S2 E69: Understanding the Evolution and Future of Magnets in Industry

Dustin Olsen (00:40)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast. I'm your host Dustin, joined by Daniel, my co-host. And today our special guest is Robert Bunting of Bunting Magnetics. Robert, it's a family business. You guys have been in business since the 50s and you, 1959, and you became the CEO in 2022. So.

Daniel O'Connor (00:53)
Okay.

Robert Bunting (00:57)
1959.

That's correct.

Dustin Olsen (01:05)
Definitely a long time coming. So Robert, welcome to the show. ⁓ To get started, I would love to hear a bit about your experience growing up in the magnetic industry as a family.

Robert Bunting (01:09)
Glad to be here.

Yeah. Yes, my grandfather came back from World War II and was outside of Detroit, had a little business cutting extruded aluminum to then make windows and doors during the housing boom. Along came another gentleman who said, hey, you guys have a saw, can you cut these ferrite blocks for us?

And soon after he and his partner realized that this magnet business was going to be a lot more profitable than windows and doors. So he and his partner split up in one state in Detroit. grandfather moved down to Chicago. That's where my father was about eight when they moved. Business continued to grow until 79 when we moved the main facility to Newton, Kansas, just outside of Wichita.

Somehow

along the way my father convinced my pregnant mother to move down there and just before I was born. I was born in Kansas, grew up in the facility, went in wearing my bunting t-shirt that said Magnet Kid on the back. Anybody who knows me from the old days still call me by my old nickname RJ. So there's a handful of those still around, but we're now.

Daniel O'Connor (02:24)
. you

Robert Bunting (02:29)
continue

to grow with sites in Newton. We have three buildings there, a facility in DuPois, Pennsylvania, so central Pennsylvania, and then a site Burcamstead just outside of London and a site Redditch just north there outside of Birmingham. But we've got magnetic separation, magnetic conveyors, magnetic cylinders for aluminum cans, and most importantly for today's discussion.

We do make bonded neodymium and design and source and assemble sintered neodymium and other magnets out of the Du Bois and Perkhamstead facility.

Dustin Olsen (03:06)
That's awesome. So Robert, with your

Daniel O'Connor (03:08)
.

Dustin Olsen (03:10)
family's experience, guys, you've seen a lot, I'm sure, in this industry from probably surges to even now where there's a lot of demand for magnets, especially the neodymium magnets that you were just talking about. Can you share just a bit of your perspective of kind of what's going on today?

Robert Bunting (03:15)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Dustin Olsen (03:30)
especially in contrast to what you've grown up with, what you've seen there.

Robert Bunting (03:34)
Yeah,

and I think what we've seen is the market is definitely mature. And I mentioned ferrite magnets, large blocks that are easily cut. know, alenico, that was back in the 60s, 70s. The birth of neodenium for a variety of uses in the…

Daniel O'Connor (03:45)
you

Okay.

Robert Bunting (03:52)
technically late 90s, early 2000s to now where you've got very high strength magnets using, you know, high tech technical jet milling and grain boundary diffusion to be able to get very strong miniaturized magnets.

Throughout that process, everyone probably knows here, China really took over that demand from the mining to the separation to the rest of the manufacturing. And we kind of let it go by the wayside. The big difference is now versus some of those events of late is it was maybe a bit of a disruption in supply, maybe one of the cyclical spikes in pricing.

Daniel O'Connor (04:12)
you

Robert Bunting (04:29)
You look back to the 11 days of ⁓ when the kind of fight between China and Japan occurred, which caused a lot of maybe the precursor of what we're seeing today, it eventually settled back down. So I think, you know, one of the lines I really liked from Peter at Novihan was, you know, a five cent part in a five dollar component in a five million dollar

Daniel O'Connor (04:48)
you

Robert Bunting (04:52)
thing and I think that describes magnets oftentimes as an afterthought.

that people could regularly source either from the US or from China. The smart ones had dual sourcing, the ones that were a little bit riskier relied solely on China. And that's probably where we're at today is where the people that have dual sourced are a little safer, but it's a stress on the industry, especially when we look at the heavy rare earth restrictions, mainly surrounded ⁓ dysprosium, but even China continue to catch up in restricting the homeium

Daniel O'Connor (04:57)
Okay.

