Nolan Edwards on Building Circuit Boards Under One Roof in Louisiana

Carl Holden:0:01
Welcome to the What's Made in the USA podcast that celebrates people, companies, and ideas that behind are American manufacturing. I'm your host. Hold on. I messed that one up. We I gotta edit or redo this stuff. So if you mess anything up, you just say, hey, that didn't come out right. Welcome to What's Made in the USA, the podcast that celebrates the people, companies, and ideas behind American manufacturing.

Nolan Edwards:0:20
Sounds good to me.

Carl Holden:0:30
I'm your host, Carl Holden. And on each episode, we meet the entrepreneurs, engineers, and skilled professionals who are building real products right here in the United States. Today I'm pleased to have Nolan Edwards of Pelican Engineering headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana. Let's get started. Welcome, Nolan. Thank you for being on today. We're really excited. I'd like to jump right in. So if you could please give us a top-level

Nolan Edwards:0:49
Hey, thanks for having me, Carl.

Carl Holden:0:58
overview of what you make or help America make at Pelican Engineering.

Nolan Edwards:1:05
Pelican Engineering is a product development and manufacturing firm here in Lafayette, Louisiana, like you said. The simplest way to put it, if a company has an idea for an electronic product or a product that's kind of stuck due to supply chain, we can design it, write firmware and software, manufacture it all under one roof. So that way the customer is not trying to juggle a separate design outfit, supply house, manufacturer testing.

Everybody pointing fingers at each other when something goes wrong. They get to deal with one team here where the manufacturing gets kind of engineered from day one.

Carl Holden:1:42
Okay, so we're talking I did a little bit of research. We're talking about s a lot of circuit boards, right? P C P C B is that the term? Okay.

Nolan Edwards:1:49
Yes, sir, that's correct. PCBs, PCBAs, circuit boards, people call them all sorts of different things.

Carl Holden:1:58
Gotcha. And so you're helping both design but also manufacture some of these products?

Nolan Edwards:2:04
Yep, we are kind of a turnkey solution. People people come to us for one or the other sometimes, but they really love that we can handle it from paper napkin concept all the way to high volume, you know, a hundred thousand boards a year for some customers.

Carl Holden:2:22
Okay, great. Well, first of all, I'd like to get to know a little bit more about your role at Pelican. what led you to this journey at Pelican and on what do you currently do with the company?

Nolan Edwards:2:34
So I'm currently director of business development at Pelican. I came up kind of through the engineering department, first as an intern doing technical work, then as a director of the engineering department, saw an opportunity to move into the sales and marketing side of things where I'm able to connect our customers with the ideal solution and kind of help them do that that way rather than just being stuck in the technical design world.

Carl Holden:3:04
Okay. And Al Pelican has been, I tried looking on the site. How long has Pelican been in business?

Nolan Edwards:3:11
Established in twenty fifteen, so almost eleven years now.

Carl Holden:3:15
Okay. That's awesome. That's awesome. and all of it is bas based out of all of the company is based out of Lafayette or do you have other facilities?

Nolan Edwards:3:26
Just Lafayette today.

Carl Holden:3:28
Okay, great. Now Mean. moved my questions here. how many people do y'all employ and what do you do to keep people engaged? Part of the reason I ask this is I believe in this effort to build things in the United States, the most critical asset we have are the people that help get it done. So we're really interested to know like the jobs that you're providing and how you as a company are working towards keeping those people engaged.

Nolan Edwards:4:03
Yeah, I mean you you hit the nail on the head that the people are the most important resource here. we have sixty really skilled people at Pelican. and that's everybody from engineering team, admin team, manufacturing technicians, shipping and receiving kind of across the board. I I think the biggest impact that we have the opportunity to make as a company is enabling people to say, I love Lafayette, Louisiana. I have family here, I love the culture here.

