Inspiring the Future of Manufacturing: CHAMPION Now!

Summary

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The Unshakeables — Inspiring the Future of Manufacturing: CHAMPION Now!

Podcast: The Unshakeables
Hosts: Ben Walter (CEO of Chase for Business), Kathleen Griffith
Guest: Terry Iverson (Former President & 3rd Generation Owner, Iverson & Company; Founder, CHAMPION Now)
Date: February 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Unshakeables spotlights Terry Iverson, third-generation owner of Iverson & Company and founder of the CHAMPION Now movement, who faced a near existential crisis with his family’s manufacturing business. The episode explores the challenges of running a multi-generational manufacturing company, the labor shortage crisis in American manufacturing, and Terry’s efforts to rebrand and revitalize manufacturing as a career through education and outreach. The hosts delve into Terry’s personal and professional journey, family legacy, and broader industry trends – showcasing real-world insight and practical advice for business owners and future entrepreneurs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Iverson & Company: The Weight of Legacy and Surviving the Unthinkable

• Heritage & Family Succession

  • Terry is the third generation to run Iverson & Company, founded by his grandfather in 1931 ([03:29]).
  • The company survived significant historic challenges – the Great Depression, wars, and major financial fraud ([04:16]).

• Fraud & Recovery:

  • In the 1970s, the company experienced massive embezzlement by a trusted office manager, leading Terry’s father to create a unique path to justice by instituting a payment plan rather than prosecution ([05:13]).
  • Terry Iverson: “It wasn't about justice from the standpoint of sending her to jail, which would have been devastating for her. And it wouldn't be any better for him because he wouldn't get any money back.” ([05:13])

• Generational Transition

  • Terry was initially reluctant to join the family business until his wife encouraged him ([06:06]).
  • Took over at age 26 when his father was diagnosed with cancer ([06:23]).
    • Terry Iverson: “He handed me the keys to the shop...Even if I do survive, this is your gig to handle.” ([06:23])

2. The 2009 Crisis: Losing a Major Client

• Iverson & Company lost its largest client, accounting for approximately 70% of its business ([00:38], [07:36]).
• Terry’s resolve:
  • Rather than closing up as his father advised, he “doubled down,” determined to get legacy employees to retirement and adapt the business ([01:25], [11:18]).
• Pivot & Adaptation
  • Shifted focus to equipment rebuilding and service, embracing adaptability learned from his dad ([08:12]).
    • Terry Iverson: “We expanded the service end of it. So we redefined ourself...The word today is pivot. Now, I don't think that word was used before, but he adapted really, really well.” ([08:12])

3. CHAMPION Now: Changing How Manufacturing is Perceived

• Inception of the Movement
  • Began with a desire to “change how American manufacturing is perceived in our nation,” leading to the CHAMPION acronym ([09:00]).
• Outreach & Advocacy
  • Authored a book for youth and parents championing manufacturing careers ([10:54], [09:25]).
  • Eventually established CHAMPION Now as a 501C3 nonprofit in 2012 ([20:09]).
  • Tackled the growing gap in public perception and education about manufacturing careers.

4. Succession Dilemmas & Selling the Business

• Terry eventually sold Iverson & Company after 45 years, unable to pass it within the family as none of his children were interested ([12:00]).
• Loyalty to Employees:
  • His priority was ensuring long-term employees reached retirement and maintaining their benefits ([11:18]).
    • Terry Iverson: “I'm not going to close the business. There's people I'd like to get to retirement age. They're 40-year employees.” ([11:18])

5. Broader Trends: The U.S. Manufacturing Labor Crisis

• Reshoring Movement
  • Terry credits Harry Moser with spearheading reshoring, which involves bringing jobs back to the U.S. to revive American manufacturing ([20:44]).
• Workforce Shortages & Perception
  • Manufacturing jobs are evolving, becoming more technical and automated, but there's a critical skills and staffing gap ([23:17]).
    • Terry Iverson: “Right now...we have about 12 million in the workforce, and there’s currently half a million...positions open...projections of 3.8 to 4 million manufacturing positions by 2033.” ([23:17])
• CHAMPION Now Initiatives
  • Outreach focuses on younger students, with “Camp Champ” providing hands-on mentorship and manufacturing education for middle schoolers ([22:38]).
    • High school mentors work with middle schoolers, creating a near-peer learning dynamic.

6. College, Skills, and the Value of Alternative Career Paths

• Ongoing thread throughout the episode: the need to reconsider the four-year college default in favor of skills-based, debt-free alternatives like manufacturing ([24:26], [26:35]).

