Meet Clay Miller

posted On Tuesday, January 4, 2022 in Blog

Q&As with Clay Miller

Clay, you’ve been at AHT since 2008. Tell us about your career path here.

I've been at Advanced Heat Treat Corp. since April 10, 2008. I started at the Burton facility in Waterloo, Iowa as a maintenance tech and then moved up to lead maintenance tech in 2005ish. In 2020, I was promoted to maintenance supervisor and then promoted again in 2022 to Maintenance Manager.

As Maintenance Manager at Burton, what does a typical day look like for you?

Here are just a few things that happen in a typical day:

• In the morning, I check with third shift and fix anything that needs immediate repair
• Conduct plant checks
• Hold morning meeting with crew - direct work flow/discuss any safety concerns
• Check on part statuses - critical inventory management
• Ensure EPA/DNR reports and standards are being met
• If no machines are down, we will work on continuous improvement projects and research projects in making our tasks more efficient

When you're not working, how do you like to spend your free time?

In the winter time, I enjoy hunting and watching college football. In the summer, I go camping with our horses and go trail riding. We also do a lot of geocaching and four-wheeler riding as a family.

AHT purchased two new induction units this past year. Tell us about your involvement with that. Also, how will this investment benefit our customers?

Last year, we installed two new induction units at our Burton Ave. location in Waterloo, Iowa. I was in charge of installation and setup of these new machines. These machines have faster set-up times and less equipment down time, this results in faster turnaround times for our customers.

LEARN ABOUT INDUCTION HARDENING

AHT also added a new cryogenics unit. Tell us about the capabilities of that.

AHT just added a new cryogenics unit to our line. This will allow us to efficiently get parts down to -300F then be able to temper them up to 550F all in one process. This used to take us multiple steps and hours of labor to complete. We will now be able to do it all from this new machine. 

LEARN ABOUT CRYOGENIC TREATMENT

What’s one professional accomplishment you are proud of?

One thing I’m proud of is getting our equipment to the level is at today. Over the years, we have continued to rebuild and retrofit our older equipment to be state-of-the-art, allowing us to stay efficient and competitive and also allowing us to give our customers the best possible parts around.

What is one thing people may not know about you?

I used to own my own boat repair business on the side.

Now, a series of quick random questions:

• Favorite Movie: The Replacements
• First Job: Boat Mechanic
• Favorite Food: Steak or Mexican food
• Least Favorite Food: Peas
• Favorite Sport to Play: Volleyball
• Favorite Sport to Watch: College Football
• Favorite Team: Iowa Hawkeyes
• First Concert: Big & Rich
• Favorite Vacation: Alaskan Cruise
• Spouses’ name? Wendy (12 years)
• Kids?  Ava (10 years old) & Garet (6 years old)

Have a question for Clay? Call him at 319-232-0745.

1. meet burton
2. meet the team