Home and Work
By Andrew D. Brosig/The Girard Press
Dustin Spieth poses Thursday with a replica Fender Telecaster — and the computer program used to build the body in the background — in his home office at Crawford State Park north of Farlington. Spieth, a technical support and training specialst, said he's turned down several job offers, but finally accepted one that will allow him to telecommute and stay where he is near his family and the Southeast Kansas lifestyle he enjoys. (Andrew D. Brosig/The Girard Press)
Girard Press
Wed Sep 03, 2008, 10:56 AM CDT
FARLINGTON -
FARLINGTON — Putting family before career may have slowed Dustin Spieth down but it hasn’t stopped him.
“I’ve had about three different job offers to move to Florida,” said Spieth, 37. “But, I won’t do it.
“They wanted me to move, but I wouldn’t because my kids are here. This is my lifestyle. This is where I’ve chosen to be.”
Spieth is fortunate, in that his chosen career allows him to that luxury. For the past two years, he’s worked as a freelance technical support and training specialist for Mastercam, a Tolland, Conn., based company that designs software used by computerized numeric control (CNC) milling machines for a variety of manufacturing applications.
Starting this week, Spieth goes on the payroll as a full-time employee for Mastercam. He’s now one of two technical support specialists for the company. Every day now, he’ll finish his morning coffee and head out to his “office,” a converted shed behind his home just a stones-throw away from the shores of Farlington Lake.
It’s an opportunity that couldn’t have been made-to-order in his wildest dreams.
A 1990 Girard High School graduate, Spieth wasn’t the typical “computer nerd” in school, he said. He had an aptitude for mathematics, but it wasn’t his favorite subject.
“Science was more my favorite subject,” he said. “But I was good at math.
“I can remember one time, sitting in math class, plotting points on a grid and thinking, ‘What am I ever going to use this for?’ Well, this is what I use it for. CNC programming is really nothing more than plotting points on a grid.”
Sounds simple? Well, that’s just the most basic description of what Spieth does. CNC machines are used to create parts in a wide variety of industries, from aerospace to woodworking.
If Spieth can envision it, chances are good he can write the program to have a machine manufacture it. Over and over again, without fail.
And that’s the biggest benefit to CNC manufacturing, Spieth said. The repeatability. Once a lathe, boring machine or other piece of equipment has been programmed to create something from raw piece of wood, metal or plastic, it will make the same part, every time you ask it to.
“The repeatability of it makes it good for manufacturing,” Spieth said. “It doesn’t really take away jobs.
“What it does is take away the menial tasks of manufacturing and lets people focus on the craft of making things. It takes away the monotony of the jobs.”
Spieth got his start in the industry in the woodshop at Pittsburg-based Pitsco. He quickly moved into the CNC division when tests revealed he had the necessary talents for the job.
He quickly was promoted from running the machines to programming the machines.
He stayed at Pitsco for seven years. Following short stints with a couple of other Southeast Kansas manufacturing firms, Spieth was hired on at Depco, where he helped convert the manufacturing to CNC.
He, again, quickly rose through the ranks until he was promoted to manufacturing specialist, providing technical support and training for schools training future generations in the art of CNC manufacturing. It was while working at Depco, Spieth received a call for help that would turn out to be one of the strangest projects he ever worked on.
To this day, Spieth isn’t sure exactly who he was working for. He was training staff at an unnamed aerospace company in Tulsa, Okla., when he was told another, unnamed company needed help making a specific part for — something.
“It was kind of cloak-and-dagger,” Spieth said. “All I was told was we needed to machine this part.
“We tried it one way and was told it wouldn’t work because it would interfere with another part. I asked, ‘What do I have to work around?’ I was told, ‘Well, we can’t tell you.’”
He still can’t talk in any detail about the companies involved or exactly what he was asked to make. But he did get an inkling of an idea later on, while following the launch of SpaceshipOne, the first private-venture aircraft to attempt to leave the Earth’s and enter space in 2004.
“I can say that one of the pieces on SpaceshipOne looked familiar,” he said. “One of the pieces that was on that plane looked very familiar.”
Not all his work is that mysterious. He also remembers another call, this time from a more Earthly source.
The lead mechanic for the monster truck Grave Digger was having trouble machining a critical part just hours before the truck was scheduled to perform in a show. He called Mastercam, was routed to Spieth and, together, they got the part made and the truck repaired in time for the show.
“That’s what I love about this job,” Spieth said. “Every day is different.
“I mainly focus on education, but I do get pulled into the industry sometimes, especially with my industry background. I’ve worked with and milled just about every type of material out there.”
His days now are spent mostly in cyberspace, connected via the Internet with teachers and, sometimes, students as they try to work their way through CNC projects in a classroom setting somewhere in the country. When he’s not on the computer at home, he’s on the road, teaching teachers the processes of CNC manufacturing they share with their students.
“High schools, middle schools, colleges, technical schools — it could be anywhere from sixth grade to five years senior in college,” Spieth said. “If they have an issue with (the software) not running, they call in and get the call transferred to me. If they’re trying to do a project and couldn’t get it to work, I’ll help them work through the project.”
Telecommuting in this way is quickly becoming the wave of the future, Spieth said. Numerous other companies are embracing the use of the Internet and connectivity technology to provide support and training for their customers.
“If you don’t have to physically be in the office, I think this is where we’re going,” he said. “And they’re developing more and better technology all the time.”
And Spieth doesn’t miss not having to fight the traffic and the hustle-and-bustle of city living. He’s happier, he said, right where he is.
“I’ve been all over, to New York, Chicago, Seattle,” he said. “To me, there’s just nothing to do.
“Here, it’s a slower pace, but I’m always doing something. I’m involved with the volunteer fire department and the Friends of the Lake group out here.”
It’s that slower pace and more relaxed lifestyle that keeps him in southeast Kansas.
“If you need help, you can find somebody to help you,” Spieth said. “You don’t get that in the cities.
“I don’t want my kids growing up in a big city, being robots. I’d like them to be exposed to this lifestyle. There’s always something to do here.”
Girard, KS Yellow Pages
Find whatever you're looking for
with the Totally Local Yellow Pages:
with the Totally Local Yellow Pages:
Search provided by Premier Guide
Original content available for non-commercial use
under a Creative Commons license,
except where noted.
under a Creative Commons license,
except where noted.
Copyright © 2006–2009 GateHouse Media, Inc. Some Rights Reserved.