  • Terry Iverson: “I'm a big advocate in my writing and my speaking of young people not going into student debt, and I'm also a big advocate of if you were going to college, that's fine. Just make sure you know what you're going to college for...but if manufacturing is on the table, and rarely is it on the table. So we need to solve that.” ([24:26])

• Host commentary: Many skilled trades and non-college jobs pay better than many college-grad entry-level jobs ([28:20]).

  • Ben Walter: “We have clients who are plumbers...who make an awful lot of money and an awful lot more than my kids' friends who went to college.” ([28:20])

7. Entrepreneurship and Best Advice

• Focus on Alignment with Values
  • Terry’s advice: Know what you’re signing up for—especially regarding work-life balance—and ensure your family is on board with the sacrifices entrepreneurship requires ([30:36]).
    • Terry Iverson: "Different generations have different standards and different priorities...Make sure your family is signing up for what you're signing up for, because they're going to be making sacrifices, and you may not be okay with having them make those sacrifices, but you need permission from them..." ([30:36])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Every story has a hero...what makes a hero is the willingness to stare down the challenge and the courage to take it on, even if they have no idea how they're going to survive.”
  — Ben Walter ([00:07])

• “My dad was very adamant. He wanted me to close the business because the business model had changed so dramatically.”
  — Terry Iverson ([01:03])

• “I think somewhere I even have the file that I saved all these years.” — Terry Iverson, on the embezzlement incident ([05:13])

• “We expanded the service end of it. So we redefined ourselves...The word today is pivot...he adapted really, really well.” — Terry Iverson ([08:12])

• “I had this idea of changing perceptions...Change how American manufacturing is perceived. Oh, cool. Champ.” — Terry Iverson ([09:00])

• “Camp Champ...was focused on middle school participants...One of the keys, Ben, is we use high school students as mentors for the middle school students.” — Terry Iverson ([22:38])

• “We have a crisis of succession in small business in this country...the number of businesses that are projected to turn over.” — Ben Walter ([17:48])

• “Make sure your family is signing up for what you're signing up for, because they're going to be making sacrifices...” — Terry Iverson ([30:36])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:07 — Introduction & Terry’s challenge in 2009
• 03:29 — Iverson & Company: Family history and leadership
• 04:16 — The embezzlement story; family crisis management
• 06:23 — Leadership transition due to illness
• 07:36 — 2009 loss of primary client; company at a crossroads
• 08:12 — Pivot: business model adapts and survives
• 09:00 — CHAMP/CHAMPION Now inception
• 10:54 — Writing the book and early advocacy
• 11:18 — Drive to preserve employee futures; profit sharing
• 12:00 — Decision to sell and end of family ownership
• 20:44 — Reshoring, manufacturing’s importance, industry shifts
• 22:38 — Camp Champ and youth engagement
• 23:17 — Labor shortages and the future workforce
• 24:26 — Value of skilled trades, college debt discussion
• 28:20 — Non-college career paths; entrepreneurship
• 30:36 — Terry’s advice: alignment, sacrifice, and family support

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Tone & Takeaways

• The tone throughout is earnest, encouraging, and pragmatic—with a deep respect for tradition but an eye on modernization and inclusivity in manufacturing.
• Major Takeaway: Manufacturing is not just about machines—it's about people, perception, education, and community. The sector needs champions like Terry to inspire a new generation and fill a growing workforce void with meaningful, lucrative careers.

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For Listeners & Would-Be Entrepreneurs:

• Manufacturing is in desperate need of new talent and offers a pathway to rewarding careers with plenty of room for innovation.
• Succession planning is critical—emotionally and financially—for all business owners.
• Don’t overlook non-traditional or “non-college” career paths; skilled trades and technical jobs can offer strong financial futures.
• Ensure alignment—with yourself and your loved ones—before making major entrepreneurial moves.

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Episode closes on the value of generational perspective, stewardship, and the collective responsibility to inspire America’s future creators.

Transcript

[Ben Walter]

Every story has a hero. Some of them are very clearly heroes, visibly, you know, the muscles, magic hammer, slash, lightsaber, chainsaw. But sometimes they're unlikely heroes pulled into trials kicking and screaming. Either way, what makes a hero is the willingness to stare down the challenge and the courage to take it on, even if they have no idea how they're going to survive. Terry Iverson was staring down a major challenge in 2009 when a client, Iverson Co. Had had for 80 years severed ties.

