How Technology Changed Manufacturing and the Workplace…Forever!
On the morning of January 8, 2025, Leadership Greater Nashua set out on a journey through time, learning about how technology and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has transformed two of Nashua’s more established family-owned manufacturing companies and one global technology company over the past 30 years or so. Technology has reshaped manufacturing by evolving it from a labor-intensive industry into a highly efficient, innovative, and often digitally driven space. These changes have affected processes and workforce dynamics as well as revenue streams and the overall broader business landscape. We have also seen how the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated this transformation and caused the workplace to go remote.
Our first stop was Ripano Stoneworks where we saw our dream kitchens and met the current owner/operator of the company, Matthew Laliberte, whose father started the business back in 1987. We learned on our tour of the warehouse and showroom that the templates designed to be used in cutting the slabs for fabricating countertops had to be manually measured and drawn on each slab before they could be cut. Customers were tasked with traveling to the business’s warehouse to approve the designs before the cutting process could begin. Fast forward to today, with the innovation of industry specific design software, templates can now be created in minutes on a tablet with pinpoint accuracy using laser templating systems without having to remove existing counters. Digital 3D layouts can easily be emailed to customers to review from the comfort of their own home for approval. The templates are loaded into computerized cutting and edging machines (yes, they have a robot!) to finish the job and move onto installation all within a week’s time. Matt noted the next opportunity for innovation will likely involve the delivery and installation step of the process.
Next, we visited and toured the WH Bagshaw Company. Formed in 1870 in Lowell, MA with a later move to Nashua in 1949, the company is the oldest pin manufacturer in America. We met with Aaron Bagshaw, the fifth-generation leader of the organization, his wife, Adria, who serves as their VP, and Patrick Harvey, the company’s Director of Sales. The company used a labor and time intensive, age-old technology that dates to Leonardo Davinci’s methods of using stone grinder machines to sharpen thick wire cables into pins. They were extremely popular for use in talking machines (phonographs); the company received ONE order for 1,750,000,000 needles, and one newspaper considered it the single largest order on the face of the earth for talking machine needles. Aaron told us, whether jokingly or not, their needles were considered to have “possibly started the disposable
economy” because of a note they put on the back of each tin – ‘use each needle once only’. As we have come into the modern day there has been increased competition, especially overseas, regarding cost. This has led the company to innovate, adopt modern technology, and invest in their rapidly growing Swiss CNC machining department to provide precision components for companies in the medical, aerospace, defense and other high-tech industries. Now, instead of those grinder machines you can see there over thirty Swiss CNC machines making highly precise, intricate, and custom components line the manufacturing floor.
As part of our visit to the WH Bagshaw Company, Patrick and Adria gave us a peak at the Walter Bat Company and its training center, a new venture for the Bagshaw’s inspired by their passion for baseball and entrepreneurship and named after the WH Bagshaw Company’s founder, Walter H Bagshaw. The company’s logo is Walter’s signature, which the Bagshaws found on a document dating back to 1879. At the training center, you are greeted at the entrance with three words: Community, Mentorship, and Accountability, very much in line with the space they’ve created for youth, young adults, and their coaches to come together to work out, practice, socialize, and be safe. We were all itching to get in the batting cage and hit some balls after this one!
Our last stop for the morning session was at Oracle, a global leader in cloud applications, database, and AI technologies. The company rooted itself in Nashua in the early 1990s when it bought a division of Digital Equipment Corporation, who once was one of New Hampshire’s largest employers until the company (Digital Equipment Corporation) failed to capitalize multiple times on the booming PC market. We met with Eric Carlson, an alum of LGN ’12 and the Senior Building Site Manager for Oracle. He has been with the company since 1999, and brought us on a tour of the facilities, including various data centers, workspaces, cafeteria, game room/lounge, and gym. He described to us the pre-Covid days when the office was bustling with hundreds of employees to the post-Covid, current day where in-office workers are a thing of the not-so-distant past. Many of the spaces are now eerily quiet, still, and dark. The company now uses fully remote and hybrid workers with no current plans to go back soon unless productivity and innovation begin to decline. We also met Roy Swonger, VP of Database Upgrade, Patching, and Utilities. Roy gave us a presentation as we enjoyed our delicious lunch from Texas Roadhouse about the history of Digital Equipment Corporation’s rise and fall during the 80s and 90s and how Oracle came to acquire it and transform the way databases are used today. He also described and demonstrated several types of artificial intelligence available today, showed its ability to reference historical commands and site sources by others, and explained the various legal implications that may apply to the real-world use of the technology.
