant expanding manufacturing. The CEO came to the site and said he never expected to be there. The division existed to fill a portfolio gap and show vertical integration- it was never supposed to be profitable. This was a multi billion dollar company that we were a small division of.

Then the CEO said we had become a problem. The profits were uncomfortable. He did not want to issue a dividend that the shareholders would start to expect. So the money needed to be spent.

Buy environmental chambers, shaker tables, Keysight Oscilloscopes with all the bells and whistles is what I did. Investing in our ability pretest and move our launches up even quicker but this was not making folks happy because the investment was resulting in even more revenue and margin.
Read that again, because every word of it is true.

After that unexpected boost in revenue the spending arrived. Consultants we did not need, with direct ownership ties to leadership we were told to employ for ridiculous services we did not need. Contracts with no schedule and no deliverable. Product that left as empty boxes and came back as refunds and charges and our quality manager hit the exit door saying the amount of money involved was enough to make her think the mob was involved.

In the quarterly reviews the plant manager explained low or negative cost of goods.

That number is not possible if you are actually building what you ship.

I called the SEC. The response was that they needed at least $20 million in identified theft before they would move. They had limited agents and limited court time. I reported it inside the company as well. The director an attorney, below the person I reported ethical misconduct to called and told me the contracts without schedules or deliverables for massive amounts of money were fine to sign.

I left- I was not going to get caught up in it. They tried one time to cut me in and my questions made them uncomfortable.
I left and soon after half my team left too.

Six months later they removed the VP who I reported to, the general manager, the lawyers, and the others I had named internally.
To be clear if I had known - I would have stayed, I was very happy and couldn't wait to get up in the morning and make stuff.
Corruption is a buzz kill to innovators.

I had already moved into defense contracting trying to commercialize with people who had never sold on the open market. There the priority was charging hours, not hitting a number a customer would pay. It was bizarre.

The sequence is not unusual. Build something that works. Watch the margin appear. Then watch the margin get treated as a balance that has to be moved before anyone outside the deal notices it. The customer and the employee are both downstream of that decision.

Question:

Have you watched a division get punished for overperforming?

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

The Ironic thing is I am absolutely for what Private Equity used to stand for. Finding synergetic companies that could compete in the real world providing value and competition.

Somewhere along the way folks pushed it to where it currently is, and to be honest PE is struggling right now with too many companies to sell and losing money.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

When a Private Equity took over my company froze wages and canceled every single employee benefit and were overheard telling the VP's to create an atmosphere for folks to want to leave ->

- I stopped working for my company and started working for my customers. That was my motivation to come to work each day.

I literally had no boss I was the GM of my high dollar cutting edge product that I created from scratch and commercialized with constant internal resistance. As a result after the first 50 million in orders - Siemens had let me run it bumper to bumper before the spin out.

When PE demanded I betray my semiconductor customers with poor quality, over priced components that their other company made... Which would have me working overtime to support in 7 day a week task force meetings- I left.

Went and developed new products for a company in SW Florida.

The PE went through 3 other employees that came in to take my place in a little over a year before losing a customer that was 40% of their bottom line with 60% margins.

I had two people I didn't know and my old customer calling me at all hours of the day nearly suicidal. I calmly explained what Kobayashi Maru was.

There was simply no solution.

The PE didn't care they spun the company off and got rich for it.

We aren't talking about thousands here we are talking billions.
Meanwhile, I am the one with the bad reputation.

They didn't do a single illegal thing either.

This is Private Equity explained in a single post

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@KJanoski50502 There are websites that teach HVAC and provide discount meters, supplies, etc. An industrious person can become wealthy competing against them because they sell systems not repairs.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@JennaTurnerW If you wait too long to tell them you came forward...they will fire you for cause. Then claim we had no idea ..so then its hard to claim retaliation. Often your employer will get a notification from the outside agency that something is reported and start cleaning house.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

**Engineering Wednesday**

I am not an attorney. I have worked at a lot of levels inside companies, and I spent a few years in local and federal law enforcement before that. Nights at HP loading semiconductor tools while I finished a chemical engineering degree. Technician, process owner, tool owner, tech transfer, then large industrial equipment. I have watched companies that played it straight stay stable, and I have watched companies that should have been stable get hollowed out because the executives were looking after themselves.

If you see something crooked, here is what usually happens if you walk in unprepared. They send attorneys to interview you. Those attorneys work for the company. They are there to collect your evidence, have you sign an NDA, bury the file, and then fire you. After that you have nothing left that shows the firing was retaliation.

If you are compelled to report, as I am, this is the sequence I have watched work better.

