For Bob Wietecha, machining was never just a job. It’s a way of life – one built around metal, machines and the satisfaction of watching an idea become a finished part.
Wietecha grew up in International Falls, Minnesota, and graduated from high school in 1954. He knew early on that he wanted to work with his hands after a high school shop class introduced him to metalworking. He remembers, “I thought it was interesting. I remember saying to myself, ‘Maybe I can do something with that.’”
So, he headed to Minneapolis to attend Dunwoody College of Technology, where he studied toolmaking. The timing wasn’t ideal: when he graduated, the job market was dead. Wietecha, though, had a skill he could put to work, and that was enough.
“I took what I knew to make money,” he said. “Been making parts ever since.”
That decision would become the foundation of a career spanning decades.
Learning the Craft
Wietecha’s early work included machine shops and a six-year stint at Honeywell, where he worked in a technical lab alongside engineers. The experience broadened his understanding of machining beyond simply making parts.
He found himself building models and doing wind-tunnel work for engineers, often working off of ideas rather than conventional prints. It was an environment where he could experiment, solve problems and see how his work contributed to something larger.
But what kept drawing him back was the material itself.
“I love working with metal,” Wietecha said. “Seeing things come out how they’re supposed to. Do a good job, and it comes out the same every time.”
That simple philosophy has followed him throughout his entire working life.
Finding His Way to Airmo
Wietecha’s connection to Airmo began through Honeywell, where he met George Smida. At the time, Smida and his father were running Airmo out of their garage. The company was doing a variety of work, including projects for Super Radiator Coils, and Smida wanted to keep the business going.
When Airmo moved into a facility in Blaine, Smida invited Wietecha to join him.
Some of the work at the time involved producing equipment for tube expansion. The existing approach relied on cast iron components and was, in Smida and Wietecha’s view, too slow. The team knew there had to be a more efficient process.
That mindset — looking at existing processes and wondering how they could be improved — became a recurring theme at Airmo.
Over the years, Wietecha worked on countless parts and projects, helping the company respond to customers who often came looking for new or different solutions. Airmo’s willingness to take on those challenges became part of what Wietecha believes has kept the company vital to its customers for eight decades.
From Manual Machines to CNC
When Wietecha first worked in machining, machines demanded a different kind of attention.
Manual lathes and mills required constant hands-on work. Operators set dimensions, measured parts and adjusted tools. Wietecha remembers using a “recipe box” of cards to keep track of the various setups.
The machines also showed their age.
One of his long-term machines eventually became so old that replacement repair parts were no longer available. “If my old machine could talk, it would say, ‘I’m tired,’” Wietecha recalled with a laugh.
Today, Airmo’s new CNC equipment can perform much of that repetitive work through programming. Once the correct dimensions and instructions are entered, the machine can repeatedly produce parts to the same specifications.
For Wietecha, the difference is striking.
“With the old manual machine, you had to stop and reset the size for every part,” he said. “Now, you program. Once it’s in there, it’s all the same.”
The technology has changed, but the fundamental goal has not: make a good part and make it correctly.
Wietecha has watched machining evolve from an era when much of the work depended on muscle and mechanical know-how to one increasingly shaped by electronics and computer-controlled equipment. With increasingly advanced technologies, Airmo has been able to work with new materials and implement new processes to provide unique system and tool solutions for higher pressure, specialized applications. As a result, the company has entered industries such as aerospace and space exploration.
Despite all of the novelty, some things have remained remarkably consistent.
“The design of the collets, it’s stayed the same over time,” said Wietecha. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
A Machinist's Eye for Detail
To Wietecha, being a machinist means caring about the part — not just operating the equipment that makes it.
His first job was making parts for a gyroscope on an old lathe. Later, he spent time as a manufacturing engineer. Through each experience, Wietecha developed an understanding of not just how to make something, but why it needed to be made a certain way.
That attention to detail also helped him adapt as machines became more sophisticated.
He jokes that young machinists should “go for the CNC jobs, if they can,” but his advice caries the perspective of someone who has watched the industry transform firsthand.
Manual machining used to mean grinding your own tools. It meant oil, smoke and constant measurement. Modern tooling and CNC equipment have made many processes cleaner, faster and more consistent.
But technology, Wietecha suggests, does not replace the importance of caring about the work.
Relationships That Last
Perhaps the most meaningful part of Wietecha’s Airmo story isn’t any particular machine. It is the people — and the relationships that have endured.
He points to Airmo’s ability to keep customers as one of the keys to the company’s longevity. “Customers return because they know the company will work with them when their needs change,” he remarked.
That philosophy has produced business relationships that stretch across decades.
For Wietecha, those lasting connections are among the things that stand out most from his years with the company.
But there is another reason he has stayed connected to Airmo: he simply enjoys the work.
He has retired before. In 1991, following a quadruple bypass operation, he stepped away from machining altogether. But he kept in touch with George Smida through a mutual friend from Honeywell. Years later, a breakfast invitation brought the two men back together, and Smida invited Wietecha back to Airmo.
He couldn’t stay away.
Today, Wietecha focuses on the smaller jobs and the things that machines cannot easily do. He still works with the equipment, still makes parts and still pays attention to whether those parts come out the way they are supposed to.
After all these years, the reason is remarkably straightforward.
“I enjoy the work,” he said. “A lot.”