Robert Bunting (05:23)
for some of the lighter rare earths right now is gonna start to become another problem here in a couple of months. we're in a, what I would say is we are in a totally new ball game. There is nothing that we've, I think, can learn from looking back. In a perfect world, we would have slowly made this change from China dependence in the background quietly. We did it a little bit loud, a little noisy. And so we're trying to catch up and move quickly.

Daniel O'Connor (05:49)
So Robert, I had a question. And more, ⁓ if you could help elaborate on generally magnets bonded versus centered. And I think a lot of people don't know the difference. what are the differences?

Robert Bunting (06:02)
Right.

Daniel O'Connor (06:05)
What types of industries consume bonded versus sintered? Why is sintered maybe a little bit more challenging or different to produce?

Robert Bunting (06:13)
Yeah, so the story on bonded fits very well with us in Du Bois and it's Du Bois is kind of known as the powdered metal capital of the world. So you take a

a press, hydraulic or mechanical press. You've got a finely milled neodymium powder and then you've got a mix of typically a polymer that's blended with that and then physically pressed into a shape. Most common shapes are arcs or rings and one of the advantages that over the years Bonded has had is it does offer lower cost because of less processing and then the ability not to get

too technical but you can magnetize it in lots of different directions which is a little bit different than with sintered where you are restricted on the directions you can go. And that allows for more complex sensors and motors.

And again, it's a little bit less powerful magnet from ⁓ a sintered, but in a lot of motors, they have space to do it. So when you get to sintered, you've got a stronger strength and a smaller package, right? The miniaturization, it gives you a little bit more control. Yes, yes, sir.

Daniel O'Connor (07:19)
More, more miniaturization.

Robert Bunting (07:22)
As time has gone on, you've got the ability to handle more heat. That's been the heaviest, as the heaviest get added. technology has gotten better that it has similar magnetization patterns as that can be done as bonded. But it's still a little bit more difficult in that isotropic versus non-isotropic, but I won't go too deep down that definition there.

Daniel O'Connor (07:44)
What would be an example of an industry that consumes bonded magnets versus rare centered magnets?

Robert Bunting (07:49)
Thank you.

A lot of industrial motors, very common. Major motor manufacturers would use it, as well as very small motors, so miniaturization motors. That's the most common you see it, both from power generation. You can also have it in rotary sensors positions, is, those are where we definitely see it the most.

Daniel O'Connor (08:12)
Just to clarify, where you see bonded at the most or centered? Okay.

Robert Bunting (08:15)
That's correct, bonded.

So our big customers are on the bonded side, in industrial motors, commercial motors. Think of a large fan motor or a drive motor. One of our largest bonded pieces we ever did was a generator on a large earth mover.

So big, big pieces, but that's the type of opportunity where if space isn't the constraint, you can get the same energy out of a bonded magnet as a center when you have space to oversize it while keeping the price down.

Daniel O'Connor (08:50)
But

bonded are the trade off size that the center facilitate more miniaturization.

Robert Bunting (08:59)
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.

And cost, know, this is where that's a product where we're seeing a lot of movement to bring this back to the US right now because the risk of China had scale and low cost, but now the restriction, and we're set up in Du Bois right now to be able to handle.

handle the current load and we're expanding from capacity and facility size right now to take on more.

Daniel O'Connor (09:26)
Is that growth coming from certain industries?

Robert Bunting (09:29)
The biggest growth we're seeing is on some of the smaller high-speed motors. So you get into lot of electronics, circuit board, things like that. That's where we're seeing right now that that's the biggest risk when we talk about the potential of the actuality of attempting to totally desource from any China-produced component.

Daniel O'Connor (09:48)
So basically, ⁓ these would be tier two suppliers that are making motors that supply maybe electronics or something like that.

Robert Bunting (09:58)
Yep, yeah,

yeah. The fan example, you know, we've seen a lot of inquiries on fans that go into a variety of commercial buildings, commercial buildings, warehouses, everything surrounding data storage right now. You know, there's a lot of that discussion about, know, because that's, they're just big, big heat generators, right? So you've got to keep them down to be cool to ⁓ perform at higher levels.

Daniel O'Connor (10:08)
Yeah.

And just

to get into the science a little bit, or the engineering, so the way a bonded magnet, what does it do to keep it cooler?

Robert Bunting (10:32)
It's just going to be used in the actual motor, driving, say, fan. Nothing specific to the magnet.