[Terry Iverson]

I don't know if we can make our way out of this. It's easily 70% of what we did at the time.

[Ben Walter]

This was a company founded in 1931. It had survived the ups and downs of the depression, wars, shifting politics, social trade winds, huge financial losses, and more. Over its 80 year history, it had survived it all. First under Terry's grandfather, then Terry's dad, then Terry.

[Terry Iverson]

And my dad was very adamant. He wanted me to close the business because the business model had changed so dramatically.

[Ben Walter]

Terry's dad loomed large in his life. He had operated Iverson Co. Under his own exacting standards. But this time was different. Terry was in charge and he was willing to stare that challenge down and take it head on.

[Terry Iverson]

I'm not going to close the business, I said. There's people that I'd like to get to retirement age. And so my goal was to double down and make sure the company survived. But at the same time, I had to also plan for after the company because I wasn't sure when that was. And forming Champion out was part of that.

[Ben Walter]

And today's story is more than just the company surviving. Terry is on a quest to save his entire industry. Welcome to the Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. There's nothing small about the impact small businesses have on America. They don't just drive our economy, they drive, they define our communities, create opportunities, and inspire the next generation of dreamers and builders on the unshakables. We are sharing the daring moments of business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories of how they got through it. As always, Kathleen is here. Kathleen, welcome.

[Kathleen]

Glad to be back with you.

[Ben Walter]

This episode is super interesting to me because we've touched on this issue before. Labor, and specifically the shortage of labor for manufacturing is an issue here in the US Our guest today is not only a huge champion for fixing that challenge, but he's also the third generation owner of a US manufacturing company. On today's episode Iverson Co. And Champion now from Chicago, Illinois. As I mentioned at the top, Iverson Co. Was founded in 1931. As it approaches 100 years of business, I. I was excited to talk to Terry. I've been doing a lot of research myself on manufacturing and reshoring, so it's a treat to talk to someone living it every day. Terry, welcome to the Unshakeables. It is great to have you here on a sunny afternoon.

[Terry Iverson]

Thank you, Ben. I appreciate the time and I appreciate the opportunity.

[Ben Walter]

I understand you're not only a small business owner, but you're also a third generation business owner.

[Terry Iverson]

Iverson and Company was our family business that started in 1931 by my grandfather. My grandfather was from about 1931 to probably sometime in the 60s. My dad started in 1958 and was active through the mid 90s, and I started in 1980 and was active up until earlier this year.

[Ben Walter]

Three generations of Iversons have led the company through historic moments and very different economies. But one thing that never changes is that no matter how or where the business is, it will face an unshakeables moment. Terry's grandfather pushed Iverson through the Great Depression and a world war. Terry's father faced a huge threat to the company. It was a moment that could have shut down the whole operation. When Terry was in high school, he.

[Terry Iverson]

Had had about a quarter million dollars embezzled. Unbeknownst to him, if this was in.

[Ben Walter]

The early 70s, that's like $2 million today. I mean, that's a lot of money.

[Terry Iverson]

It was a lot of money then. It's a lot of money now.

[Ben Walter]

Terry's grandfather passed suddenly, leaving his father the company. He had to get up to speed quickly and he started with the books.

[Terry Iverson]

He understood numbers inside and out. And so he's going through the financial and he's like, something's not right.

[Ben Walter]

So Terry's dad went to visit the accountants, and together they looked at everything.

[Terry Iverson]

They started going through. And initially it was 150 grand, then 200 grand, and I think they quit counting after 250.

[Ben Walter]

The office manager in the 1970s was tasked with paying the bills. Instead of paying each bill each month, she wrote out checks to herself a little at a time, year over year. Terry's father could have gone to the police. Instead, he set up a meeting with the employee.

[Terry Iverson]

He said, I don't know how much you've stolen from the company, but I know it's sizable. And you have a choice either to go to jail or figure out A way to pay it back. He set up a payment plan. It wasn't about justice from the standpoint of sending her to jail, which would have been devastating for her. And it wouldn't be any better for him because he wouldn't get any money back. I think somewhere I even have the file that I saved all these years.

[Ben Walter]

Wow. Over the next decade, as this payment plan ticked down, Terry grew up. He went to college, got married, and started a family. He was working in manufacturing, just not for the family company. Even though his father had asked a.

[Terry Iverson]

Few times, I almost immediately turned him down.

[Ben Walter]

You see, Terry's father had high standards, and Terry wasn't sure he wanted to take on that level of pressure.