File the claim externally first- and request anonymity you can change this later. Get an attorney immediately. You will have to shop. A lot of them have conflicts and will turn you down. That does not mean you have no case. It means they have an agreement they are not allowed to mention. Give all of your information to that attorney that accepts you. The company wants the file. Once your attorney has it, your employer normally have to pay to get it back. Show that information to nobody else. Even if it is evidence of what happened, it is still the employer’s property until the process says otherwise. After your attorney has looked at the legality of the claim, tell them you are ready to file internally. File internally. Do not attach the proof yet. Be specific about dates, people, and events. Assume that may be the last time you can reach your email. Your attorney should then notify the employer. Some want you let go first so the retaliation claim is cleaner. The timing matters. If you wait too long they will say they had no idea you had reported anything.

Once you come forward you are a liability. They want you gone. Their attorneys’ first job is to keep anyone above a line-level employee who knows nothing from ever sitting in a deposition.

I have been on both sides of these. Sexual harassment and hostile work environment claims. Foreign theft of IP. SEC and false-claim matters. Defense attorneys will tell you that you do not want to be at the mercy of a jury. Employers are equally afraid of that same jury. Taking it to court so the evidence is public is a legitimate choice. If that is the path, the media and the public record are how it stays visible. Very few of these ever reach a trial.

Question:

Have you watched someone walk into the company interview first and come out with an NDA and no case?

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@MMeridew37852 They earn millions. I was at 200K.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

**Engineering Wednesday**

Working as Chief Engineer at a non-profit defense contractor that said it wanted to commercialize its intellectual property was a trip.

Tens of thousands of employees. Almost all of them had only ever worked at similar places. Every quarterly meeting stressed charging every hour the government had approved. Coming in under the hours was worse than going over. Those hours were the business model. If you did not charge them, you were taking profit out of the company. The employees? Imagine going from High School, to a college lab degree, to a job that was identical to what you did in college.

Zero understanding of market forces or paying for yourself through your work and customer satisfaction. This is how a large segment of our society works including our media.

The CEO and the upper staff of this 'non-profit' had million-dollar salaries that depended on everyone charging the hours.

Meanwhile, they set aside 10% of their earnings to lobby for more business from the government from both sides of the aisle.

As a non-profit they could also sit in the middle. Other for-profit companies put workers on the non-profit’s payroll. The pay stub said the non profit name. The person worked somewhere else as a contractor. H-1B and others moved through that door and there was no limit and all sorts of exclusions that extend to non-profits that the for profits pay a simple 10% pass-through for.

I started a daily scrum and asked the normal questions. What did you do yesterday. What are you doing today. What is blocking you.

Similar to Elon's bullet points.

I was told I was not a fit for the culture. The project I was asked to deploy in two years was ready in three months. The two-million-dollar budget came in at sixty-five thousand. Management could not argue with the result. The first deployment was supposed to be a demonstration. I got an actual customer to pay for it. The non-profit had no system to receive the check. They were confused because I had actually delivered on the job they hired me to do.

They promoted me and said there were more projects and products. Then people pulled me aside and explained what you can and cannot do with intellectual property the government funded. That was the limit I had not fully seen. That is another story but you already know, I did the ethical thing.

The pattern is the same one that shows up in other organizations. A product is only valuable if the people running the place get their share. Shareholders and the public are downstream. If something could make the organization a trillion dollars and put nothing extra in the CEO’s or the board’s account, it does not get launched.

Question:

Who else has seen both the commercial and government/non-profit side of the business and did I capture it?

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@cenkuygur @TheYoungTurks Who was it that said most of them...

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

Component quality was never going to catch up.

They were stuck with the wrong materials of construction for the components and didn't have rights to the correct one.

So ... It predictably imploded.

Switching to the correct components meant losing company they had acquired and built a business case around that was where the new PE CEO had come from.

There was literally no solution. I had become a bystander.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@disclosetv In other words ...

Pocket those wages in a game of cakewalk until all the chairs are gone.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@w_s_gosset They couldn't fire me - they couldn't do my job.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

GLOBALIST THURSDAY:

WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?

Here's something American engineers and tech workers might find interesting.

For decades, employers sponsoring H-1B workers have paid a federal fee specifically intended to help train American workers.

$750–$1,500 per qualifying petition.

Congress created the program to help develop America's domestic workforce and reduce dependence on imported talent.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

The federal H-1B Skills Training Grants listing shows:

🇺🇸 FY2024: $37.7 million in grant obligations.

🇺🇸 FY2025: $37 million estimated.

🇺🇸 FY2026: $0 estimated obligations, with a funding rescission expected to absorb accrued fees.