Daniel O'Connor (10:38)
Right.

OK. So it's the magnets being used to dry the fan, which can cool it down. OK. OK. Now, obviously, big, first of all, we have to, it's very impressive. It's an American family-owned company. It's going on for over 60 years. So that's amazing. That's something to be celebrated by itself.

Robert Bunting (10:41)
Right, correct, correct.

Thank you. I'm reminded now that I'm running the show how every single day that keeping the doors open, keeping product going out the door, and keeping people employed is a big accomplishment.

Dustin Olsen (11:02)
you

Daniel O'Connor (11:08)
It's a huge accomplishment. What's your take on this whole bigger picture that the new rules are coming in that no magnets can have Chinese inputs, those magnets, the centered magnets that need the heavy rare earth doping, know, the regulations are a little bit ahead of where the market is actually. Would you agree with that?

Robert Bunting (11:26)
Yep.

think that's fair. Even if you set aside that the whole idea of mind to magnet rings easily off the tongue, right? But it's difficult. It's a wonderful thing that we've got Mountain Pass producing. MP's done a great job of making that mind produce, and they're taking on the big work of separating out those…

You know those light rivers that that mine is full of. You know it's great that they're focusing on the samarium coming out of that mine as well. Yeah, you get down to making blocks is not easy. Sintering is something we can do in the US, but the separation and making those blocks is tough stuff. So when we get to, you know, what we ultimately need a finished product magnet to be able to meet the demand, you're right that you know the dosing of days gone by with

Daniel O'Connor (11:54)
Yeah.

Robert Bunting (12:16)
that's

dysprosium now really pushes us to the grain boundary diffusion GPD. positive of that is we're able to use less of it. The negative is you still need a lot of dysprosium. We have to go through a lot of engineering work to possibly re-engineer these magnets to use less dysprosium, because it's very common in the industry to use far too much.

Daniel O'Connor (12:37)
Right.

Right.

Robert Bunting (12:42)
But Bunting's working on a project where we want to focus on that final step of design and fabrication, working with block producers in the US to take their blocks and then cut those to size, especially for that defense work that we're going to so desperately need just off the demand of ammunition that we're going through right now and obviously with the DFAR requirements coming very quickly around the corner.

Daniel O'Connor (13:04)
Right, So if you look at, so again, we're covering the supply chain, so upstream, midstream, downstream. If you look at the bunting and you're part of it making the magnets, do you do the metallization from oxide to metals or do you work with a third party to do that?

Robert Bunting (13:13)
Yes, sir.

Yeah, that's where with the bonded product we're able to buy what's called the bee powder and either bond it with the polymer in-house or we work with one of the large suppliers to buy that actually ready to go. So you don't have the metalization requirements that you do on the sintered product. ⁓ That is a tough thing. I've spent enough time in China to see that metalization to the jet milling.

Daniel O'Connor (13:43)
Right.

Robert Bunting (13:51)
There is a lot of steps in there. I'm sure you guys know this, but if you want to learn about it, that 60 minutes piece on MP materials really addresses it well, that the mining part is the easiest part. Separation is by far the hardest. Metalization is not easy. The engineering is not easy. And then you still have to get to the slicing and the grinding and the magnetization.

Daniel O'Connor (14:07)
Yeah.

Robert Bunting (14:16)
most likely along with the grain boundary diffusion that it's steps on steps on steps of difficulty.

Daniel O'Connor (14:22)
and what

Dustin Olsen (14:22)
So I had

a, just talking about the supply chain and so some things you can do in house, like you're just saying, other things you're trying to outsource. I'd be curious just to know just a bit more what your choke points are ⁓ in the supply chain. Like where do you guys struggle?

Robert Bunting (14:28)
Yep.

You know,

right now, because we do source still quite a bit of magnets from China, we're still struggling on when a very much commercial product should be released by MOFCOM. We've got all the backup to say that it isn't defense or aerospace related, and that's still coming out. that restrictions are only getting stronger.

I'm hoping for the best, you know, with the Trump machine meeting coming up soon. I'm also hoping that, you know, the reality of all these other areas where we're kind of poking the bear that's known as China, whether it's Venezuela or Iran, that I think we recognize, we need to hopefully recognize the repercussions of, you know, if they continue to weaponize our earth and the short run, how what a dangerous position we are from.

commercial to aerospace to defense.

