Articles
A talent for manufacturing
Alchemy Industrial CEO and co-founder Mush Khan has seen America’s manufacturing doppelganger up close. And like others who source in China, he was impressed. “In the 2012 - 2014 timeframe, I was working for a company that had supply chains in China and spent time there. It was an incredible experience, to see the robustness and the hardworking mindset that Chinese people have. It's a sight to behold.”
But even then, Khan saw change ahead. “I would argue that we’re in a 20 year unfolding of reshoring of key industrial activity back to the United States,” Khan says. “So often we get focused on the news of the day and whatever press release or what's happening in the market. It's very positive for the U.S. – but it’s not easy,” he added.
An understatement for the ages. But today the coin is decidedly two-sided.
“This is an incredible time for manufacturers, a very difficult time, but also an incredible time. As Alchemy has evolved, we’re really focused on the area of battery energy storage products and all the control systems that go with it; we got there as customers led us in that direction,” he says. “I would still say we're very early in this journey and still make mistakes along the way.
“But we now have customers that actually send us money for stuff that we build. Even though it's still early, I think that we're in the right spot as a company. It's an opportunity-rich environment,” Khan says. “I think there's going to be hundreds, maybe thousands of companies, big companies built over the next 10 to 20 years in a number of different market sectors related to manufacturing and industry.”
Khan has been instrumental in ensuring that Houston is at the center of America’s industrial reawakening.
“I was a former board member at the East End Maker Hub, actually TXRX, which is the founding member of the East End Maker Hub. When I first started working with TXRX many, many years ago, they were in a smaller place. you know, real sort of garage band-type of environment. And their leadership saw the need to create a working space for manufacturing companies here in Houston,” he says.
“And so they, along with another organization called UP CDC, formed the East End Maker Hub, which is about a 300,000 square foot space in EDO, East downtown of Houston. What's remarkable about the place is that it's really Houston's historic manufacturing center. When you go back 50, 60 years, that's really where all the manufacturers were. So in a way, it's a journey back in time to create this space,” Khan says. “And today there’s also the intangible benefit of having a community of people that are manufacturing things here, because as you know, quite often you need help.”
Yet despite its historic roots, today the “community” Khan describes has a uniquely modern feel. “I compare it to what happens in Silicon Valley, where, you know, you could probably have coffee somewhere in the Bay Area and run into someone who's building a tech business. Well, same thing in Houston now. You need help every day. I need help every day. And so running into people that are trying to manufacture in their own way is really helpful,” he says.
“The last thing I would say is that Houston has a history of making things. I would argue that no one on the planet knows how to make products and ship them all over the world, like Houston does. We're good at it. We've got the talent to do it. And a lot of the supply chain is here. So now it's a question of rolling up these opportunities (like East End Maker Hub did) to create a new manufacturing environment in Houston.”
There’s no doubting Houston’s manufacturing chops. Greater Houston Partnership ranks manufacturing as the #1 industry in Houston by share of GDP:
Yet in several national rankings of manufacturing “hotspots”, of “leading cities driving growth”, Houston lags even behind some smaller communities. Of course the lens varies, from study to study. Dallas, for one, has rocketed to the top of some real-estate-focused lists, with one citing “9.2 million square feet of manufacturing space delivered in the last five years.”
In part, Houston is short-changed because of the oversized influence of petro-refining – as a customer of Houston’s nation-leading industrial base. Industries driving manufacturing employment growth – and publicity – are today outside traditional oil-and-gas: among them food and beverage, transportation (including aviation and aerospace), and electronics.
All of whom should be looking at Houston as a destination to consolidate onshore production or reshore work. Greater Houston’s capabilities – long utilized by petroleum-refiners – are today its golden calling card. Houston’s industrial base is its secret weapon, to attract hundreds of OEMs who outsourced manufacturing offshore, only to realize, in 2025, that home is where capabilities must meet future demand.
I asked Khan if Houston can retool to meet demand from new industry partners. “I think it's a really good insight. Let me go back to this battery energy storage manufacturing opportunity. So it's a bunch of electronic stuff with wiring, cooling systems or heating systems in some cases in a sheet metal enclosure that's powder coated and all built together and has to be tested.
“Forget that it's a bunch of cells inside this energy storage system. It looks a lot like other panel-related manufacturing that happens in Houston every single day. And so the materials are very similar. The manufacturing and assembly techniques are similar. The QA/QC techniques are similar. And the talent that does that work is also similar. Now you still need to make sure that you can port that panel manufacturing talent, let's say to battery related manufacturing, but you're not talking about a two year journey to train people to do that,” he says.
“I think you could take a really talented person who knows how to make electrical panels, and within a few months time, they're doing a great job building other products”
First, for a city like Houston, that leads the nation in GDP growth among the 20 most-populous metro areas from ‘21-’23, matching manufacturing capabilities with emerging demand is a priority. We know petro-refiners have benefitted from Houston’s industrial talent for decades. It’s high time we’re clear on who else, in other industries, can benefit similarly as companies rush to find new capabilities, onshore.
It’s part of GHMA’s modern mission.
More soon.
Bart Taylor is ED of GHMA. Reach him at [email protected], or 303-888-2832
