The oven is often the largest, simplest, and most important piece of equipment in the powder coating shop. At Kaser, we have two ovens. One dries parts, and the other cures powder. Both ovens run eight hours a day, every day, and they’re the heartbeat of the shop –...
Most of us who wound up working in the finishing industry took the scenic route. I don’t know of any community colleges offering Associate degrees (or licensing of any kind, for that matter) in powder coating. Few kids grow up hoping to be abrasive media blasters. The...
Roughly once a year, I hire someone talented. Talent is harder to define in the finishing industry than it is in sports, art, or music. I can’t think of any specific physical traits that would predispose someone to being good – or better than their peers – at what we...
It’s no secret: I’m uptight about the powder coating production schedule. Customers are often baffled by this. In their minds, batching one lawn chair in with a larger run of parts should be no big deal – and to a certain extent, that’s true. But there are...
If an exceptional person expresses interest in working at Kaser, I always want them on my team. As a result, I conduct interviews year-round. Here’s my advice to job candidates who want to level up their interview game. Be forthcoming. I suspect people want to avoid...
Men in the finishing industry – customers, vendors, and sales reps alike – respond to my female employees differently than they respond to me. This is a longstanding issue that has always driven me nuts. I’ve had a lot of women on my team over the years, of various...
I will be candid: new hires would be shocked to learn how quickly – and unanimously – the Kaser team can tell whether they’re a good fit. I’m not saying this to scare potential employees away. On the contrary, I think Kaser’s culture is one of our great strengths, and...
I used to be very transparent with my team about customers’ expectations for their projects. Let’s say the customer was demanding, or the spec was unusually rigorous, or the deadline was urgent – I communicated all of that to my team, thinking that the extra...
I’ve recently evolved into what I think will be my final form as a hiring manager. Here’s what I mean. When I first started at Kaser, there were three of us: Stan in the blast booth, Chauncey in powder, and myself. Collectively, we had little experience in the...
If you had asked me last spring whether I’d consider hiring part time help at Kaser, I would have laughed and said “absolutely not.” One year later, I’m singing a different tune. I realized that if the hiring landscape wasn’t going to change, I needed to. Full time...
I’ve never been the type to hire a warm body. Even in times when Kaser could’ve desperately used another set of hands, I’ve proceeded cautiously. There’s too much at stake: the team’s camaraderie, the quality of Kaser’s product, the amount of time it takes to train...
I recently realized that I’ve spent the last 18 months mis-categorizing Kaser’s busy-ness. I thought we had a staffing issue, and that hiring more people would take care of it; but the more I hired, the more the workload stayed the same. Turns out we were just coating...
I have spent very little time as someone else’s employee. There was one research opportunity in college, where I worked for a professor – and my dad retained a lot of the decision-making power in my early days at Kaser, before I was comfortable handling daily...
The Kaser team is growing rapidly. My managers and I feel a bit like professors, guiding a fresh batch of recruits through Powder Coating 101 every few weeks or so. This is not a complaint. Yes, training is hard, but the benefits of having a full crew far outweigh the...
Once a year or so, I hire someone with the uncanny ability to handle any and all tasks that Kaser throws at them. It’s rare, but always exciting. Some people seem to have a knack for producing higher-than-average quality, no matter what task they’re given. For lack of...
Some of the job candidates I interview ask about Kaser’s workplace culture but, to my surprise, most don’t. I guess it’s hard from an interviewee’s perspective – what questions do you ask to really get the info you want? Does the hiring manager know anything about the...
Anyone who follows Kaser Blasting & Coatings on social media knows that I’ve had two mantras on repeat this year: 1. The Kaser powder shop is ALWAYS hiring; and 2. No experience required. So what can a new powder shop employee expect if they have no previous...
Kaser Blasting & Coatings finds itself in a strange position these days. On one hand, I’ve been hiring like crazy and the team is bigger than it has ever been; on the other hand, our incoming workload is through the roof. We’re running out of space to store parts,...
My name is Jase Kaser, and I’m a perfectionist. Perfectionism gets a bad rap, but it’s a trait I really value in myself and others. For starters, I think my pursuit of perfection benefits Kaser’s customers – they’ve come to expect great quality, and all of our...
Kaser Blasting & Coatings is always hiring. Our job posts, while abundant, don’t always get into the nitty-gritty details of what we offer. So if you’ve ever wondered about compensation, benefits, and time off, here’s what you need to know. Compensation Kaser does...
It’s no secret: I’m uptight about the powder coating production schedule. Customers are often baffled by this. In their minds, batching one lawn chair in with a larger run of parts should be no big deal – and to a certain extent, that’s true. But there are...