That's the biggest struggle. I mentioned our Project Walker project of attempting to move forward with a fabrication site, and that's going to be a great demand for the defense industry. But still, we would be reliant on those companies like MP Materials and EVAC and Noviad to produce block. And I know they're going to have their hands full. You talk about the Samarium Coldwater a little bit, and the guys at the

MAG group and specifically in the EAC site in Pennsylvania, know, a country we need them to keep producing that smear and cobalt so that they can supply the Defense Department right now as best they can.

Daniel O'Connor (15:59)
you

do you all get involved with those types of magnets?

Robert Bunting (16:10)
We did, I mean, we did a lot. That's been probably the toughest conversations to have with people. We provide a great deal of magnets for industrial baking lines, so they go through the oven and those are samarium. Absolutely nothing to do with defense, but samarium has really been all but entirely cut off by China to both the US and the UK and the EU.

Daniel O'Connor (16:33)
Yeah,

yeah. So is there any, from your standpoint, are there any alternatives for Sumerium that could be accessed?

Robert Bunting (16:41)
You know, at the short run, can you have some creative design work and go back to if it's temperature demand? Can you use a cup style magnet and assembly style magnet with ferrite?

That's an option for holding or sensors. The other would be eventually, I believe, that MP is going to be able to separate out the Cimmerian that is situated in MP at Mount Pass. But we still then are reliant on the cobalt, which is most likely coming from northern Africa, where the Golden Road projects have a pretty good stronghold on that as well.

Daniel O'Connor (17:17)
Yeah, yeah, it's a good point.

Robert Bunting (17:19)
We work every day to try and work with customers to re-engineer projects, whether that's the amount of heavy rares that they're magnet-aspecting to looking at a samarium call button and saying, you really need all the characteristics of that magnet or can we substitute it?

Daniel O'Connor (17:39)
Interesting. So, yeah. So, we look at bunting, where are the high growth areas right now? What vertical industries or sectors are you interfacing with more nowadays, or let's say since the start of the year?

Robert Bunting (17:40)
Not a good answer to be honest with you. That's probably the reality. Fingers crossed for MP.

Dustin Olsen (17:42)
you

Robert Bunting (18:00)
It continues to be anyone who is fully reliant on China for typically heavier earths and that struggle to either get

get licenses for light rear earths or to substitute heavy rear earths for something else. It's hard to tell people, we get panics. Your dollar magnet is gonna shut down my skid steer line. And we're gonna try and do all we can, but we can't make promises. Seeing that growth, obviously in the bonded neodymium growth because customers are recognizing that there is a source.

domestically that we can provide versus them currently sourcing it from China where we can say we have a stable source right now. We're also seeing a big demand right now for our MagVault program, which is holding higher levels of inventory two and three years, which typically from an inventory.

management side of things for many larger corporations would be two to three years would be a fireable offense. And the smart ones right now are taking all that they can. If we can get it out of China, it at least gives them a buffer to when the domestic production is up and running.

Daniel O'Connor (19:05)
sense. We've had some experts tell us that, let's just say China would lock down their supply, not even these licenses anymore. Then we would have to go back, because of the state that we are in with the supply chain bottlenecks and gaps, we would have to go back to previous designs. So we would have

Robert Bunting (19:15)
Yeah.

Daniel O'Connor (19:29)
heavier gadgets or products or motors or even missiles. Is that a fair sort of gross summary of what would happen?

Robert Bunting (19:33)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

I think it's pretty accurate, especially if something that has the coercivity or temperature demands. I think that's absolutely the case. There are a lot of times where these magnets have just been over designed. One particular higher grade got applied and water fall down to other applications where it didn't need it. My simple example is the magnets that you have in the engine bay.

if you pick those same magnets to run the motor in your driver seat adjustment, those don't need to be the same magnets, right? So do a little bit of work to change the application. But I agree on high temperature and the coercivity demands, you would be going back to the opposite of the miniaturization process that we saw for the last decade.

Daniel O'Connor (20:22)
Do you see the American consumer, whether it's business to business, ultimately consumer, do you feel like the Americans are ready to do that if they had to?

Robert Bunting (20:34)
I don't even think most Americans know that they have probably, within my arms reach of my desk, probably 10 magnets. I think that's the biggest struggle here when we talk about it is you'd say, what's the big deal?

Daniel O'Connor (20:46)
Right, Yes, yeah.

