This week's podcast spotlight shines a light on PML managing partner, Aaron Moncur - founder of Pipeline Design and Engineering and host of the Being an Engineer podcast for six years and 340-plus episodes. This time the mic flips: Mike Romance, a guest from a month earlier, interviews Aaron on the record for the first time in the show's history. The question underneath everything: how does a laid-off medical device engineer with three kids and a new mortgage end up running an engineering firm, a podcast, an online community, and a trade show - on purpose, without a plan for any of it going in?
I remember going home and telling my wife at the time, who was pregnant, and we just bought our first house, that I had just lost our only source of income... leaning up against the side of our bedroom door, talking to her about this, and just feeling like trash.
In this episode:
Why getting laid off during the 2008 recession and feeling like trash about it turned out to be the best break Aaron never asked for
The "fake it till you make it" advice from a mentor that got Pipeline its first cold-called clients, with zero prior sales experience
How two full-blown automated test machines, originally quoted at ten weeks, got built in eleven - without a single manager stepping in to check on anyone
Why "we manage by invitation, not compulsion" isn't a poster on the wall - it's the operating principle behind Pipeline's highest-stakes project to date
What it actually took to build PDX from zero, including the event planners who told his own integrator it couldn't be done
Bonus Content:
The story behind Gorilla Glass
Aaron Moncur has spent six years asking other engineers questions on the Being an Engineer podcast - 340-plus episodes in, this is the first one about him. Mike Romance, a past guest, flips the format and interviews Aaron on what actually built Pipeline Design and Engineering: the 2009 layoff that pushed him out of corporate medical device work, the summer he decided to "hang his shingle," and the cold-calling sprint that filled his calendar for years without another round of sales. He covers the father-in-law conversation that reframed his entire outlook on engineering as a career, the mechanics of "fake it till you make it," the ten-week automated-machine project the whole team volunteered for without being asked, and why Pipeline now runs a podcast, an online community, a trade show, and a weekly CAD mentorship program alongside its core engineering services. For anyone building something on their own timeline, this is the origin story with the parts usually left out.
>If YouTube isn’t your thing, check out this episode and all of our past episodes on Apple, Spotify, and all the rest.
📣 PDX 2026 - Built on a Different Psychology
Most trade shows are built around exposure. PDX is built around trust.
There's a reason engineers walk past 90% of booths without stopping and it has nothing to do with your product. Salesperson avoidance is a documented behavioral response. Engineers are trained skeptics. A three-minute pitch from someone with a financial interest in your decision is, in their framework, weak evidence.
PDX changes the format. Exhibitors run short, hands-on training sessions at their booths throughout the day. Engineers arrive in learning mode, not avoidance mode. The psychological contract is completely different and so are the conversations.
From exhibitors who were there in 2025:
"The training session brought us attention and gave us a commitment from the attendees to spend more than a few minutes at the booth." - Trimech
"The small group conversations made for better engagement than simply standing in front of a booth watching people walk by." - Spanner
"Our team connected with the exact people we're building for - manufacturing leads, heads of ops, mechanical engineers." - Quarter20
PDX 2026 - October 20–21 · Mesa Convention Center · Arizona
Booth selection is first come, first served. Many are already reserved.
Contact us using the link below or register directly on our website
The Team Said Yes Before Aaron Finished Asking
Pipeline had two ground-up automated test machines to build - full motion control, vision systems, pneumatics, complete controls - on a ten-week timeline that, in Aaron's words, "for anyone familiar with automation, that's insane." The company was slow at the time and needed the work. It also needed nights and weekends from a team that hadn't signed up for that when they took the job.
Aaron didn't mandate it. He put the choice in front of everyone directly.
What do you guys think? This is what it's going to require. If you're willing to sign up for this, we'll do it. If you're not, we'll say no.
Nobody hesitated. "Without dropping a beat, the whole team was like, we're in. Let's do this." They finished in roughly eleven weeks - not one manager ever had to step in and tell anyone they weren't working hard enough, because nobody was managing the effort. The team had already enrolled itself. When the project closed, Aaron split a share of the profit back to everyone who'd put in the extra hours, on top of their regular pay.
That's the mechanism behind "manage by invitation, not compulsion" in practice, not as a slogan: name the ask precisely, make no participation the real option, and let people opt in with full information.
Your Session is Over, Now What?
Corning solved the chemistry behind Gorilla Glass in 1962 — and then didn't ship it for 43 years, because nobody wanted it. When Steve Jobs gave Corning six weeks to put glass on the iPhone, the fix wasn't new science. It was two engineers who correctly diagnosed the problem as a manufacturing constraint, not a chemistry problem.
Read the full article on The Wave.
When Your Machine Shop Says No
Last year, a customer couldn't find a shop willing to make their part. Difficult material, tight tolerances, small quantity.
We tested our internal supply chain. Made the parts ourselves. Sent them as a surprise.
They worked perfectly. That customer has ordered hundreds more since.
Now available: custom machined parts with Pipeline engineering oversight, pricing that outperforms domestic shops, and the same supply chain we trust for our own work.
Want to learn more? Contact us at the link below: