Today’s podcast is about mentorship, finding it, and paying it back. Logan McGhan is an old friend of mine from the used machinery business who is now a CNC programmer at a semiconductor company in Arizona. Along the way he’s had invaluable mentors in martial arts, machining, and sales, and one of his main purposes in life is to pay it forward. He mentors young machinists at his shop. He trains people in martial arts for free. He even rehabilitates mean dogs.

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Logan grew up watching his father, a tool and die maker, work on an engine lathe and Bridgeport mill in the garage. People would bring him parts to fix for companies like Motorola and Intel, and his dad would figure it out. When Logan was five, his father hired a Korean martial arts master named John Kil Kang, a former presidential bodyguard who fled South Korea during a coup. Logan trained under him for ten years. It set a standard for discipline that never left him.

In his twenties, Logan found coaching from two older aerospace programmers with about 40 years of combined experience. One of them, Alexander Hamilton Curtis, died of pancreatic cancer at 63. The last thing he told Logan was: “Don’t ever become a legend in your own mind.” Logan says he still thinks about it at least once a week.

There was also a trade school professor who, in front of 27 classmates, told Logan that if he didn’t take a computer class he was an “effin idiot.” Logan was embarrassed enough to sign up. He credits that moment for everything that followed in his career.

After years as a five-axis programmer, Logan suffered a serious head injury in a car accident and never told anyone at work. He pushed through, but the cognitive load of high-level programming eventually caught up with him. He pivoted to machinery dealing, even hiring a sales coach on his own dime for $6,000. When COVID hit and commissions dried up, a longtime client called and asked if he could still program. Logan said yes, spent three weeks learning new software until midnight every night, and clawed his way back.

Today Logan mentors young programmers in their twenties at his shop, including trade school recruits he helped bring on himself. He has spent years training a friend in martial arts at four in the morning, for free, meeting him at a park because he figured if the guy didn’t show up at 4am he wasn’t worth working with.

He also took the time to help me last week when I asked for advice on selling used equipment.

Question: What mentor or coach had a profound impact on your life? What did they teach you that stuck?