[Terry Iverson]

And it was really my wife that said, get over yourself. Why don't you give it a shot? And I'm like, okay.

[Ben Walter]

The first few years, they weren't easy. And his father's demands got more and more exacting. Then everything changed. Terry's dad was diagnosed with colon cancer.

[Terry Iverson]

So metaphorically and physically, I think I was 26 years old at the time. He handed me the keys to the shop. He said, you're more than capable. I'll mentor you. I'll answer your questions. But going forward, even if I do survive, this is your gig to handle.

[Ben Walter]

Terry managed to steer the company well, taking on new lines of business that held steady until 2009, when Iverson and company's longest, most stable client suddenly cut ties.

[Terry Iverson]

So in 2009, Hardinge decided to restructure their distribution platform.

[Ben Walter]

Okay. Which was your largest supplier, right?

[Terry Iverson]

Correct. And because my grandfather was so close to the original founding entity, we had quite a bit of stock in the family.

[Ben Walter]

I know I've said that diversification is key, but then again, they'd been in business together for almost 100 years. Through any ups and downs, the relationship had held.

[Terry Iverson]

I didn't think that it would involve us at all. Over the years, there have been so many different changes. And of course, up and down the ladder, we were immune to almost all the changes that would come about because essentially we were family.

[Ben Walter]

But this time, not close enough.

[Terry Iverson]

It was dramatic. It's easily 70% of what we did at the time. I think if the decision was up to my dad, he would have signed off probably that day and said, okay, we're done.

[Ben Walter]

Terry chose to keep the business open with one caveat. His wife had to come on board.

[Terry Iverson]

So I said, if you can come to work with me and help me, then I'll go forward.

[Ben Walter]

Together, they expanded the business again. This Time rather than chase new lines of machinery and distribution, they focused on rebuilding equipment.

[Terry Iverson]

We expanded the service end of it. So we redefined ourself. And that's one thing that I'll say that my dad, he was really good at adaptation and changes. The word today is pivot. Now, I don't think that word was used before, but he adapted really, really well. So I learned. Terry figured it out.

[Ben Walter]

Terry figured this one out. But companies were having to come up with novel solutions across the country. By the 2010s, more and more companies were offshoring, moving their manufacturing facilities and jobs to lower wage countries. We'll come back to that later. But in 2009, as Terry pushed ahead with Iverson and Sons, he started thinking about a bigger issue. Yes, he wanted to solidify his business's future, but he started thinking about how to save manufacturing in America.

[Terry Iverson]

I had this idea of changing perceptions. I had spoken to high school and college and technical college youth about the importance of manufacturing. And so I'm trying to sit down and put thoughts together. And so I started doing initials. Change how Manufacturing. Change how Manufacturing perceived. Change how American manufacturing is perceived. Oh, cool. Champ.

[Ben Walter]

The acronym CHAMP quickly expanded to be CHAMPION Changing how American Manufacturing is perceived in our nation. And Terry wanted things to change now. So the idea was called Champion Now.

[Terry Iverson]

In the very beginning, Champion now was a concept and I knew what I wanted to do. But I hadn't really figured it all out. And to be quite honest, more times often than I could tell you, I kept trying to push away from the table.

[Ben Walter]

Terry was busy, wrapped up in the day to day operations of Iverson and company, spending time with his grandkids and coaching soccer. But the pull of Champion now was so strong, Terry didn't have a choice but to answer the call.

[Terry Iverson]

I kept meeting people that kept getting me to the next level of either focus or elevation for the concept.

[Ben Walter]

On a 13 hour flight to Taiwan, Terry finally spelled everything out.

[Terry Iverson]

At the end of the trip, I had about 40,000 words. It would be such a waste if I didn't do something with it. I just thought, you know, what if I leave the industry or something? I'm so ingrained and so involved in technical education for manufacturing. It would be such a waste if I didn't do something with it.

[Ben Walter]

But 40,000 words of Terry does not a book make.

[Terry Iverson]

I ended up interviewing friends, acquaintances, relatives, some in manufacturing and some not even in manufacturing.

[Ben Walter]

That book was about careers in manufacturing and it was a guide to figure out if that path was right for a Young person. It was addressed to kids and their parents. He finally published the book in 2018 and let champion now simmer on the back burner. In the meantime, he continued pushing Iverson Co. Onward. You ran the business for 45 years, right? I mean, a long time. And then you decided you were ready to retire, right?

