The Season of Gratitude
“The most meaningful part of this work isn’t what we build. It’s who we build it with.”
-Blake Horton, Founder
A Moment to Reflect
With the season of gratitude upon us, I want to take a moment to reflect on some specific experiences that have shaped my journey in this trade. Nothing too big, just real moments and the people I’m thankful for.
The Teamwork
I’m very grateful for my time at Teague. I recall a teambuilding event where our team launched a weather balloon with a small payload. The challenge was simple: send it up, record video and data, and recover it when it popped and came back down. It was a fun, hands-on challenge, and each of us played our part.
We also built drift trikes, painted everything from cars to guitars, designed and built spacecraft, airplanes and worked on all sorts of creative side projects. The emphasis was always on coming together as a team to build something interesting for the sake of learning and having fun. I really loved this team.
The Projects
Being part of live-fire testing & launch days is an experience you can’t really compare to anything else. Not everyone gets the opportunity to collaborate with rocket scientists and see the work you do go into systems that literally leave the planet.
I’m truly grateful for the range of unusual and creative projects I got to work on. Things like building false airplane sections, contributing to VR systems doing mixed reality research that required full-body tracking suits. Helping imagine, design, and build a space capsule. These projects pushed me into completely different problem-solving spaces and gave me a chance to blend design, engineering, and hands-on fabrication in ways I could never have anticipated at the time.
The Challenge
Thinking back to my time at Aerojet Rocketdyne, working on tools, fixturing, and processes for rocket engines made from high-performance superalloys was uniquely challenging.
Starting my own shop was a chapter I’m thankful for. Installing machines and building out electrical, air, and fluid systems. Each day was a new challenge, and figuring out how to deliver work with no safety net taught me a lot about responsibility and independence.
Even now, at the Machinists Institute, I’m grateful for the startup atmosphere and the challenge of building the plane while we fly it. The challenge of helping others build their skills and find their place in the trade. Honestly, passing on what I’ve learned has been one of the most rewarding parts of this whole journey.
Keep Building!
I’m grateful for these real, tangible experiences and for the people who made them possible. As I move forward, it’s the hands-on work, the teamwork, and the honest challenges that I carry with me. Those moments, and the people behind them, are what have made this trade meaningful to me.
Let’s keep building something wonderful together.
Learn more:
• Teague – teague.com
• Aerojet Rocketdyne – rocket.com
• The CNC Specialists – thecnc.network
• Machinists Institute – machinistsinstitute.org
About the Author:
Blake Horton is an educator, machinist, and designer based in the Pacific Northwest. As Senior Instructional Designer for the Machinists Institute and founder of The CNC Specialists, he works to connect the people, skills, and stories that make manufacturing matter.