Or maybe they came to school here, they came to visit and they said, I wanna stay in this place, but I have this skill set that I didn't know I could even use here. That's my backstory is I went to school here, always thought I would end up in San Francisco, Dallas, Austin, somewhere that's a tech hub, and was just very fortunate to find the right mentors, the right group of people who were starting something new, and I can use what I'm really good at.

Right here at home. That's fantastic.

Carl Holden:5:06
Awesome. Now with all the people that you have, are they sourced mo locally? Do you are you finding that getting the right people means getting them from those other places? Or do you feel that the Southeast Lafayette is able to like get the types of people that you need?

Nolan Edwards:5:25
One of the fortunate things for the Lafayette area is that we have a huge, very high density oil field talent pool here. So we have a lot of people who come from working on downhold tools, working offshore, working to design rigs and advanced oil field tools. Those skills are really useful for what we do as well. It's a little bit of a different product, but the innovation and the design skills are just as valuable. So While we do definitely look for talent in other places and we have brought in people from other states as well, we have a great pool right here.

Carl Holden:6:04
In our pre call before this, I was told that you you do a lot with N Gas, but can you also tell us some of the other industries that you work with and some examples of the products that you built, obviously the ones you're allowed to talk about.

Nolan Edwards:6:19
Yeah. Yeah, you you mentioned oil and gas, absolutely. Big being down here in South Louisiana for sure, but we have a big presence in other industries. Things like medical products, things like sports and recreation, defense, aerospace, HVAC, all of those things are great fits for the kind of work that we do.

Carl Holden:6:42
Okay, awesome. Now, the last year or two has been kind of crazy for manufacturing with all of the tariffs and other things, and everybody has been having to adjust. do you plan on adding or adjusting what you do or what other growths do you have in this kind of new reality that we're looking at?

Nolan Edwards:7:07
Well, largely we got here so far by saying yes to our customers. So we originally started as design only and saying, you know, we'll we'll hand you the design files, you can get somebody else to make your product for you. And we just had so much pressure over the years from our customers to make us a prototype. Can you make us ten prototypes? What if we wanted to do a production run? And what started with used machines that we bought online turned into four big manufacturing lines that we run.

All day, every day. So we plan to kind of continue that culture of looking for gaps in the market, looking for places our customers are underserved. Maybe it's because they have to go overseas for it, and we say, well, we don't understand why you can't do that here. or maybe it's just nobody wants to say yes. People aren't innovating. So we kind of approach things from both of those directions. We we have a really big goal though that we're optimistic we're gonna hit that over the next decade.

We want to have a Pelican engineered product in every environment on Earth and beyond.

Carl Holden:8:12
Love that goal. That's awesome. kind of like a a way to to show the the total impact of what y'all are doing. And there's so much electronics, which has became a really big problem back in COVID where we weren't able to just get some of these chips. Now computer chips and circuit boards, people have to understand, are very different pieces of electronics, correct? And you're not making computer chips like Nvidia.

Nolan Edwards:8:37
Yep. Yeah.

Carl Holden:8:42
You're making circuit boards that may contain computer chips, but these are specific customized pieces of equipment that do a specific electronic task, correct?

Nolan Edwards:8:53
That's perfectly accurate. so people a lot of times they think of the big innovation that's going on with chip factories and AI data centers and things like that. All super important, super impressive technology. None of it works without a board that those chips go on that's custom made for that application. I mean you can think of your air conditioner, right? You've got a thermostat that controls it. Inside that thermostat, there's a circuit board that's got chips on it that's programmed to do specific things. Some of are really smart. They've got Wi Fi and Bluetooth and other things. Some of are just look at temperature, open a relay.

Carl Holden:9:32
Yeah, I I funny enough I my dad is an electrical engineer, so I grew up with a bunch of like little circuit boards around the house. And so I'm very familiar with them. I would see my father solder things. He still does to this day. He's a a ham radio enthusiast and you'll still find circuit boards just kind of sitting around the house. Drives my mom nuts.

Nolan Edwards:9:37
Awesome. Mm-hmm.

Nolan Edwards:9:49
Mm-hmm.