[Terry Iverson]

My dad, he was very adamant and he actually wanted me to close the business for about 10 years because the business model had changed so dramatically. But I'm not going to close the business. There's people that I'd like to get to retirement age. They're 40 year employees. And we had a really good profit sharing program that he had started. Eventually I'll try to sell the company, but I will not close the company.

[Ben Walter]

I assume at that point you didn't have your own children who wanted to do it.

[Terry Iverson]

We had three children. All of them tried at different points to work at the company, but ultimately the market had changed and the business model had changed. So it really wasn't the perfect opportunity based on what it used to be.

[Ben Walter]

After a lot of soul searching, Terry sold the company to a private party. No longer the Iverson of Iverson and Company. Terry could focus all of his efforts on the future and on the future of manufacturing in America.

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[Ben Walter]

All right, Kathleen, did you think of Terry? Wow.

[Kathleen]

You know, it reminded me of the fairy tale version of Succession. Have you ever seen Succession?

[Ben Walter]

The show I watched like three episodes. And by the end I was like, these are just the worst people.

[Kathleen]

He's the exact opposite. He is the most earnest, kind person, just trying to carry the company flag.

[Ben Walter]

That was the first multi generational guest we had who runs a true multi generational family business. We haven't had one before. It's a different dynamic.

[Kathleen]

It's rare.

[Ben Walter]

There's also that old adage, the first generation starts it, the second generation grows it, and the third generation ruins it. I mean, I mean, he didn't. Clearly he completely bucked that trend. But there's an old adage about that.

[Kathleen]

So the law of diminishing returns.

[Ben Walter]

Right.

[Kathleen]

Kicks in. I heard something too. The family business, like 50% of people actually don't want to give it to their kids.

[Ben Walter]

And the increasing issue we see in some of the succession work we have done is that the kids don't want it. Ah, yeah, right. Particularly because, yeah, you can sell it, but a lot of times the kids don't want it. They want to chart their own path. And there are so many more options available to people today. You could tell the legacy and the background was important to him. We meet some people who are emotional about the business they've built because it's their baby. He was emotional about the business because it was his grandfather's baby. Yeah.

[Kathleen]

And what a commitment to. To feel like you need to get everyone over the line of retirement as well, because they had profit sharing that was making me. Well, a little bit. You don't hear that every day. To your point, usually people are in it for themselves mainly, not their employees.

[Ben Walter]

I thought it was pretty interesting. Also when he talked about selling the business, the fact that his father, who had been a longtime steward of the business, said, close it up. And he said, nope, not going to do that.

[Kathleen]

There's this interesting movement that I've been observing where people are seeking to buy the mom and Pop Laundromat or window cleaner. How do you think about that? If you're looking to potentially go in and acquire someone else's business, how do you counsel someone on that?

[Ben Walter]

I do think the most important piece is how you structure the transaction in terms of the handoff of the business. Because most of the businesses that we're talking about that people look to buy, it would be very difficult to come in cold and just be like, I'm a smart person, I'll figure it out.

[Kathleen]

Ah, okay.

[Ben Walter]

It's not that you can't, but by the time you do, a lot of things can go wrong. And so I Think structuring something where the seller has an incentive to pass it off to you in the right way, has some trailing interest in the business for at least a time, so that they have every incentive to hand you their relationships or hand you their know how or make sure that they haven't just locked the door and left you the wrong key. All that stuff matters a ton. And we do lend to customers who are buying businesses. And I will tell you that the first 12 to 18 months is where it's make or break, okay? They either have that knowledge transfer or they don't. And it's a good fit or it's not. If you get those two things right, nothing's guaranteed, but your odds go up a lot.

[Kathleen]

Yeah, I'm hearing it's a little bit more complicated than I think. What's being pushed down the media right now? Like, you come in, you get this business that's in the green. You've got great branding skills. You repackage it, right? It's this unsexy business. You make it cool and swaggy, and then you get an operating partner to run the operations of the business.

[Ben Walter]

I think anybody who says, oh, yeah, well, someone will just take care of the operations. Run. Screaming run.

[Kathleen]

Like the house is on fire.

[Ben Walter]

Yes. Like, oh, it's a house cleaning business. Well, you know, everybody will just show up and clean the houses. That'll be fine. It's all about the sexy branding you put on. That is insane.

[Kathleen]

Okay?

[Ben Walter]

Because the first time someone doesn't show up or they break something, they knock the piece of art off the wall. That was worth a lot of money or you pick it up.