Dustin Olsen (20:47)
So what would you say is the big deal?

Robert Bunting (20:49)
boy, I think doing all we can to support anyone right now that's trying to be involved in the process of, I said I don't love the term mine to magnet, but that's reality, which is we have the high producing mine for the lights in Mountain Pass.

We've got companies that are willing to work on the separation, which is not easy. You've got the companies, I mentioned MP, Novian, EVAC, USA Rear Earth talks about it, getting block production and getting the other gap here is in getting the right block production.

You know, China has, it's a bad joke, but the Chinese restaurants that have 30 different numbers on their menu, that's about what the offerings are when ⁓ a magnet motor designer goes to China. And we're gonna have to hope for maybe 10, maybe 12 in the US. And so that redesigning is gonna be really key.

And ultimately all the way down to recognizing that we need lots of kids to go to engineering school right now for whether it's metallurgy or mining or magnet design, know. Right now if you were graduating high school, I would say you could have a fascinating career going into either three of those areas. It's a…

basically a wild west right now of new things happening. I hope that in the US we're able to, with technology, catch up, but it's going to take a couple years.

Even at Bunting, we are continuing to hire more applications engineers, salespeople, mechanical engineers because of the increased demand. I think you can't always say that in a lot of industries, so you're in a fabulous spot. But the entire process is what's got to be addressed, not just the blocks.

Daniel O'Connor (22:25)
Yeah, that makes total sense. So what right now, if you looked at your business, just so that viewers can get a sense of if you might be a good partner for them, sort of do you have any top verticals or industry, number one? And number two, what's the balance between bonded versus centered?

Robert Bunting (22:44)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, one of the big advantages of our business going back to when my grandfather was running it is we've always been diversified.

Daniel O'Connor (22:44)
versus other, ⁓ fair right or what have you.

Robert Bunting (22:58)
We've had ferrite, alnico, all the grades of earth, we've had those available, we've had them in stock. We've been able to design those, we've been able to source them to our equipment division that goes everywhere, everything from food production to plastic recycling to mining to we make high precision assemblies for printing aluminum cans. And I would say that's still to this day that we're always going to be diversified. Capacity wise right now,

in bonded we have capacity but we're also at the same time continue to invest in more presses and capacity. You're always going to have a bigger demand for centered. We talked about the capabilities that they have are always going to far outperform bonded but there's a good spot for both. Neither one of them are right, neither one of them are wrong.

Daniel O'Connor (23:41)
Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Plus, mean, where we're at in the United States, mean, you know, it's just, you know, just being pragmatic, you've got to you've got to make do with what the supply chain will give you.

Robert Bunting (23:58)
Yeah, and there's, you know, there's good things happening.

You know, being with our sites in England, there's been pushes for recycling of magnets, which I think is a good opportunity. I think the biggest focus there would be, you know, with Birmingham University focusing on that, I'd love to think that they would just focus on the dysprosium, because older magnets don't have the GBD process. They've got the higher percentage of dysprosium. But, you know, there's good things happening all over the industry, wherever you look.

Daniel O'Connor (24:25)
Yeah, yeah.

Dustin Olsen (24:26)
Speaking of good things happening, we're seeing a lot of cash flow being injected into the industry right now. And some of it's serious, some of it is opportunistic. ⁓ From your perspective, how do you distinguish, I guess, a company that is building something real or not? You know, like writing the narrative.

Robert Bunting (24:31)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dustin Olsen (24:46)
to partner with or to get supply from. I'm curious to get your thoughts on that.

Robert Bunting (24:51)
You know what I would say was look to the companies that have been doing it the longest. And they're a competitor of ours, Dexter, that's part of Permag now, they've been doing it for a long time. Novi and Aze supplier, they were really the first domestic block producer. They're reliable. You've got EVAC in South Carolina, part of the VacuSmart group. They know what they're doing. They were just able to take what they knew in Germany and set up shop in South Carolina.