Carl Holden:9:55
but he's very much a tinkerer and I always found it magical what a he was able to plug in and make a thing do something or light something up. It it was always fun.

Nolan Edwards:10:00
Yes.

Nolan Edwards:10:06
Well, I can tell you that he's never gonna change.

Carl Holden:10:10
Awesome. What would you say? Now this isn't a s hopefully not too hard of a question, but what do you feel right now is a major hindrance to the growth of your business?

Nolan Edwards:10:21
Well, you mentioned a few challenges already that that we've run into kind of like a lot of other firms. Supply chain during COVID was a big one. supply chain during AI data center growth is one right now, but we're equipped well to handle that just because of our engineering capabilities. Most other manufacturers are gonna turn around and say, Hey, we can't get the chips to make your board for another two years or maybe longer. And that's it. That's kind of the end of the conversation. We can come back and say, Hey, there's a supply chain problem with your board right now. we can handle the redesign. In fact, we've already made a bunch of progress on it. Just keeping you apprised of the situation. No impact to you. so that's one set of hindrances, but I'd say on on kind of a business side, I think our biggest hurdle is exposure. we do really difficult, high reliability work, but most of our best relationships have been word of mouth referrals and the trust kind of is attached to the individual engineers more so than the company name. Now that's something that's growing and building over time just as we we build our reputation, but kind of making that transition from this word of mouth, very connection based growth into a reputation based, outreach based, inbound based thing has been one of our big initiatives right now.

Carl Holden:11:47
Okay. Now take take us a little bit through if you can, like what it looks like to onboard a customer, go through what they're needing, kind of quote that out, prototype, like can you go kind of go through what the general process is and what you make?

Nolan Edwards:12:05
Yeah. I'll give you the typical engineering answer of it depends, but I'll kind of break down a general case for you that a customer comes to us and they describe a problem. They tell us, Hey, I'm I'm trying to address this need in my market. I have an idea. They might come to us and say, Hey, I have a product, but I can't make it anymore because something's obsolete. And so we can take a look holistically at what problems are you really trying to solve?

With this product, what does it do? Where does it go? What environment is it in? How much does it need to cost? How much, how much does the design need to cost? And kind of run through that discovery. And then once we have a good picture of where something's going and what the customer needs it to do, we can provide them a great proposal that walks them through here's how we envision this solution working, and here's our plan for how to get it to you in the timeline that you need it.

Carl Holden:13:01
And then as far as making these things, do you have relationships that end up being like you're the provider or do they eventually bring the manufacturing in-house? What does that look like?

Nolan Edwards:13:15
It depends on the the scope and scale of the product. The vast majority of customers that we end up dealing with are not in and of themselves like product manufacturers, right? They are experts in their field. They're providing a service to their customers. They need a product in order to provide that service, and that's where we come in. But it's they're not really interested a lot of times in building a manufacturing capability and especially not the very in-depth portion of it that we do here where you're running complex machines, you've got tight process control, you're running this continuous improvement on everything. What we do is a thing that you would go on YouTube and say, I think I can buy a machine and do that. And in large part that's not incorrect, but People most of the time say, I don't want to have to be an expert in, you know, solder paste application, in part placement, in optical inspection, in reflow profiling. People say, I want to be an expert in artificial lift for the oil field, and I need a controller that can help me do that. I want to be an expert in pool c declorination. And so I need to have a product that helps me do that.

How they achieve that is kind of, you know, not important to them.

Carl Holden:14:45
Okay, awesome. Now, of course, this is a podcast about making things in the the USA, which is great. The issue is if we all continue to make things in the US, your main competitors might become other companies in the US as that moves onshore. What do you feel is your competitive advantage against those who are like onshore manufacturers and what what do you prioritize that you feel is is sets you apart from? that, you know, more level playing field 'cause overseas and all that other stuff, you've got other things. But what do you believe the Pelican does that really sets it apart?

