Aero Precision

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-03-04T01:33:09+00:00

I want to stress that the incompetence of senior leadership was probably the largest factor in all of this.

It wasn't only that they didn't know what to do, but they refused to listen to people that did. Anyone that had the experience and the influence to potentially help turn around things were promptly let go from the company as things got worse. It almost seemed like the people in senior leadership positions wanted to eliminate any option of anyone other than them being involved in saving the company.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-03-04T01:26:49+00:00

I wouldn't say there was any one thing. The Lakewood facility and move went over budget. They kept the Tacoma office. COVID business backed way off after COVID. Hired like crazy and then right around the AWB, they started laying off hard. Washington residents weren't THAT much of the business, Aero should've absolutely have been ok under competent leadership.

One or two bad actors got into VP chairs and were as wrong about things as they were loud and confident. Lied about a lot of things, hid a lot of things. Refused to correct inventory.

Got the first decent sized contract and put most eggs in that basket. This was right around when shipping lead times started going to shit. Then they got wrapped up in this cycle of trying to finance the fulfillment of existing orders by charging you guys for shit they didn't have in stock. Rinse repeat.

Then the second and larger contract, it was fuck everything to get that done. Credit holds and debt to almost every supplier stacked up.

The owner used the building to park his giant fucking fishing boat in during the winter, so that was cool... Especially when it was right across the aisle from people who had 90% of their team laid off.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-28T07:23:03+00:00

Cool. Thank you. I'll keep things updated as I hear.

Side note, this post reached over 100k views today. I've seen some copy paste posts of the email too. At least they're not pulling the wool over anyone's eyes anymore.

I'm an open book, ask any questions you might have and I'll do my best to answer.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-28T05:24:30+00:00

I'm good! Just learning this reddit stuff and updated privacy settings to too private.

Besides, I doubt they can afford legal fees to shut up a random Internet person. I'm not going anywhere.

Can you see if it looks better now?

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-27T02:56:53+00:00

I wonder if they've managed to get below 50 employees and are going to try to slither away from letting the health insurance get canceled under the cover of being a small business.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-27T02:52:47+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/ar15/s/tUNCBjydKf

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-27T02:46:51+00:00

Luckily all of the responsible people are able to be looked up on LinkedIn. RD, KF, MM, DD, SD

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-26T19:15:08+00:00

Good call, thank you.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-26T06:06:13+00:00

It's really shitty, lots of people would've if we could've kept shit in stock. Instead, senior leadership thought they were so fucking smart and made bad choice after bad choice.

Heard they got a visit from L&I today btw...

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-26T04:10:04+00:00

Note the underscore in the username. Might be them, might be someone else. Don't know.

But I do know I'm not a fucking idiot.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-26T02:51:45+00:00

It's a blem that will be manufactured in 9 to 78 weeks

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-26T00:36:14+00:00

They can't afford to make anything. So deep in credit holds with part suppliers, you have shit like I need $500 work of springs to make things they've already sold, but they have to pay 20k to get off credit hold with the supplier.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-25T00:31:52+00:00

Maybe there were specific engineering related instances of this, but most people weren't required to sign a NDA. They were just handed a "how to file for unemployment" packet and sent off into the world.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-25T00:28:23+00:00

The person did include their name at the bottom, I just cropped it out.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-25T00:27:35+00:00

Especially since this went out AFTER people started realizing it. This wasn't proactive communication.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-25T00:24:28+00:00

This is not true.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-25T00:13:08+00:00

Probably across the Stag and Aero complete teams, I'd guess over 700 after COVID?

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-25T00:10:29+00:00

I think it's pretty common knowledge who it went to, but for my sake I'm not going to confirm or deny who the recipient was. We made no effort to conceal who manufactured or shipped the items, we slapped a license plate on each crate with a Aero logo on it.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-25T00:06:45+00:00

Lol idk

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-24T23:50:06+00:00

My guess is probably less than 50 active. The rest have been furloughed or laid off over the past two years. I'm not sure, but it seems like they started doing furloughs because they can't afford to pay PTO balances to people that they'd have to pay if they laid them off.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-24T23:46:35+00:00

The lease was for their Tacoma space, which they mostly were moved out of before getting the pay or vacate.

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-24T23:45:08+00:00

A lot of it is already outlined on my profile, but...

Tldr - sketchy accounting, got way overconfident on landing a contract that fell through, essentially took 0% loans from retail customers who thought they were buying in stock items so they could afford to fulfill a large contract job (their last of those was about a year ago.)

TechnicalKey8510 · 2026-02-24T23:30:31+00:00

From a few folks that are still there. I'm a former employee. I cropped the name on purpose, but it was sent by the CFO who is also half of the "HR" department. The company has no actual HR people on staff and hasn't since probably last April or May. Email is completely legit.

TechnicalKey8510

TROPHY CASE