You know, we've been doing it for since 59. This is nothing new. know, even if we're going back to sourcing it from China, we've had boots on the ground for 30 years. you know, it's having people that have the resources and the knowledge. You one of the hardest things going forward is going to be that knowledge, that engineering skills, that people that you want to work with, make sure that they're not new to it. You know, I think that's…

I said, MP is going to get there because they've got a good mix of private and public funding and they've got the mine. And Novia and I won't be supportive of it they've been doing it and you can't ignore that. And obviously, VEC is able to take what they know in Germany and move it right over. We're hoping to take the idea that we essentially started our business cutting magnets to taking that and being able to source blocks from those domestic sources and cut the neomagnets.

the rare earth magnets to what customers need. It's going to be the expertise. That's one of the trickiest things in all this. And that's why I mentioned the kids going to school. Go to school right now for applications in engineering, whether it's mining or specifically in physics and magnets, because you'd have one heck of a career in front of you.

Daniel O'Connor (26:27)
I was going to ask you, what's the company size now? Are you 50 to 100, just general employee size 200? What's your…

Robert Bunting (26:36)
Yeah, we have

between the four facilities just under 250 employees.

Daniel O'Connor (26:40)
Okay, great. So you're at 250. And what, ⁓ like, from your standpoint for expansion, are you all looking for investment or are you going to just grow it organically or like, what's your strategy there?

Robert Bunting (26:42)
Yeah.

You know,

I'm working right now, we're very much working for state and local and some federal assistance to continue to We're always open to partnerships. We've been pretty proud, debt free for almost 35 years. My dad who passed away last year,

lived a little bit more like the greatest generation on the money under the bed, but we also grew the building, grew the business quite a bit. I can't argue with that, but as we look at these opportunities, especially on the fabrication side, I think we're going to have to be open to partnering. But I do really think this is where the federal government's got to step in and make sure that

more companies have the backing to be able to set this supply chain up so that it's stable. That you don't have a company that's been in existence for a couple months that then falls to pieces and leaves customers hanging out to dry. I think that's where, whether it's the Defense Department or Commerce or where, continuing to fund the industry has got to be key.

Daniel O'Connor (27:48)
Yeah.

Right, right. And again, when you say fund the industry, you mean like through their loans and various capital programs.

Robert Bunting (28:03)
I do. I mean, I do think grants to companies that are willing to expand is a big portion of it. But I think the federally back loans obviously is great. You see in other areas, you see like JP Morgan having their fund where they're specifically looking at rare earths. We need more of those. There's been some discussions and publications, I think today, again in Bloomberg about the rare earth vault. Take that idea and we need more of it. That article this morning talked about the cost

Dustin Olsen (28:17)
you

Robert Bunting (28:31)
just, I think it's 90 days worth of product. And when I look at that, I kind of laugh because that's not nearly enough. So whether it's vault, whether it's loans, whether it's grants, this is pretty critical. I think every manufacturer has got a story back in COVID where their one magnet, if they didn't get it in, was going to shut down a major production line.

I think you take that now and you can just multiply that by the risk we'd be seeing in the next couple months.

Daniel O'Connor (28:58)
Sure, Dustin, do you have one have I may have one or two questions you want to go next?

Dustin Olsen (29:03)
Yeah, so your family has been in the business long enough to have watched previous rare earth crisis go on. So 2010, 2011, come and go without the West building out any lasting alternatives. What makes you believe this time this momentum that we're seeing will be sustained if at all?

Robert Bunting (29:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

When I look at this, the difference is I've been going to China now for 10 years. up until, I would honestly say up until the beginning of last year, 25, I very much saw a cooperative nature between the US and China. What was good for their growth was good for our growth. And so this past, it's called 11 months.

13 months has been the first time where I've definitely seen that the idea changed. I think China is not going to allow magnet technology and they're not going to allow people out. If we want to have a supply chain in place to fund the things we have, whether it's a car, whether it's a missile, whether it's a phone, we're going to have to create the supply chain on our own and we're going to have to do it really quickly.

I think we could have learned a lot from 2011 between China and Japan, but I think unfortunately when you look at our news cycle, whether it was the 24 hour news or now the expiration of an Instagram story, we quickly forget about things like that and move on.

Dustin Olsen (30:25)
So true.

short memory span. ⁓

Robert Bunting (30:28)
It's

hard, know, the reality is I think we don't have a choice. That's why I say as a nation, the federal government needs to support it and those within the magnet industry need to continue to support each other because I think when one of us wins, we all win.

Dustin Olsen (30:46)
totally agree. And we've shared that a lot here on the show as well. It's gonna take a global offer. Like we're all dependent on each other. And if we can just play nice in that way, that would be great. ⁓ One last question for myself here is you talk about going to China, you've got offices abroad in the United States. And as CEO, how do you manage the tensions that exist?