If an exceptional person expresses interest in working at Kaser, I always want them on my team. As a result, I conduct interviews year-round. Here’s my advice to job candidates who want to level up their interview game. Be forthcoming. I suspect people want to avoid...
Men in the finishing industry – customers, vendors, and sales reps alike – respond to my female employees differently than they respond to me. This is a longstanding issue that has always driven me nuts. I’ve had a lot of women on my team over the years, of various...
I will be candid: new hires would be shocked to learn how quickly – and unanimously – the Kaser team can tell whether they’re a good fit. I’m not saying this to scare potential employees away. On the contrary, I think Kaser’s culture is one of our great strengths, and...
I used to be very transparent with my team about customers’ expectations for their projects. Let’s say the customer was demanding, or the spec was unusually rigorous, or the deadline was urgent – I communicated all of that to my team, thinking that the extra...
I’ve recently evolved into what I think will be my final form as a hiring manager. Here’s what I mean. When I first started at Kaser, there were three of us: Stan in the blast booth, Chauncey in powder, and myself. Collectively, we had little experience in the...
If you had asked me last spring whether I’d consider hiring part time help at Kaser, I would have laughed and said “absolutely not.” One year later, I’m singing a different tune. I realized that if the hiring landscape wasn’t going to change, I needed to. Full time...
I’ve never been the type to hire a warm body. Even in times when Kaser could’ve desperately used another set of hands, I’ve proceeded cautiously. There’s too much at stake: the team’s camaraderie, the quality of Kaser’s product, the amount of time it takes to train...
I recently realized that I’ve spent the last 18 months mis-categorizing Kaser’s busy-ness. I thought we had a staffing issue, and that hiring more people would take care of it; but the more I hired, the more the workload stayed the same. Turns out we were just coating...
I have spent very little time as someone else’s employee. There was one research opportunity in college, where I worked for a professor – and my dad retained a lot of the decision-making power in my early days at Kaser, before I was comfortable handling daily...
The Kaser team is growing rapidly. My managers and I feel a bit like professors, guiding a fresh batch of recruits through Powder Coating 101 every few weeks or so. This is not a complaint. Yes, training is hard, but the benefits of having a full crew far outweigh the...
Once a year or so, I hire someone with the uncanny ability to handle any and all tasks that Kaser throws at them. It’s rare, but always exciting. Some people seem to have a knack for producing higher-than-average quality, no matter what task they’re given. For lack of...
Some of the job candidates I interview ask about Kaser’s workplace culture but, to my surprise, most don’t. I guess it’s hard from an interviewee’s perspective – what questions do you ask to really get the info you want? Does the hiring manager know anything about the...
Anyone who follows Kaser Blasting & Coatings on social media knows that I’ve had two mantras on repeat this year: 1. The Kaser powder shop is ALWAYS hiring; and 2. No experience required. So what can a new powder shop employee expect if they have no previous...
Kaser Blasting & Coatings finds itself in a strange position these days. On one hand, I’ve been hiring like crazy and the team is bigger than it has ever been; on the other hand, our incoming workload is through the roof. We’re running out of space to store parts,...
My name is Jase Kaser, and I’m a perfectionist. Perfectionism gets a bad rap, but it’s a trait I really value in myself and others. For starters, I think my pursuit of perfection benefits Kaser’s customers – they’ve come to expect great quality, and all of our...
Kaser Blasting & Coatings is always hiring. Our job posts, while abundant, don’t always get into the nitty-gritty details of what we offer. So if you’ve ever wondered about compensation, benefits, and time off, here’s what you need to know. Compensation Kaser does...
My name is Jase Kaser, and I’m aggressive. When I say “aggressive,” I mean I’m ambitious. I’m risky. I like to push the production schedule to its limits. I like to get results when no one else can. That’s my brand, and it’s the Kaser brand – we take on projects that...
Shari Kaser, Vice President of Kaser Painting, Inc and my mother, had some questions for me on episode 13 of KaserCast. Spoiler alert: most of them were not work related. In case you missed the episode, I put some of the highlights in writing. Take a peek behind the...
You would be shocked at the number of job candidates I’ve interviewed over the years. Yes, Kaser is small, but we’re never not hiring – and since the pandemic started, we, like everyone else, are desperate for good help. I ask every prospective employee what they’re...
Kaser recently had a bad production day. We’d been firing on all cylinders for weeks, churning out great work in record time through our busiest season. Then on a single day, we fell behind on a handful of projects. Customers weren’t happy, and neither was I. I...
I will be honest: it’s been a discouraging week, for reasons I’ll explain momentarily. But my loss is your gain, because the struggle has served to crystallize a truth so simple, so universal, and so revolutionary, that I can confidently offer you THE secret to...