Overall, this was an extremely interesting, fun, and informative session that I know many of my cohorts thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you for reading!
Written By: Jason Rifkin
Putting Conscious Leadership Into Action
Dr. Cynthia Whitaker, Psyd. MLADC
On Campus at Rivier University, January 8, 2025
Our leadership session today began in an unexpected but powerful way – with mindfulness. As we settled into our chairs, Cynthia guided us through a breathing exercise that would set the tone for our entire afternoon. With our feet planted firmly on the floor, we each were asked to either close our eyes or find a gentle focal point on the wall. The simple act of conscious breathing, feeling its rhythm around our hearts, and reflecting on gratitude brought a deep sense of peace to the room. We slowly breathed to the count of five but were prompted to not let that counting interrupt the true purpose of this exercise. While some of the group admitted struggling to fully relax in the silence, Cynthia encouraged us to embrace these quiet moments more often in our daily lives. I absolutely loved this exercise as almost a reset and it certainly set the tone for the afternoon. I appreciated this break to reconnect with my inner self even though I was among a room of people.
We then explored Daniel Kolb’s book topics on the Experiential Learning framework, which outlines four essential phases: Experience, Reflection, Conceptualization, and Active Experimentation. Cynthia spoke about how we were going to put this into practice this afternoon by using each of these topics in our exercise.
Returning to our August worksheets with Cynthia reminded us about the two exercises we completed at the retreat. First, we revised the Micro and Macro of Conscious Leadership by a reminder of how demands sometimes can outweigh our resources which puts us into an anxious, self-doubt and reactive state. When resources exceed demands, we move into an upward stream of purpose, inspiration, and creativity. This was a great reminder for me as I remembered it from August and it spoke to me at that point. Cynthia asked the room for feedback on how we put this into practice since the August session. Some said they were unaware that they had put it into practice but after they thought about it, they knew they had made some small changes.
We spoke about vulnerability and how, as leaders, we should be embracing this to reveal our true genuine selves. It was discussed that sometimes this is difficult in a work setting but something that we need to get comfortable with if we want our team to be comfortable with it. Someone mentioned that we can’t expect our team to act in a certain way if we ourselves aren’t willing to be there as well. That really resonated with me as I have to be mindful of perceptions of my role but not who I am as a person.
We discussed Brené Brown’s Brave Leadership framework, focusing on her four key elements:
- Rumbling with our vulnerability
- Living into our values
- Braving Trust
- Learning to Rise
By using the four elements of the Brave Leadership Framework, we broke out into smaller groups of 3 or 4 people where we collaborated to identify five headlines that captured what brave leadership means to us, then illustrated these concepts. My partner and I decided on a nature drawing, focusing on a beautiful sun that depicted the beauty of being real, feeling vulnerable, and how the sun works together and shines its light on all things. I have to say I was initially concerned about how we would draw such words as vulnerability and trust. As we joked during the exercise, we both eased and felt it was a fun exercise. Each group shared their words and drawings, and we were asked to provide two positive things we liked about each presentation. This helped us feel like there were a least a few good things that people saw in our exercise.
Next, we were given envelopes by Alyssa and asked to not open them yet … once everyone received their own handwritten note; we opened them. We had written a note to ourselves in August about what we wanted to accomplish by joining LGN. I had forgotten what I wrote but when I opened it, I was reminded of the connections I wanted to make and felt that I had most certainly made headway in that area. I love these sorts of flashbacks, it reminded me of how I was feeling when I wrote that and how uneasy I was at the start of LGN. I had come a long way and my note to myself was a reminder of that.
We concluded our day by working on the LGN 25 Group Project. The Event Committee (my committee) discussed our focus events, starting from a small event and building to the final big event. We agreed to a fundraising goal of $15,000 to benefit the Nashua Soup Kitchen, planning to buy new tables, chairs, and a floor cleaner. The group will reconvene next Wednesday along with having a holiday party at a local brewery.
One big takeaway for me this session was when Cynthia said “True collaboration is recognizing you can do it better together.” This perfectly summed up our afternoon of truly collaborative work.
Written By: Jennifer Colangelo
