PMTS 2021 Tool Chest Prize Finds Good Home

Detroit’s Matthew Detzler won the $1,600 tool chest by completing the Precision Machining Technology Show’s Digital Scavenger Hunt. The tool chest now has a good home in the machinist’s sizeable personal workspace. Photo credit: Matthew Detzler

This year’s recent Precision Machining Technology Show (PMTS) featured a first for the event: a Digital Scavenger Hunt as a function of the downloadable PMTS mobile app. A list of provided clues led participants to various spots throughout the show where they found a unique code to enter to solve each clue. Those who found all the codes were entered to win the grand prize — a Gladiator Premier Mobile Tool Chest valued at $1,600.

So, who was the winner? That’d be Matthew Detzler, a machinist from just outside of Detroit. Detzler says he picked up the machining trade in 2016 after attending a Department of Labor funded program. For four years, he worked at Proper Group International, the fourth largest moldmaker in North America, where he ran three- and five-axis mills as well as wire EDM equipment. While working the midnight shift and taking classes in the mornings for Proper’s formal apprenticeship program, Detzler also started on his Master of Business Administration at Wayne State University. With the COVID-19 pandemic hopefully coming to an end, he is looking for a position that will get him back into machining.

“The tool chest is exactly what I’ve been looking for to use in my personal workspace, which is actually quite significant in size,” Detzler says. “It will fit in wonderfully. Plus, the Scavenger Hunt at PMTS enabled me talk to some exhibitors I might not have otherwise seen. So it all definitely worked well in my case.”

If you missed this year’s show, you can learn about some of what was on display here. Also, be sure to save the date for PMTS 2023 to be held in Cleveland April 18-20. I hope I’ll see you there.