Robert Bunting (30:50)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel O'Connor (31:11)
.

Dustin Olsen (31:12)
between different countries and managing, I guess, kind of expectations between cultures and country policies, things like that.

Daniel O'Connor (31:15)
.

Robert Bunting (31:22)
You try and understand why. I think I learned it when…

when I took over CEO and I thought that the US and the UK were so different in the way, know, employment laws and things like that.

And you realize we're all about the same. You go to China and you meet the people and they want to do a good job, they want to have pride, they want to create something. And I think when I look at our employees at all four sites, people want to show up, they want to be a part of something, they want to be successful.

If you have an organization with plenty of good people, it's a lot easier for me because I just point the finger and say, what do you think? What do you want to do? And then give them the support to do it.

In different scenarios, you I have to play a different role. At times I've had folks find me on LinkedIn. I don't hide my email address and they've been frustrated. And I will always respond to say, I'm sorry. I know how bad the scenario is. We're going to work hard to help you out, but I also need you to understand reality that the situation we're in isn't going to get any better. So we're going to help you the best to try and do redesigns or change your sourcing.

The way that you did business of just in time for 20 years is gone by the wayside.

Dustin Olsen (32:35)
That's great. And sounds like great leadership too.

Daniel O'Connor (32:38)
Totally.

Robert Bunting (32:38)
I try, think

that's when you look at what a CEO does is leadership is not easy because you can never define it, but it's always a lot easier when you have good people around you.

Daniel O'Connor (32:47)
How are you different? I'm curious to know. I think it started with your grandfather or father? Grandfather. So if you compare your grandfather, father, and you, similar sort of leadership style difference, could you just share more about how that's evolved?

Robert Bunting (32:52)
Yes, sir. My grandfather.

Yeah, it's fascinating, I also correct people, was my grandfather and my grandmother who started it. She would always appreciate that. they worked together to start the business. He was an entrepreneur. I enjoyed, I think, the life of coming back as a Navy vet and turning.

Daniel O'Connor (33:13)
Okay.

Robert Bunting (33:27)
turn in his life into something and having four kids and their grandkids. I think he got to a point where he was successful and felt happy. And I think that's where family businesses allow for the next person to come take in. My dad was at his heartache, a sales leader, a sales driver. He would say that was his dream job, right? Constantly walking around the building and asking about where quotes are at or projects are at.

I think that I'm a little bit different, that I'm a little bit more aggressive. I worked hard to get to this spot. I think that the curse of third generation is alive. I think also when I go to some family business forums, I always say the second generation has to give in a little bit more.

But I think that fighting to stay in the business and stay relevant and keep my part while my dad was still active kind of has molded me into the same thing now, fighting for growth, continuing to get better, new opportunities, trying to look at what the company's going to look like in 10 years. I think that's always got to be thinking. So many times in strategy, say, how do you know it's going to be happening in 10 years? Well, reality is you've got to put a plan in

and make it happen, not just wait.

Daniel O'Connor (34:35)
Totally. 100%.

Dustin Olsen (34:36)
Absolutely. Well, Robert, it was great having you here on the show with us and sharing bit about your family history, but also your perspective of the industry as it is today. We like to ask everyone, where can others find you so they can reach out? It sounds like LinkedIn's a pretty open place. Is there anywhere else?

Robert Bunting (34:50)
Yep. Yep.

know, LinkedIn is, you can find my emails if you want to have me to spam go to it. But we've got our two websites buntingmagnetics.com and magnetapplications.com. So that separates us into the equipment side of the business and the magnet side of the business. know, but I'm out there. I do want to turn this and say thanks to you guys. I think the more,

more the more education that comes out about magnets, the better. This has been an area where, as we said, I don't think everybody got talked about. All of a sudden I went from a job that was, yeah, yeah, yeah, he works at a magnet company to, oh, you're in the rare earths you mean. You're in the neodymium. People saying the words that never were out there. it's good and bad to have a little bit of publicity.

Dustin Olsen (35:37)
go. Yes, we're glad that you're willing to be here to share that and we hope to have you again on the show to get an update on how things progress. We think you're primed for a lot of success ahead.

Robert Bunting (35:44)
Great. Great.

Daniel O'Connor (35:50)
Definitely.

Robert Bunting (35:51)
Thank you.