Ethan Escowitz, CEO & Founder of Arris Composites, shares common benefits and obstacles experienced in the additive manufacturing industry.
Danny:
Well hello, and welcome to today's IndustrialSage Executive Series. Today I am interviewing Ethan Escowitz who is the CEO and founder of Arris Composites located all the way out in California. Ethan, thank you so much for joining me today on the Executive Series.

Ethan:
Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me, Danny.

Danny:
Well, I'm looking forward to this and jumping into this episode. So for those who aren't familiar with Arris Composites, we'll start there. What do you guys do?

Ethan:
So we make products—

Danny:
Okay, yes.

Ethan:
…broadly. So obviously composites are an important part of those products, and the continuous-fiber composites that we're able to produce have the highest strength-to-weight ratios, which is why they've been used so broadly in aerospace. But we've really enabled mass production of these methods that really started in these very high-performance applications for use everywhere in all kinds of different applications. And in addition to that, we can make complex products that not only have continuous-fiber composites but also other materials like metals or plastics or whatever is required for the particular functional requirements of a product.

Danny:
Okay, and just to set the scene here, how long have you guys been in business?

Ethan:
So we started in 2017, so we're going into our fourth year.

Danny:
Okay, excellent. So we're going to jump into a little bit more about Arris, what you guys do, some of the problems and challenges that you guys solve. But before we do that, I want to do a deep-dive into Ethan, and I want to get to know you a little bit more and for our audience to get to know you a little bit more. Tell me, how did you get in the industry?

Ethan:
So I had been in the traditional manufacturing technologies that produce most of the products that surround us every day, the molding and casting and machining and stamping and things. And in around 2009, I started working with my first company that was involved in 3D printing, and that's when I became enamored with the technology. And really, since then I've worked with plastic 3D printing companies, metal, composite, both private as well as working with commercializing 3D printing or additive molding technologies that developed at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and finding commercial applications for those. So really the broad additive manufacturing space is where I've spent the last 10 years. And that's really, those two aspects of my background in manufacturing, the conventional technologies and then this new, advanced manufacturing really specifically additive manufacturing and 3D printing is where I've spent the last decade.

Danny:
So how did you get into that before that? Was that something that you-- were you predisposed to the industry in school or before that? Tell me that story.

Ethan:
So I had a geology degree, so the mechanical and materials world that I am in was not really specifically what my training was. I actually shifted from mechanical when I was in school to geology. And I ended up working at Ricoh, a printer manufacturer, and really through that was first exposed to biz dev and technical products. And then I got a lot more interested in the product design and manufacturing world and that's where I started getting exposed to a lot of the different manufacturing technologies and the ways that you might make any product. And it was really through seeing the important interaction between product design and manufacturing technologies that I got really interested in how y...