Gray Manufacturing CNC Machinist Receives High Honor
Matt Searcy has spent his entire life living in North Carolina. For the last seven years, Matt has called Gray Manufacturing Technologies his work home.
General manager Evan Grose and the management team of Gray’s parent company, Compass Precision, has been better for it. As a CNC machinist running two of the biggest machines in the entire company, Matt has grown into a very valuable asset.
To celebrate his achievements, Compass has named Matt its Employee of the Month for September 2024.
Matt is the ninth recipient of the Compass employee of the month honor, including the second this year, at Gray. CMM programmer Joshua Thibault received the award most recently at Gray in March.
Furthermore, Matt is the 54th employee of the month since Compass began the program in March 2020.
”We are incredibly happy with Matt and his work.” explained Gray General Manager Evan Grose. “He is the latest in a long line of Gray employees to be Compass’s Employee of the Month. I am extremely proud of him.”
“Compass loves guys like Matt,” added Gary Holcomb, Compass CEO. “We are all about machining the kinds of stuff most shops wouldn’t touch. To do this, you need great people. Matt is exactly that!”
After starting his CNC machining career, it took Matt three years to find his home at Gray. His journey began when he worked in the shipping and receiving department at Rouse Yates Manufacturing Solutions.
Whenever he had downtime while working at Roush, Matt would venture out to the shop floor and shadow other machinists. After a couple weeks of consistent shadowing, he received the opportunity to machine his own parts. His role as a machinist grew from there.
At Rouse, Matt worked on racing parts, mostly focusing on cylinder heads.
Another current Gray employee, Logan Kenseth, who received the Compass Precision Employee of the Month award in February 2022, worked with Matt at Rouse. Logan left Rouse, though, for an opportunity at Gray, and in 2017, Logan contacted his friend Matt to see if he wanted to join him at the shop in Denver.
Seven years later, Matt and Gray are still a great match. Matt loves the variety the Compass operating company offers and particularly enjoys the intimacy Gray’s culture provides.
“I like the people that I work with,” said Matt. “Everybody is a little bit closer together being in a smaller shop, and obviously working for Evan has been probably one of the better perks of working here.
“He always looks out for the employees. He’s always very family oriented, and he understands whenever you have something going on.”
Matt admitted that it wasn’t long ago that he viewed Gray as a mere stop on his CNC machining journey. But with Evan now at the helm, he sees the company as a place where he wants to stay long term.
On a day-to-day basis, Matt machines parts on Gray’s two Mazak Vari-Axis I-800 5-axis machines. He also deburs finished products and “fiddles around” with the company’s latest programs.
As Gray grows in the space market, Matt aims to continue growing by learning more programming.
“Just having something different to do where I could kind of bounce around to programming to running my machine or programming something than being able to turn around and run that part,” said Matt.
He added that when he has programmed and machined a part on his own, he’s felt a stronger sense of accomplishment and completion.
“I’d really like to see where things take me with the programming side of things,” said Matt. “I think if I can get to the point where I’m just relying on myself, where I come in every day, have a list of stuff I need to get done, and I can just bust it out on my own, I think I’d be good.
“I would like to get to that point where I just self manage.”
Matt lives with his wife, Halea, and 1-year-old daughter, Isla in Denver. The couple are expecting a second daughter and plan to name her Ava.
For fun, Matt enjoys anything with a motor. He is currently working on a 2001 Lexus IS 300 in his garage. Logan helped Matt put a Chevy LS engine in the car.