The Anvil & The Hammer: Reclaiming Rochester’s Forge

“To temper steel into a tool, one must wed fire to purpose, lay it upon the anvil of will, and strike with the hammer of resolve.”

Fire is transformation (the heat that makes raw ore pliable).
The anvil is endurance (the place where form is tested and refined).
The hammer is discipline (the force that gives shape to vision).

Rochester Made Means Quality

“Rochester made” once meant Quality made.
ASQ Rochester and GRQC are working to make that true again.
I suspect we may not see the return to glory of Eastman Kodak or Bausch and Lomb. However, this Greater Rochester Area will never stop striving for excellence. It is in our DNA. The beauty of the Finger Lakes is seen as clearly in the people as in the fall foliage. Our industries are as diverse as the color of autumn leaves. Knowledge, like our wine, can be both dry and sweet.

I enjoy the privilege of serving on ASQ Rochester’s leadership committee. From this perspective, there’s a real need for people who strive to make systems better. The era of strong link systems is behind us. No one, person, can hold the world anymore. We’re only as strong as our weakest links, and without that critical chain holding, the machine will not turn.

When I first heard someone from GRQC say, “Rochester Made Means Quality,” it landed heavy. It felt like words from family reminding me where I belonged. I recalled when I would lobby to move to a more business-friendly state. I was met with, “Our blood in this soil.”

Now to clarify, we have no family land. The farm slowly dissolved, but for generations my ancestors worked upstate New York soil. I do love this region; I was born in Rochester General, though I have never lived in Rochester. But my mother is from there, and much of the Finger Lakes are part of the Greater Rochester Area.

Hearing Rochester is Quality made me feel at ease. It was like when a tool or control perfectly fits your hand. It was a moment when you are right where you belong.

That line came at Roc Excellence 2024, ASQ’s Annual Conference. It was from a woman named Therese. It reminded me why the Rochester chapter of ASQ mattered. It was not because we were the biggest. It was because we were once the best at whatever we chose to be good at.

I felt that pride from when I still practiced my craft.

From the Floor to the Forge

A few years ago, as some of you know, I moved off the shop floor and into quality. I’ll be honest: at first it felt like I had lost my identity. I was and still am a machinist at heart. Finger speed. Problem solving. Doing whatever it takes to deliver. We solve problems for the customer. Great machinists eliminate the middleman and deliver. Rarely did I need the deburr department or quality to verify what I could prove to be right and true.

The floor is rewarded for its improvisation and speed. When something needs doing, we do it. When minutes count, there is often a quick fix. Every day there was a test of my hands and wit.

Then I walked into a world that looked black and white: filled with compliance and paperwork. These are two things that are not my natural strengths. Handcuffed by approvals moving at the speed of paper. Worst of all, I was not sure who I was.

So, I made a choice. Instead of resisting the rules, I anchored my actions in the purpose behind them. I learned to love the integrity of it all. It started to feel like manufacturing again. Here was this quality management system. It exists to prevent harm and hold us accountable. Its purpose is to make excellence more repeatable.

To secure the promise that a product labeled “Triplett” will stand out above the rest. For 30 years, I have heard the words of Edgar A. Guest: “My son, beware of ‘good enough,’ It isn’t made of sterling stuff;”

My personal version of “Rochester Made.”

So, I stay with ASQ. I stand with GRQC.
Even when the jargon is thick, I need your knowledge.
I see the same hunger I feel, the same pursuit of excellence in the people around me.
I want to be near that. Don’t you?

Study the History of Rochester

That’s what Rochester’s history has taught me.
The city didn’t go from “Flour City” to “Quality City” by accident.
We lacked coal fields and deep ports. We had the Genesee’s power and people who chose craft over scale.

Gleason. Bausch and Lomb. Kodak.
These names point to one thing: a stubborn devotion to doing a thing right.

The anvil was our institutions. The hammer was our firms.
But the sparks…
The sparks were our people.
And without sparks, there is no flame.

Reclaim the Rhythm

So, to the point of the matter:
Quality in its truest sense is not a slogan.
It is discipline and a way of life. It is measurement, correction, and iteration, married to a moral posture: pride in workmanship.

The Greeks called that Arete, the fulfillment of purpose, the striving for excellence in every action. For me, quality became the highest art form you can practice inside defined parameters.

But the forge cooled, didn’t it?

Globalization, automation, and digital disruption lifted hammers off anvils and scattered jobs. Work that once defined identities has shifted.

The question we face is not merely economic. It is quite existential:
When the hammer lifts, how do we reforge our identity?
How do we keep the rhythm of purpose alive?

Relight the Fire

My answer is twofold.
First: treat quality as strategy, not nostalgia.
Invest in skills. Partner with our schools and tech centers.
Defend standards that create value. If done right, price will meet both your needs and the market.

Second: honor craft in every domain. This includes labs and workbenches. It spans from simple components to complex medical devices.

Honor the service desks that keep our systems honest.
Tools change, principles and ethics do not.

I left the floor, but I did not leave the forge.
I still like fast hands and clever fixes. I just place them differently now, inside the lines, running hard and running true.

If Rochester is to be Quality again, it will be because people choose that way of working. Not because a slogan tells them to, but because they feel the worth of it in their hands.

To the practitioners and leaders:

What steps are you taking to share your knowledge?

How are you mentoring those who do not yet know what you know?
How are you building real training?
Are you revisiting policies and procedures with modern tools?
Are we building a lean and sturdy scaffolding for the much needed trust both internally and externally?

So, wherever you find yourself today.

Relight the forge and fire with equal parts: purpose, integrity, and excellence.