Build The Plant People Want To Work At.
Association conferences, plant all-hands across every shift, frontline supervisor sessions, safety kickoffs, and apprenticeship programs.
Manufacturing offers something most careers do not: real skill, real wages, and something you can point at when your kid asks what you make. The plants that say that out loud, and back it with supervisors who lead well, become the place people in town want to work. Chris Sund has spent two decades building that kind of workplace in shift-based, hands-on, hard-to-staff environments.
Your equipment is the same as your competitor's. The difference is whether the person running it wants to be there.
My KC Live, KCTV5 Kansas City →Show your team who is coming in.
A plant floor is a skeptical audience by default, and that is fair. Put a clip on the breakroom TV or in the shift email and let people judge for themselves. Chris has been on morning television in six markets and in Forbes, Inc., and the Midlands Business Journal, all collected in the media hub.
Five things a plant floor takes back to the line.
No lean methodology, no continuous improvement framework, no software. This is the part of the operation that decides whether any of that sticks.
- Frontline supervisors who lead instead of just cover shifts. The supervisor is the single biggest factor in whether someone stays past ninety days, and most were promoted for being the best operator rather than for leading. Give them one skill and the whole shift changes.
- A crew that knows what they are part of. People work harder for something they can name. The plants that connect the line to the customer, the product, and the town do better on quality and attendance without touching the wage.
- Safety as something people choose, not something they are told. Rules and PPE are your safety team's job. What a leader controls is whether someone speaks up before the shortcut becomes an incident, and that is a culture question with a specific answer.
- A career story worth telling in the breakroom. Skilled trades pay well, cannot be offshored, and start earning immediately. Plants that can say that clearly recruit better, and the people already there stand a little taller when someone finally says it out loud.
- One move, not a rollout. Every session closes on a single specific action. A plant floor has seen enough initiatives launched with a banner and quietly dropped by August.
On what the manufacturing session is about
Eight ways manufacturers book him.
Plants almost always run the same session two or three times so every shift gets it live. That is planned in, not an add-on.
AI Workshop for Manufacturers
SOPs from tribal knowledge, shift handoffs, RFQ replies and hiring.Plant All-Hands
The same session delivered to first, second, and third shift so nobody hears it secondhand. This is the most common manufacturing booking and it is built for it.Frontline Supervisor Session
Team leads, shift supervisors, and area managers. The highest-leverage group in any plant and usually the least developed.Association Conference Keynote
General session for a state manufacturing association, industry group, or trade association annual conference.Safety Kickoff or Stand-Down
The leadership half of safety culture, alongside your technical content. Speaking up, standard-setting, and looking out for the person next to you.Plant Leadership Retreat
Plant manager, department heads, and the leadership team. Standard-setting and honest feedback inside a leadership group.Apprenticeship & Workforce Program
Apprentice cohorts, community college partnerships, and workforce development events bringing new people into the trades.Sales & Dealer Meeting
Distributor networks, dealer meetings, and commercial team kickoffs.Conference Breakouts
Repeatable concurrent sessions alongside a general session at an association event.Built for operations that run on people.
The framework holds across all of them. What changes is the shift schedule and what the room is accountable for at the start of the next one.
State Manufacturing Associations
Annual conferences, manufacturing summits, and workforce councils.Manufacturers
Single plants and multi-site operations. All-hands across shifts, leadership retreats, and supervisor development.Food & Protein Processing
Food manufacturing, meat processing, and packaging operations with round-the-clock schedules.Tooling, Machining & Fabrication
Precision manufacturing, machining, and fabrication associations and member shops.Safety Councils
Regional safety councils and safety conferences looking for the leadership side alongside technical sessions.Workforce Development
Apprenticeship programs, community college partnerships, and regional workforce boards. See SkillsUSA and CTE for the student pipeline.Construction & Trades
Contractor associations, trade groups, and skilled trades organizations with the same crew leadership challenge.Distribution & Logistics
Warehouse, distribution, and logistics operations running shift-based hourly teams.Utilities & Energy
Utility cooperatives, energy companies, and field service organizations.Four movements. Ten principles.
Every session runs the same architecture as the book, which is what lets a supervisor session and an all-hands land as one message instead of two.
