Helene Tessier didn’t plan a career in marketing. She started at the French consulate in China and taught English abroad. When COVID brought her home, she stumbled into TPAC as an interpreter. Soon after, leadership asked her to run marketing.

In this conversation with Jeff and Carman, she explains why TPAC’s PhD-heavy, flat organizational culture wanted someone willing to learn. She also shares how she rebuilt the company’s go-to-market strategy. Her approach centered on trade shows, application-driven web content, and a bold brand presence at the World Conference on NDT (non-destructive testing) that the industry still talks about.

Helene also digs into why technical, engineering-led firms struggle with brand rollout. She explains how regulatory and certification changes act as buying triggers in NDT, and what a five-person buying committee means for content strategy. To close, she offers a refreshingly grounded take on AI for marketers entering the field today.

Teikoku USA makes the canned motor pumps that the chemical, hydrocarbon, and nuclear industries reach for when leaking is not an option. For years, growing public awareness of dangerous chemicals quietly expanded the company’s addressable market for them. Then, leadership asked the sales and marketing team to grow faster anyway. Chaitanya Sakhalkar joins The Kula Ring to share what came next: modularizing a product that had always been engineer-to-order, building decision trees so the sales team and channel partners could tell the right story to the right buyer.

Brandon Clark, VP of Marketing at Q-Pac, joins Jeff and Carman to unpack what it really means to create a new product category within a deeply traditional industry. Q-Pac makes multimotor plenum fans, a commercial HVAC product that looks like a fan array on the surface but operates as a fundamentally different technology. Brandon explains how the company defined the category and why they invested $1M to build the world’s largest airflow test tunnel based on the AMCA 270 standard to silence skeptics. He also shares some advice for any marketer who finds themselves selling something that genuinely doesn’t fit an existing bucket. He also reflects on making the leap from grocery retail into manufacturing marketing.

What happens when a manufacturing company truly lives its mission? In this episode of The Kula Ring, Ian Antioch from NorthGate shares how the company formalized its people-first philosophy into the Be Ready Enrichment Program. Investing over $125,000 annually in employee development, financial planning, and life services, NorthGate has created a model that not only transforms lives but also strengthens recruitment, retention, and brand storytelling. Ian discusses the challenges of marketing both capabilities and culture, the power of authentic storytelling, and why manufacturers are sitting on untold stories that can differentiate them in the market.

What happens when a Gen Z marketer joins a legacy manufacturing company and throws out the modern social media playbook?

In this episode, Lizzy Anderson of Hoosier Crane explains how she discovered that “cutting-edge” tactics weren’t resonating and why a return to simple, community-driven content worked better. From “2012 Facebook” style posts to highlighting local involvement and company values, Lizzy breaks down how manufacturing marketers can build trust, attract talent, and stay top-of-mind without overcomplicating their strategy. It’s a refreshing look at aligning marketing with audience reality, not trends.