Gray Manufacturing CNC programmer Chris Adkins Becomes Compass Precision Employee of the Month
One could argue Chris Adkins was born to be a welder. That was his father’s profession, and Chris initially studied welding at his vocational high school in Hinton, West Virginia.
But after completing his first year of classes, welding left something to be desired for Chris. Then in his second year of school, he developed a strong liking for machining, leading to a career in CNC programming.
To celebrate his accomplishments at Gray Manufacturing Technologies, LLC, Compass Precision has named Chris its Employee of the Month for October.
Chris has been working in CNC machining for 25 years. He began his tenure at Gray working on the second shift. One might regard the decision to move into that role as an unusual one considering Chris served as a supervisor at a CNC machine shop in his previous job. But Chris identified Gray as a place where he could learn even more, and his career development over the last five and a half years has been obvious.
“The shop that I had come from, it had kind of topped out,” Chris said. “I couldn’t grow anymore there, so I figured I (would) come here (Gray), and there’s plenty of growth here. I’m still growing.
“You never learn it all (at Gray). There’s always some new trick you can figure out.”
Chris has been figuring out the tricks in the CNC machining industry for his entire career. Other than his two years of vocational high school, he is entirely self taught. Chris worked for a coal mining shop over three years just after school, and then he and his wife, Leighette, moved to North Carolina for Chris to begin a job at Metso Minerals. He held employment there for nine years, serving in a variety of roles, before then spending seven years at the CNC shop where he worked just prior to Gray.
That CNC shop offered Chris the opportunity to program 3 and 4-axis VMCs, but that’s nothing like the state-of-the-art 5-axis machines featured at Gray. Moving to the daytime shift after a year, Chris began becoming one of the top CNC programmers for the company. Now approaching six years with Gray, Chris still likes the “constant challenge” the Compass Precision operating company presents.
“There’s never a dull moment,” he said. “Usually, it’s just, you’re constantly on your toes thinking, ‘How can I do this certain thing.’ It keeps your mind going.”
Chris also loves the work atmosphere and culture Gray has established.
“All the guys here are team players. We all share the same interests usually, and they’re real intelligent guys. I like working with intelligent people.”
In his freetime, Chris likes hunting, camping, working on old cars and spending time with his family. He has been married to his wife for 23 years. The couple have a son, Zachary, and daughter, Carlie, in high school.