How to Lead Your Teams to Successfully Integrate Revolutionary New Technologies Featuring Russel Tatro, Maintenance Supervisor at Cadence Inc.

Welcome to another episode of The Maintainers: A Blue Cap Community Podcast. Today Jake & David are sitting down with Russel Tatro, Maintenance Supervisor at Cadence Inc. Cadence Inc. is a leading full-service contract manufacturer of medical and drug delivery devices that employs over 700 people worldwide and has additional locations in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Costa Rica. Having been with Cadence Inc. for over a year, Russel offers great insights as he navigates his teams through evolving technical innovations, particularly in relation to maintenance monitoring.

As more software and hardware advances are being made in the manufacturing and maintenance spaces, many people are left wondering how well implementation can be, especially amongst an aging workforce. Russel shares what he looks for in modern software, what strategies he employs to ensure there is buy-in from his team members, and where he thinks there opportunities exist when looking towards the future. 

David & Jake also explore Russel’s almost decade experience with Electric Boat, who he credits for much of the leadership expertise he has today. You’ll hear Russel tell an old story about what happened when he forgot to bring the one fitting he needed for a routine check from the Navy. Let that be a lesson for you!

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Guest Bio

Russel Tatro is a Maintenance Supervisor with Cadence Inc., where he’s been since February of 2022. Cadence is a full-service contract manufacturer and leading supplier of advanced products, technologies, and services to medical, aerospace, automotive, and commercial companies worldwide. Russel has a HUGE CV and began at the age of 18 working on betting machines, which started his passion of electrical control systems. That passion has carried on throughout his career in many sectors of the manufacturing industry. 

As you’ll hear in today’s episode, Russel was a maintenance electrician with Electric Boat for nearly a decade, and he credits much of his leadership skills to his time there. Since then, he’s been with Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., Quikrete, Doncasters Group, and Denison Pharmaceuticals. 

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Guest Quote

“When you try to implement anything new, whether it's something in maintenance or something across the manufacturing floor, even in production, I think you always get a little bit of resistance to change. If you can prove to the key players that there's a value into why they're gonna put a request in, there's a value into why I want you to carry a tablet around, I think that the buy-in's a lot better.” – Russel Tatro

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Time Stamps 

*(01:28) Opening Icebreaker

*(02:35) Russel's Background

*(05:45) Applying skills from different trades to manufacturing

*(08:22) Segment 01: The Maintainer Mashup

*(09:34) Incorporating modern tech into your maintenance routine

*(12:39) Why you need to give your technicians singular, direct tasks 

*(16:48) Section 02: What's in Your Toolkit?

*(19:47) What to look for in your software 

*(22:45) A lesson from the dry dock 

*(24:15) Segment 03: The Future of Factories

*(28:41) Segment 04: Fix It Funnies

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Links

• Connect with Russel Tatro on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Cadence Inc. 
• Connect with David Lee on LinkedIn
• Connect with Jake Hall on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Tractian