The Foundation
Ownership and time. What is inside your control on a line where the schedule and the order book are not.The Breakthrough
The comfort ceiling and the inner voice. The section a twenty-year operator goes quiet for.The Standard
Truth over praise, and the hidden gear. Speaking up, and what a crew does when someone finally does.The Purpose
Finishing, and leaving people better. The close, and the movement that connects a shift to something bigger than the shift.A copy for every person on every shift.
A session gives a crew an hour. A copy gives an entire plant the same ten principles and the same words, which is how a message survives past the week the banner comes down.
You Are Capable of More: A No-Excuses Guide to Becoming Your Best Self. An Amazon bestseller from Game Changer Publishing, with a foreword by Ben Newman.
Ten chapters across four movements, written plainly and short enough that someone working a ten hour shift will actually finish it. The free companion toolkit includes a discussion guide a supervisor can run in a fifteen minute pre-shift meeting, a self-assessment, and a thirty day challenge. Nothing is gated behind an email address.
The feedback speaks for itself.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris energized the room, sparked conversations, and encouraged connections throughout the event, with a lasting impact on our future leaders.
Chris was an outstanding speaker and a highlight of our event. He took the time to deeply understand our organization and thoughtfully personalized every moment.
Chris consistently brings knowledge, insight, and practical advice. He led two impactful sessions and left everyone with tools they could use immediately.
Chris is a thoughtful, intentional leader who understands the influence he carries. His message challenged me to think differently about how I lead, serve, and influence others.
His engaging style draws the audience into the conversation, creating a relaxed atmosphere that encourages learning and reflection. You leave not only inspired but equipped.
Chris energized the room, sparked conversations, and encouraged connections throughout the event, with a lasting impact on our future leaders.
Events already on your calendar.
He built teams that showed up.
Chris Sund is an executive leader, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of You Are Capable of More.
As President and COO of Uniti Med, GQR Healthcare and Nebula, he helped grow Uniti Med 10x in two years and earn the number three ranking on the Inc. Regionals list among the fastest growing companies in the Midwest, while the organization earned Fortune Best Workplaces recognition and Great Place to Work certification three years running.
He is a father of three, based in Nebraska, a Maxwell Leadership Certified speaker, trainer, and coach, Vice President of the NATHO Board of Directors, and the founder of Amplify Speakers. He is not going to stand in front of a plant floor and pretend he ran a line. What he has done for twenty years is build shift-based, hands-on workplaces where people chose to stay, which is the same job your supervisors have.
Details your team will ask for.
Plant managers and HR leads ask these.
Can he repeat the session for every shift?
How much does a manufacturing keynote speaker cost?
He has not worked in a plant. Why does that work?
Will it land with our operators, not just the office?
Can he speak at our safety kickoff?
What about our frontline supervisors?
Do you work with apprenticeship and workforce programs?
Do you do state manufacturing association conferences?
Can we get books for everyone on the floor?
How do we start?
Sales, hiring and AI for the plant.
The business practices that grew Chris’s company work on a plant floor too: recruiting faster than the plant down the road, keeping people through the first 90 days, and supervisors who lead instead of just assign. For manufacturers and their associations he also runs Take Back Your Time with AI, the working session he presented to contractors at the MICA 2026 Fall Business Meetings and presents at the NFBA Conference & Expo in February 2027, where manufacturers and suppliers sit alongside builders.
Recruiting Skilled Trades Workers
Speed to contact, referrals, pay transparency, the first week and the foreman as the retention lever.ArticleHow to Reduce Employee Turnover
Managers, the first 90 days, stay conversations and growth paths.RetentionEmployee Retention Speaker
Why good people leave, and what keeps them, from an operator whose business is recruiting.PlanningManufacturing All-Shift Meetings
How to run one message across every shift.SafetyThe Leadership Half of Safety Culture
What leaders control that the safety manual cannot.AITake Back Your Time with AI
The working session booked by MICA and NFBA: real tasks handed to affordable tools, live in the room.SalesWinning More Work
Follow-up discipline, LAARC for “your price is too high,” and LOCKS for what a deal needs next.ArticleHow to Increase Sales
An operator’s playbook: follow-up, objections and keeping the people who sell.All TradesSkilled Trades & Blue-Collar Speaker
Contractors, trucking, manufacturing, ag, utilities, dealers and home services in one place.Other ways operations book him.
Same framework, built for the specific room you are filling.