Nolan Edwards:15:25
I'll I'll answer this kind of in two ways. First of all by saying that I don't think there is a huge risk of oversaturating the US market. I think there is there needs to be a continued push to bring manufacturing back to the US. for things like we do, i it's very interesting. They really didn't even start in the US.

There was always some US electronics manufacturing, but it was so defense based, so specialty application based that all the consumer products have always been made overseas. And so I try to look more less of I'm bringing it back to the US and more of I'm bringing it to the US for the first time. So the more companies that want to do that, the more market that we create here in the US for domestically manufactured products.

Carl Holden:15:59
Right.

Nolan Edwards:16:17
product, I think actually the more successful all the parties will be. Because what that means is we're improving the supply chain. We're inventing new ways for us to do things more efficiently. We're going to be competing with each other. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it gives the consumer more options and enables more innovation. So that's one side I kind of approach it from. The other side to maybe more directly answer your question, the the differentiators really

Carl Holden:16:41
Yeah.

Nolan Edwards:16:48
A few things. One is just turnkey in one facility, being able to offer the the real in-depth engineering plus manufacturing. There are there are definitely manufacturers out there that have engineering capacity. Most of the time that means that they have one or two engineers. We've got thirty and across a huge variety of backgrounds. So when you run into a problem with your design. we get somebody in who's just an expert at it. beyond the turnkey aspect though.

Carl Holden:17:19
Mm.

Nolan Edwards:17:25
We've actually found it's really rare to have direct engineer access. Most of the time when you're working with an engineering firm, you've got a project manager that you're talking to and when you need to dig in and find out, hey, why is this problem happening? How can we fix this? How can we add this new feature? You're like going into a portal and dropping something into a ticket system and you might hear back in a couple of weeks

Carl Holden:17:30
Mm.

Nolan Edwards:17:51
Here, I I don't think we're ever gonna change the fact that like you can pick up the phone and call the engineer working on your project on his cell phone and talk to him today. And for whatever reason, that's a thing that people have drifted away from and we just love the ability to communicate directly with our customers and solve problems then and there.

Carl Holden:18:12
Well, first of all, I loved your your answer number one of we actually just want more people to do this in the US. That's the exact attitude we should all be having is encourage innovation happening on American soil. And you you would love it sounds a w as a company to see more competitors and more people in this space because that's what we need as a country. So that's why I kind of goofily was smiling because I'm like, that's the kind of answers that we need to be talking about of like we need to see more companies doing what we do. But it also sounds like y'all have a great strategy that were that to be the case, that you've got a way to set yourself apart and and be competitive in the market.

Nolan Edwards:18:40
Mm-hmm.

Carl Holden:18:59
but i think we're all really wanting to just see competing more against those here rather than overseas because that that br brings the growth and the jobs that we've been talking about all this time and to communities across the United States. I think it's really interesting where the US is so big. We're we're like three or four different countries comparatively. And Lafayette, even though it's in the South,

Nolan Edwards:19:23
Mm-hmm.

Carl Holden:19:28
from where we are in Huntsville, Alabama, very different cultures, very different cities, very different economies. Here we have a lot of what you mentioned, the the industrial government

Nolan Edwards:19:32
Mm-hmm.

Carl Holden:19:40
manufacturing and and vehicles and we have we do build a lot of the overseas brand cars in Alabama and that's that's really important to us here. but that electronics and things, those are things funny enough, I've looked around. We don't have a whole lot of those and the few that do it are mostly just within government. It's just really interesting to see how it's different for everybody else.

But how we're all working towards this together. So we're really excited for Pelican Engineering for as really technically a young company as you are, and having accomplished as much as you have. So kudos to Pelican and making things in the US and helping others make them too. That's the really cool thing about Pelican is that you're actually helping kind of onshore and encouraging the manufacturing of production of products 'cause you may not make the plastic casing or the other stuff the larger product that this might go in, but you're bringing that part of it back to America and that's what we need.