[Kathleen]

This is what half the Internet's talking about right now.

[Ben Walter]

Correct.

[Kathleen]

Okay.

[Ben Walter]

Correct. Okay.

[Kathleen]

You heard it here, people.

[Ben Walter]

Step one to any good business is running a solid operation. And you should know this better than I do. You're a branding expert. But, like, a brand is not how you tell other people what you do. A brand is a megaphone for telling people what you already do. Well, you can't say, like, I'm a mediocre house cleaning company, but if I tell everyone I'm a great housekeeping company, then I'm a great house. No, you. You can tell everyone you're a great housekeeping company when you are one. Right.

[Kathleen]

Steve Jobs would even say, the brand has to be so good because you're already doing what you say you're gonna do to the point where someone else wants to tell someone else about what it is that you're doing.

[Ben Walter]

Correct. So I Think the Internet is wrong about that. But we have a crisis of succession in small business in this country. Given what Terry talked about with the retirement of the baby boom, the number of businesses that are projected to turn over. And I encourage our clients who are thinking about selling, decide when you are emotionally ready and accept what it emotionally means to sell. Yes, you should do it in a way that trains your buyer to run it well, but that doesn't mean to do what you would do. And they might take it in a different direction and they might turn around and sell it again. They might decide you had a premium product. But I see more market opportunity in the cheap and cheerful sector and I'm going to take it down market. And if you're going to let that hurt your heart, don't sell.

[Kathleen]

Do you see a lot of people doing what his dad just said to do, which is let's just close up shop. The legacy is what it is. We had a really good run. Or is that a financial mistake because you're sitting on all this equity that you're essentially not.

[Ben Walter]

Totally depends on the business. Okay.

[Kathleen]

And if someone thinks they are a candidate for selling the business, what would be their first step?

[Ben Walter]

You need your network of advisors. When you're a small business, yes, your bank and your banker is a piece of that, but so is your accountant, so is your attorney, so is your insurance agent. You need a range of people who are giving you advice. And typically, typically, if you think about selling, I would get advice from a combination of people like that. There are business brokers who will help sell businesses.

[Kathleen]

I get emails from them all the time. Yeah, I get like 10 a day.

[Ben Walter]

Yeah. And those are the more traditional ones. There are new school ones that are like web based marketplaces for the same thing. Those certainly exist. As you get more into the middle market then you'll get into investment banking, you'll hire someone who will come on and will actively market your business, whether it's to private equity or to other private sellers. That's when you get to be a slightly larger business, although not necessarily as gargantuan as you would think. So there's a pretty wide range of things. It depends what you're selling for and what's important to you. We've had clients who said I wanted to sell the business, but all I cared about was that you took care of my employees. I didn't care how much you paid me for it. Like I'd saved for my own retirement. Yeah, a little extra money was nice, but I wasn't Trying to get rich. I was trying to protect the employees who worked for me all those years. And then you meet others who are like, no, no, this is my retirement. And you bet I care how much I sell this for, and I'm going to sell it to the highest bidder. And there's nothing wrong with either of those things. And in fact, on season two, we dedicated an entire episode to succession planning. So I encourage all the listeners to check it out. We'll drop it in the feed for easy access.

[Kathleen]

That's so helpful. It can change over time, but you want to have an exit strategy in mind of where you're headed.

[Ben Walter]

And I think what sits behind that, Kathleen, is just like I tell people, before you think about starting a business, have a why. Before you think about selling a business, have a why. Because selling a business is just as big a decision as starting a business. And so really think about that. Okay, let's go back to Terry. After selling Iverson and Company, Terry put all of his energy into growing Champion now and inspiring young people to get excited about manufacturing. He had the idea in 2009 and incorporated it into a 501C3 in 2012. A huge source of inspiration for him was someone named Harry Moser.

[Terry Iverson]

Reshoring was developed by Harry mosier. In the 1980s, when I first got involved in manufacturing, everybody was offshoring. Apprenticeships were being closed down. Vocational and shop class was being closed down and taken out of high schools. And you're talking about an economic powerhouse that the US even today, is the 8th largest economy in the world. Just the manufacturing sector.

[Ben Walter]

Reshoring is the process of moving manufacturing through the facilities and jobs back to the U.S. many economists credit America's golden age of manufacturing and its creation of good jobs with good wages with building the middle class in this country for reshoring.

