ACE helps manufacturing companies find talent internally

August 21, 2025 – For four years, Greg Bloom has been a part of the production at Coldspring.

The company operates 30 quarries across the United States and Canada.

At their Minnesota headquarters in a small town called Cold Spring, Greg runs a polishing machine.

His job includes programming the machine so it can pick up stone heads and polish various parts of their products.

“I moved here and needed a job,” he said. “I came in here, did a tour, did an interview and got the job.”

Greg became part of a workforce of about 750 employees.

Like many other manufacturing companies, Coldspring has been searching for ways to get machining talent. For them, that’s meant looking to their own staff – like Greg.

“In large part, our workforce involved with our CNC machining is built from the inside,” said Josh Reitmeier, director of operations. “We’ve also been engaged in outside resources that help us with that, including the America’s Cutting Edge program at St. Cloud State University.”

The relationship with St. Cloud was already established through a local industry advisory board. When the pitch about the ACE program was made, Coldspring volunteered to try it out as a training option.

“I was the one who raised my hand and said we’ll take a shot at this,” said Josh.

In the fall of 2024, St. Cloud State University did their first training with Coldspring as a trial run – in essence, to see if it would be a good fit for the company and its needs.

Dan Weeres, a CNC technician at Coldspring who has spent the last decade in their CNC department, was the veteran they turned to for an honest evaluation of the program.

After the bootcamp, the choice was clear.

“It was pretty evident it was going to be a good program,” he said.

Coldspring decided the investment of employees’ time into a week-long bootcamp was worth it.

As an added bonus, Coldspring hasn’t needed to worry about paying for employee travel. St. Cloud has a 56 by 21 foot mobile trailer they’ve taken to Coldspring’s parking lot to do ACE training.

Participants enjoy all the training amenities they would get at any other brick-and-mortar training site – including a three-axis mill and classroom.

Greg joined a cohort of others during a training in April.

“ACE gets your mind going,” he said. “Everything is going to be faster and more precise, giving us more opportunities to do more intricate work with machines.”

“With the ACE program itself, learning a CNC – that opens up a lot more doors,” said Jacob Treptau, who also works on the polish line. “As of now, I can get onto three other lines just learning the CNC versus other machines that don’t require it. That alone makes you more versatile.”

“There’s a bunch of different benefits to having the trailer come right to our site,” added Josh. “Employees don’t have to go to some place they’ve never been. It becomes very convenient for them. From our perspective, it makes it a much more productive process.”

ACE has become a logical route for building machinists from the inside. With consistent machining interest from employees, the program is helping bridge the gap between that interest and getting the skills needed to become a machinist.

“I’ve seen people come over and be interested in how the machines work,” said Dan. “Those are the people I would like to see go through the program. If that’s what they’re going to enjoy and be good at, then I want them to experience that.”

One of those people is Cody Darnall.

Cody has worked at Coldspring for about nine years. The first 8.5 years were spent on the granite side of the operation, but he more recently transitioned to the company’s bronze foundry.

The transition came after a position opened for a CNC operator and programmer. It was an opportunity he didn’t want to pass up.

He says he’s been learning in the new role every day, but the ACE training he went through last fall was a huge boost to his skillset.

“I was just beginning in the CNC programming part of it, so it really helped me just get the basic knowledge of setting stone up, setting metal up, the touch offs, the actual programming of the piece – it really helped a lot.”

The success Coldspring has found with Cody is something they look to replicate in the future as they continue to put employees through the program.

For them, it’s an easy win that doesn’t cost them any money – only a bit of time investment into folks who are genuinely interested.

“It’s a no-brainer,” said Josh. “This is so unique, it would have been impossible for us to dream this up. This feels like something everybody could benefit from.”

Coldspring isn’t alone in using ACE to find talent internally.

North Texas company Mayday Manufacturing has also been sending cohorts through the training with the University of North Texas.

“What ACE has done for us is give a leg-up to their training and accelerate their exposure,” said Craig Barhorst, Mayday Manufacturing director of operations. “We see it as beneficial for our new machinists or those who show promise to become machinists.”

Click here to register for an ACE online course. Find a training site near you here.