Nolan Edwards:20:49
That's exactly right. And we tell our customers all the time, look, you own the design. You're free to take it to whatever place you want to manufacture it. We'd love to build a compelling reason for you to choose Pelican to do that. We think there's a lot in our favor for that because the engineer that made your product is like fifty feet away from the manufacturing team that's building it. You're not gonna get that when you bring it overseas. But if it makes economic sense for you to do so We don't wanna make it difficult for you to do that. A lot of firms do that. A lot of firms hold the IP, a lot of firms don't wanna help make those things happen. We want we just wanna make it easy for you to choose us. We don't wanna hold anything back.

Carl Holden:21:30
Well, we're we're glad to hear you're not listening to overly aggressive IP lawyers. So that the now we while we do want to protect what's made in the USA, we also want to allow that IP to be in the hands of those who can own it and move it forward rather than hindering other companies. So really appreciate that idea and that

Nolan Edwards:21:49
Yeah.

Nolan Edwards:21:55
Well after after maybe the third time that we worked with a company who said, I've got a great product, the engineer who designed it isn't here anymore, all I have are PDFs. Can you please help me? We just said, Look, we think it's really important that you have access to all the design that you paid for. Again, I think that's an uncommon thing, but I mean at the end of the day, I really don't I'm not interested in owning your product. I'm I'm not in your industry the way that you are.

Carl Holden:22:26
Awesome. That is great. Well, we really appreciate you sharing about Pelican with us today. I'd like to close out with a couple of personal questions specifically related to the United States and yourself. what is a favorite place that in the United States that you like to visit?

Nolan Edwards:22:44
I love Pensacola, Florida. I've got a lot of memories there. We've been going on family vacations for as long as I can remember to Pensacola. It's where I propose to my wife. It's like the most relaxing place I can go without being too remote. Y you can go to Montana or Utah or hunting in Alabama and be in the backwoods and everything, but I like a little bit of civilization as well. So it's got the right blend for me.

Carl Holden:23:13
Awesome. Yeah, we we go into Gulf Shores, which is nearby a lot, just south south of here. what is a childhood memory or younger adult memory of the United States that you hold dear?

Nolan Edwards:23:26
Hm. I've got an aunt who lives up in Washington DC, and I remember the first time going there, seeing just all the history, all the things I had read about in history textbooks and and heard lectures on, but being able to see everything from Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, the Capitol, the White House, and really take in the couple centuries of history that our very young nation has and how dense all of that is in just one place.

Carl Holden:24:01
Awesome. Now, if you could raise your voice to all the younger generation of our future US citizen professionals, the people who are coming up working in the labor force and who will one day potentially create companies too, what's something you would want them to know that you believe would help?

Nolan Edwards:24:20
Well, fortunately I think this is kind of built into the younger generations already, but I think it's so important that people stay curious, that people continue to learn for their whole lives. If I was stuck in my ways and didn't adopt AI and L LMs and and the new ways of doing things that we've all kind of learned or happening over the past couple of years, I'm pretty sure I'd be left in the dust pretty soon. And This won't be the last time that that type of paradigm shift happens. So having that commitment to always learning about new tools and new methods of doing things, I think, is just gonna be increasingly important.

Carl Holden:25:04
Yeah, I definitely believe in and continued education even after college, et cetera. And it looks like Pelican Engineering is the type of company that encourages its people because even circuit boards, there's innovations there, there's things you can improve there and bring that forward and and I appreciate your input and hopefully a young person hears that and and feels that people believe in them and that we

Nolan Edwards:25:27
Yes.

Carl Holden:25:32
are putting in their hands the the future. So thank you again so much for sharing Pelican Engineering today. This has been another episode of What's Made in the USA, where we featured Pelican Engineering of Lafayette, Louisiana, and how they make circuit boards and other electronics for businesses throughout the United States. Thank you so much, Nolan, for coming today.

Nolan Edwards:25:54
Thanks, Carl. Thank you for having me and great talking to you. Alrighty. You have a great day. You got it.

Carl Holden:25:59
Awesome.

Hold on, stay on with me.