[Terry Iverson]

The impact it would have on our country is that we would have way more people involved in careers that can't be replicated or can't be taken over necessarily by AI. And there's a lot of people that either have jobs that they're not satisfied with or that doesn't pay adequately. And as time goes on, and the skill level that we need in our industry, which is very automated, very computerized as a rule, or as a consequence, the pay is increasing, especially for those that are most skilled.

[Ben Walter]

Terry had already been doing a lot of speaking at the time at colleges and technical schools. But reaching young adults felt too late to make a significant impact.

[Terry Iverson]

I was committed to helping young people, and this just Seemed a really good marriage between my drive to mentor young people and help young people in my career that I was already in.

[Ben Walter]

After a while, he realized that he had to ignite the passion earlier in someone's life to see real change. This is where he took a few unorthodox steps. He's written several books for kids and parents. He. He's gone to tons of conferences. But the thing that he's most excited about is Camp Champ.

[Terry Iverson]

A lot of people are very jazzed to use the term about the camp we started called Camp Champ, that was focused on middle school participants. And what we do is we have six different stations and we teach them about manufacturing. But one of the keys, Ben, is we use high school students as mentors for the middle school students.

[Ben Walter]

I'm super interested in this. I've been reading a lot about the reshoring movement, a lot of the advanced manufacturing that's now coming out of Silicon Valley, where the nature of what you do. There's going to be plenty of manufacturing jobs, but they're going to be very different. And training that workforce of the future, if we're going to bring a lot of stuff back onshore, is not a small task.

[Terry Iverson]

No, no, no, no. And what happens is as you automate and as you advance in advanced manufacturing, you computerize. And we haven't figured out quite yet how AI is going to impact it, but what ends up happening is in some ways, you're more efficient and more productive, and you still have a lot of needs for the workforce, but the skill set just keeps going further up. And it's a real struggle when we don't have enough people in manufacturing. Right now, I think we have about 12 million in the workforce, and there's currently half a million or thereabouts positions open around the country. And there's projections of 3.8 to 4 million manufacturing positions by 2033.

[Ben Walter]

This is something that always amazes me, even on the scale of the United States. Those are huge numbers. But as I talk to small business clients around the country, both in manufacturing and other areas, I am constantly just amazed at the structural gap in employment that exists between the jobs that, that people need and the jobs that people are applying for and want to do. Even when sometimes those jobs pay pretty.

[Terry Iverson]

Well, they pay very well. I'm a big advocate in my writing and my speaking of young people not going into student debt, and I'm also a big advocate of if you were going to college, that's fine. Just make sure you know what you're going to college for. And that's what you want to do and make sure that you're not going into debt for it. But if manufacturing is on the table, and rarely is it on the table. So we need to solve that. Right. Many times manufacturers, employers will pay for your upskilling for you as part of their package, so to speak. And manufacturers have been doing that for decades.

[Ben Walter]

Yeah, it's amazing. I'm with people all the time who say, oh, I've got jobs. I just can't find people who either can do them or want to do them.

[Terry Iverson]

Yep.

[Ben Walter]

This is something that really resonates with us here at JPMorgan Chase. To help us serve our communities and the businesses we work with, we invest in programs that help people prepare for good paying jobs in things like manufacturing and skilled trades. And we do that through training and development opportunities. Kathleen, I'm just fascinated by that. Not for profit. He's running. I mean, it's so different than what he was doing before. And this whole thing is a running theme for me because I talk to clients all over the country. You have your own clients. I'm sure you hear some of this in a world where on the one hand we hear like, oh, jobs are tough for college graduates, or jobs are tough in this sector. I far more often meet clients who cannot find people with the skills they need than I do find people who say, my problem is I have too many employees. I need to do layoffs. I just don't hear it that often.

[Kathleen]

Yeah, both my hands are up. Both hands. But I think that is something people need to think about. And he was speaking to that too. Like, if you're gonna invest in college, it's a huge. You should have a tangible, transferable skill coming out of that if you're gonna do it. And I think we're getting to a point, at least. What I'm seeing is a lot of these soft skills that are very like generic. You're a Jack or a Jacqueline of all trades, and you don't have something that is specific that runs deep in terms of a skill set.

[Ben Walter]

There's something fundamental that's changed about college. Well, there are many things that have changed about college, but one of them is we are graduating a lot more people from college. So it used to be that when you looked at the percent of the population that went to college, it was very small. So it could be this very high minded academic because there were more jobs than people in that space anyway.

[Kathleen]

More teaching you how to think than anything else.