Meanwhile, American engineers, IT professionals, and other skilled workers continue reporting layoffs, outsourcing, and difficulty finding work.

So where is the money going?

How much has been collected over the years?

Which organizations received it?

How many Americans completed training?

And most importantly...

HOW MANY AMERICANS ACTUALLY GOT JOBS?

Here's this Thursday's challenge:

Find the grant recipients. Examine the spending. Demand measurable results.

If employers are required to help fund American workforce development, Americans deserve to know whether that investment is working.

We don't need another post about an imaginary talent shortage.

We need the receipts.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@john_maziasz @TrumpsLostBalls @RonDeSantis History is my guide.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@2nd_Harvest @LaurieFLPatriot Anyone can start a pool cleaning biz.

Literally truck and a brush.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@PalmerLuckey If 84% are for the Save America act we are not as far apart as they want us to be.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@ICEgov Preach because they still deny it.

This is how they turn a cash job into a lifestyle better than an American in that same stolen job would have.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@randomrecruiter Convinced Deloitte et al. are simply kickback business models.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@lsferguson Was she the bagman?

That's a legitimate explanation.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@dpheneghan1 @disclosetv How does this benefit capitalism?

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@suetoddph Repeal 17. I do not believe term limits do much to a 6 yr term.

Convention of states.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

They Dont Work For You

Ever wonder how a senator can spend years in Washington, deliver almost none of the spending cuts, immigration limits, or job protections that were promised, and still get reelected?

The term is six years. That is the whole setup.

Year one the promises fade. The election is over. The campaign donors still have the senator’s personal phone number and email. The lobbyists still get the scheduled meetings and the return calls. The ordinary voter who put the person there has almost none of that access for the next five years.

They have a saying in DC- the voters have the memory of a goldfish.

Years two through four the regular business takes over. Party leadership controls committee assignments and decides which bills get a hearing or a floor vote. Donor networks and political action committees keep writing the checks. Local chambers of commerce, employers, and party officials get used to dealing with the current office. When a bill stalls, the senator can point at the House, the other party, the Senate leader, or a colleague who is not up for reelection for three more years.

Everybody has an explanation. The bill does not move. That's by design and you never get an actual name of who is holding you up and if you do they are never up for the next primary.

The staggered terms make it cleaner. The senator facing voters this cycle can stand up and demand the vote. The senators who are safe until the next election do not have to take it. The campaign promise stays on the website. The legislation does not pass.

Year five the seat gets protected. The party committees and outside spending groups already know which donors gave last time. Local endorsements from county parties, business groups, and key employers stay with the person already in the chair. A serious primary challenger starts with almost no money and no name recognition. The incumbent starts with the war chest, the name people already know, and six years of constituent-service mail and casework.

Year six Washington remembers the state. Ribbon cuttings. Town halls. Photographs with veterans. Announcements about federal grants coming home. Bills they propose but will never vote on. Fresh newsletters and another round of promises about what will happen if the voters give them six more years.

What does not get the same attention is the short list. Which of the last campaign promises on spending, immigration, or jobs actually became law. Which votes the senator personally cast. Which bills the senator sponsored that never left committee. Who wrote the campaign checks. What happened to the senator’s personal stock accounts while the person was in office.

Then the exit. Some former senators and senior staff move into lobbying firms, consulting shops, or corporate advocacy jobs where the Washington contacts are worth money. Others stay in the Senate for decades. Stock trading continues on the same access. Senators receive briefings and sit on committees that see information before the public does. Disclosure rules exist. A lot of Americans still do not think those rules are enough.

Six-year terms. Seats that are hard to lose. Donor lists that outlast any one election. Party committees that know where to spend. Delayed votes. Committee access that can move a personal portfolio. A lobbying or consulting job waiting on the other side. Each piece has a polite explanation. Together they make it easier to keep the seat than to pass the spending cuts, the immigration limits, or the job protections that were promised.

A senator can serve the full term without a major bill on those issues. They can campaign on the same problems for twenty years. When the cycle ends they ask for six more years to finish the job.

Stop measuring the speech. Measure which of the promised bills actually passed.

They Dont Work For You.

If your senator is in year six and the big promise is still a promise, say the name. Like share and bookmark.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@Chaozrider @disclosetv Los marxistas reconocen que la familia les impide realizar reformas.

[Chief_Engineer @ChiefEngineerCE]

@john_maziasz @TrumpsLostBalls @RonDeSantis I don't believe that. Awareness is ramping, folks are quitting and being primaried - they are being forced to openly discuss what they sought to hide for decades.

Dragging the rot into the sunlight every single day is working.