Ask any small business employee what IT support looks like at their office, and they’ll probably shrug and tell you that they just go to That One Person from [insert any department here] Who Knows About Computers. At Kaser, I’m that That One Person. I don’t mind – in...
The concept of delegation is fairly simple: handing a task over to another person should, in theory, lighten your load while giving them a project to which they’re suited. On paper, delegation is a win-win. A lot tends to go wrong in practice, however. If you’ve ever...
Time is a scarce and precious resource for small business owners and managers. I get it – there aren’t enough hours in the day, and you have to be judicious about how you allocate them. That’s why a lot of small businesses don’t have a training book. It takes time to...
Shari Kaser is a lot of things: she’s an accountant, a UNL grad, and a founding member of Kaser Painting, Inc. She’s also my mom, and, as the rest of my family will attest, a skilled brain ninja (more on that nickname in a moment). I sat down recently to interview...
This year has been the ultimate test of Kaser Blasting & Coatings’ agility. I say this with a great deal of sobriety, knowing that 2020 was exceptionally fatal to both humans and businesses. This holiday season (more than any other in my lifetime) has a certain...
Managers, it’s time to face facts: we will never manage a whole crew of Michael Jordans. Not everyone we hire will be the Tom Brady of our industry. It’s unlikely that you will ever discover (much less successfully recruit) the Wayne Gretzky of powder coating. And...
I’ve said it before: scheduling your part’s blasting and coating well ahead of time is a great way to keep turnarounds short. With proper scheduling, (and depending on the size and scope of the project,) we can usually get parts blasted, coated, and back in your hands...
We all reach points in our careers where certain aspects of our jobs become ingrained in our instincts and muscle memory. For powder coaters, industry lingo becomes second nature. We become comfortable identifying substrates, and predicting how they’ll behave. We can...
To the casual observer walking by Kaser’s campus on a weekday, our operations look like a buzzing hive of freight trucks, forklifts, and carts. The intensity level ranges from “moderate flurry” to “fog of war,” but one thing remains constant: from 7 AM to 4 PM, Kaser...
If you haven’t been around a college student lately, you’ll perhaps have forgotten how very young they are, and how little real-life work experience they have. That certainly was the case for me, as a freshly-graduated college student taking a manager position at...
A textbook might describe the metal manufacturing process this way: a customer has an idea for a metal part they want made. They find a fabricator, who comes up with some drawings. Once the design is approved, the part is made. If the fabricator provides in-house...
What do urgent care and the fire department have in common? Their lead times could be a matter of life or death. If you’re calling an emergency locksmith because your toddler is stuck in a hot car, you’re going to want that service provided as quickly as humanly...
Imagine for a moment that ABC Powder Supplier and XYZ Powder Supplier are two companies that offer the exact same powder, of the exact same quality, at the exact same price point. Let’s take it one step further and imagine that neither company charges for shipping. In...
I’m a pretty positive, results-oriented person who is fortunate to work in an industry full of positive, results-oriented people. But, my fellow powder coaters, general managers, and small business owners, can we take a moment to bond over what I am sure is a shared...
Is there anything more frustrating for a customer than calling a powder coating shop and being told that the lead time is 4-5 weeks? No. I get it, and I’m here to help. First, I want to reframe how we look at lead times. While a long lead time is an understandable...
I ask every single interview candidate the same question: “What is your ideal job?” This question yields a variety of answers, but there’s a common one that really bothers me. It goes something like this: “I eventually want to own my own business, but right now, I...
If the words “procedure” and “process” conjure mixed emotions of rage and comfort, you’re not alone. I feel the same way. Whether as employees or consumers, we’ve all experienced corporate red tape – long chains of command, endless phone call transfers, time-consuming...
My biggest challenge on any given day comes in the form of human communication. The most consistent, frustrating, and oddly humorous example of this happens during shipping and receiving. Some of our larger industrial customers ship parts to us via freight truck. I...
Can I rant for a minute? Anyone who owns a small business will tell you it’s not easy. There are a lot of serious, real-life reasons for that: small businesses are buffeted by the economy, the margins are often narrow, and it can be tough to attract and retain talent....
We’re a quarter of the way through 2019, and I’ve identified my personal theme for the year: I’m a manager of entropy. I’ll explain. Occasionally, a customer will learn that I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This...
Happy New Year from the Kaser family! Change is inevitable, and I’m ready to embrace the growth and challenges that 2019 will bring. At the same time, I find myself hoping that certain things will stay exactly the same. In 2018, the Kaser team spent some time...
‘Tis the season of reflection and gratitude. As Kaser Blasting & Coatings wraps up another stellar year, I’m grateful for so many things: our customers, new and returning, who give us a reason to come to work every day; Jay and Shari Kaser, whose vision started...
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