Bradley Bilacic Age: 24 Star Cutter Tawas, MI
UNDER THIRTY “A
s long as I can remember I have always had an interest in how things were made,” says Brad Bilacic. Brad’s father was a rural carrier for the post office
and was responsible for maintaining his work vehicle— a weekly task. His father had Brad assemble his first Volkswagen engine at the age of nine. “My dad raced cars and was always building or working on a car,” Brad remembered. “The very first engine he ever built was a VW engine, so he had me do the same thing. I remember clean- ing parts in a pan of gasoline—
this was when gas was cheaper—on the floor of the garage. We built the whole thing from the ground up from scratch.” Brad’s interest in mechanics would grow as he started driving and building race cars at age 12.
During high school Brad took two years of machine trades and competed in the SkillsUSA competition and worked at XLT Engineering as a CNC Mill operator. He also earned 21 Tooling University certificates and eight National Institute for Metalworking Skills certificates. It was during this time, he said, that he realized “I wanted to take what I had learned about machining and apply it from an engineering stance.”
Brad attended Ferris State University (Big Rapids, MI), where he worked as a laboratory aid or teacher’s assistant each semester in his four years. In his final two years, he served as secretary and then president of the university’s SME chapter, Chapter 138. Going into his senior year he served an internship at Case New Holland, “my first experience with engineering from more of an industrial side instead of dealing with
the machining aspect,” he recalled. “I was able to be a part of the development of a complex kanban system that would be used at both the Burlington, IA and the Racine, WS site.”
“Nothing beats turning the handle of a Bridgeport Mill and feeling the cutting pressure.”
Since finishing at Ferris, Brad has spent much of his career working two jobs concurrently. The first is at Star Cutter, a gear hobbing manufacturer based in Tawas, MI. “Gear hobbing was completely new to me and I loved the challenge of learning a new product,” Brad said. “Every day has been filled with new challenges and I am able to apply various skill sets that I acquired in college.”
He deals with CNC programming and machining there, along with trying to improve product flow using lean manufacturing principles.
The second job is as an instructor at Delta Com- munity College in Saginaw, MI. “I teach basic manual machining and CAD/CAM at night after I work my engi- neering job during the day. I love being able to share my experiences with others and enjoy lighting the manufac- turing fire within others.”
For a person who grew up building engines in a garage, there are benefits in teaching old-fashioned manual machining, even after a full day in a modern factory. “Nothing beats turning the handle of a Bridgeport Mill and feeling the cutting pressure,” according to Brad.
“It is too easy to get caught up in the fast-paced CNC-driven world—sometimes you need to revert back to the basics before you can try to improve forward. Watching the chips fly off and adjusting the RPM as needed manually is a nice way to make sure that you never forget where it all started.” ME
July 2014 |
ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com 119
THIRTY UNDER THIRTY PROFILES
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