Power Tool Showdown on The History Channel

Quick Announcement!

I'm excited to finally share the news that I was asked to be a part of the new series on the History Channel called, "The Machines That Built America: Power Tool Showdown".

https://play.history.com/shows/the-machines-that-built-america/season-1/episode-6

It's streaming now.

If you are a fan of power tools and are curious to know how Milwaukee Tool, Black and Decker, and DeWalt got their start, then this is a must-watch.

Transcript

0:03

Hello, everyone, thanks for tuning in. This is actually a special episode, it's more of an announcement on something I've been sitting on for a while. Over the summer, I was asked to be a part of a new series called the machines that built America, the power tool showdown, this was put on by the History Channel. And I've actually been a fan of this series, which started with, I think about seven or eight years ago, the men who built America, talking about Rockefeller, JP Morgan, kind of the titans of business. And then they had a spin off of that called the men who built America frontiersmen talks about Kit Carson, Daniel Boone, john C. Fremont. And most recently, they restarted the series about the food that built America going into, you know, the General Foods, cw post, and now they've they've, their latest series is called the machines that built America. And it's about I think it's six or seven episodes, it started with tractors, goes into airplanes, what other ones and, and ends up with power tools here. So I was honored to be asked to be a part of it. It's kind of one of these dramatization shows where you have actors, kind of kind of playing the part of these different, you know, notable characters in history. And then they have experts speaking on and helping tell the story about, you know, what they're doing, how they're, what they're inventing, how they are competing against each other, there's a narrator sprinkled in there as well. So, so I was able to get a few clips in there and, you know, help share the story. Few months, they gave me a couple months to kind of study up on some of these questions, many of which I did not know the answers or to or, I didn't know the answers to the extent that they needed in regards to some of the details. So for me, it was, it was a lot of fun doing the research really enlightening to kind of put, like I say, a person, a name a personality to, to these brands, which, you know, we've just come to know them as the Walt Milwaukee tool, Black and Decker. And, you know, these were named after people. Um, in Milwaukee's case, it was the age Peterson company, which, after his, after his factory burned down his his top salesperson to get over al Siebert and change the name to Milwaukee tool. They're based in Milwaukee, and they still are. But um, but yeah, then you've got Alonzo. Alonzo Decker, and Duncan black. And, of course, Black and Decker. And then a raid to Walt and his story with Paul Gardner. It's just all very fascinating. And again, it was a great opportunity to, to speak on this and learn from it and watch it. And even if I was involved in it, I'd find it very interesting. And if you are a fan of power tools, I believe that you'll you'll really find this really interesting as well, because it's just they don't only changed America, they these tools, these power tools, they change the world. And simple is simple, something as simple as the design of the drill as we know it the with the trigger that's similar to a gun. Well, that's actually how they were inspired by by working on a proposal for the Colt 45. They said, Why don't we apply this to a drill because the drills in those days were very heavy, you had to use two hands to hold it, use your chest to turn on and off. It just was very unwieldy, expensive, didn't work well. But if you put it into one hand, it was a game changer. And again, something we because we've been using this our whole lives take for granted, but you know, 100 years ago, it was not that easy. So so the stories are awesome. Again, great to be a part of the show. It is now streaming if you go to history, I think it's history.com or history channel.com you'll find it and I also have a link to it on tool crave calm, you'll find the episode streaming I believe it's episode six. And it's on Hulu. And yeah, again, super excited to be a part of this. I'm glad they got me to, to to be involved. I spent a day in a studio. It went really well. It was easy. They did like I said they they prepared me with a question before so that was that was again easy for me to kind of do my research and jump in there and do my thing but, but again, super excited to be a part of this and I hope you check out the show.