[Ben Walter]

Yeah. And that was all fine. And now that doesn't really work anymore. There aren't enough of those sort of esoteric academic jobs around. That doesn't mean there aren't jobs. They're just different jobs. We've told people you have to go to college, but it depends. For what I saw on X earlier this week, someone said, should we put colleges on the hook for the first 10 or 20% of college debt? Would they think differently about what they teach kids? And I was like, ooh, ooh, that's.

[Kathleen]

Kind of smart, that's good.

[Ben Walter]

I was like, oh yeah, I bet they would think differently. I do think that there is a massive gap in first of all the range of education that's available to get the skills they need. I think about our community colleges in this country totally under leveraged in terms of the capabilities they have, which are tremendous. But also we spent the last 30 years telling people you couldn't do well if you didn't go to college. And that's just not true now. I went to college, I have a kid in college. I'm not bemoaning a four year university education for many people who want to go down that path. And Terry and I also talked a lot about college. You know, we've had some programs here at JPMorgan Chase where we try to help people with work based learning opportunities and apprenticeships and other ways to connect with work that don't involve going to college. I mean college is great, don't get me wrong. I but for many careers it's not necessary. And so it really resonated with me that he thinks it's important that people only go to college when it's right for them and that they only take on debt if they're heading toward a career where that makes a lot of sense.

[Kathleen]

That's so great.

[Ben Walter]

We have a lot of clients who are plumbers, who didn't go to college, who apprenticed as a plumber and started their own plumbing or electrical contracting business or whatever, who make an awful lot of money and an awful lot of more than my kids friends who went to college.

[Kathleen]

Yeah. To that point. Do you think we're going to see, especially with what's happening in tech, do you think we're going to see. You talked a little bit about reshoring and moving manufacturing back to the states. A bit more things that you can do with your physical hands, your actual physical labor. Is that going to be in higher demand and more pursuit with AI and everything that's coming?

[Ben Walter]

Yes, although I would expand it a Little bit. It is both things you can do with your hands and technical expertise in equipment that does stuff. A lot of the new manufacturing lines that are built are automated manufacturing lines, but someone needs to run them and repair them or be able to diagnose what's going wrong with them. So they say the most advanced manufacturing lines, and I think this is particularly true in China, they don't even have lights in parts of them because there's no people there. But machines don't run 24 hours a day without help. I think about that. I think about the massive infrastructure buildout that's going on to support AI. So, yeah, sure, maybe college grads are going to be writing the new LLM model that comes out, but somebody's got to go build the data center and, and the power plant that's going to support that data center and all that physical infrastructure is massive. And I think it's a huge opportunity for the next generation. Coming up, I think this episode and Terry's story is a great bridge between so many things going on right now. When I think about reshoring technical expertise, manufacturing, when I think about buying and selling businesses, this trend toward the younger generation wanting to be their own boss, I think there's a confluence of events here that Terry's story speaks to multiple angles of. And it's not the story of 2025, it's the story of the past. But I think it tees up a lot of the things that I think Gen Z is starting to think about as they come into their prime working years. Terry, this has been fascinating. Two things. Well, first, I'd like to end with a question that I ask to all of our guests, which is if you had one piece of advice for a business owner, an aspiring business owner, an aspiring entrepreneur, I'm sure you could probably write another book about that. But if you had one piece of adv, what would it be?

[Terry Iverson]

Different generations have different standards and different priorities. I'm a baby boomer and we're retiring or passing in droves, leaving the workforce, but we probably didn't have the best work life balance. Many of us could have done better. I'll include myself in that. And so future generations, that's a big priority for them. And that may mean being an owner is not a good thing. And so make sure you know what you're signing up for. Because I've had people younger than me that went into ownership of the company and when they realized what it really was, they weren't so enthralled. You know, I try to tell younger people that I would hire for management positions or very difficult positions. Make sure your family is signing up for what you're signing up for, because they're going to be making sacrifices, and you may not be okay with having them make those sacrifices, but you need permission for them that you're not going to be at home as much as you thought you were going to be.

[Ben Walter]

It's fantastic. Terry, thank you for being here on the show. It's been great having you.

[Terry Iverson]

Thank you, Ben. I'm honored to have the opportunity.

[Ben Walter]

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Unshakeables. If you liked this episode, please rate and review it. Next episode, we'll hear from a CEO who took an unorthodox approach to, well, being a CEO. And so I spent a lot of my own money buying a position in a healthcare startup, which is what Breath Diagnostics was at that time. I'm Ben Walter, and this is the Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you back here soon.