Episode 54: Mitchell Smith, ST Engineering MRAS

In this episode of CW Talks, CompositesWorld speaks with Christina Chatfield, head of digital growth for Composites One (Arlington Heights, Ill., U.S.), about how digital solutions are influencing the composites supply chain. Chatfield explains what customers asked for when Composites One built its new e-commerce platform, how the company organized a catalog of roughly 45,000-50,000 products from more than 600 suppliers, and which features — from saved reorder lists and buyer approval thresholds to delivery-date requests and online quotes — are resonating with fabricators. She also shares her outlook for a supply chain that blends digital self-service with the technical support of sales representatives. 

In this installment of CW Talks, CompositesWorld speaks with Trevor Smith, CEO of Atomic-6 (Marietta, Ga., U.S.), about the company's process-driven approach to composites manufacturing and the space products it has built including its Light Wing deployable solar array, Hot Wing deployable radiator and Space Armor, a modular composite tile designed to protect satellites and spacecraft from micrometeoroids and orbital debris. Smith explains how Space Armor compares with traditional Whipple shields, what happens during a hypervelocity impact, how the tiles were flight-qualified and how the technology came to fly on Portal Space Systems' Starburst-1 spacecraft, which launched Oct. 21, 2026 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.

In celebration of National Composites Week 2026 (Aug. 24–28), this episode of CW Talks features host Scott Francis, editor of CompositesWorld, in conversation with Jason Gibson, chief commercialization officer at the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI). Gibson discusses this year's National Composites Week theme, "Composites Built to Scale," IACMI's role within the Manufacturing USA network, the scale-up hurdles that stand between a promising composites technology and full production, and an upcoming open house at IACMI's Scale-Up Research Facility (SURF) in Detroit.

In this installment of CW Talks, CompositesWorld speaks with Francesco De Stefano, CEO and co-founder of Caracol (Milan, Italy), about the company's proprietary robotic large-format additive manufacturing (LFAM) platform for composites. What began as a research effort to combine the flexibility of additive manufacturing (AM) with the scale of robotics has evolved into a distributed production model now serving aerospace, maritime, transportation and defense markets. De Stefano discusses how Caracol moved from service bureau to production platform provider, why pellet-based composites printing changes the economics of large parts, and how AI and machine learning are being embedded into the manufacturing process itself.

  In this installment of CW Talks, we explore the world of natural fiber composites and their growing role in sustainable lightweighting with Christian Fischer, CEO and co-founder of Bcomp (Fribourg, Switzerland), a company specializing in high-performance natural fiber composites for automotive, motorsports, marine, aerospace and even satellite applications. What started as a garage project focused on lightweight skis has evolved into an award-winning technology now headed into series production with BMW M. Fischer discusses Bcomp's "race-to-road" strategy, the technical hurdles of scaling natural fibers for demanding markets and where flax-based composites fit — and don't fit — in the broader composites landscape.

In this installment of CW Talks, we explore the use of thermoplastic composites for rotating equipment in variety of sectors from industrial applications to aerospace. We recently spoke with Dave Noblin, product manager for wear-resistant components for Greene Tweed, to learn about how TPCs are being used in this space.

In this installment of CW Talks, we revisit a topic that was discussed on a panel at last year's Carbon Fiber Conference, held in Wichita, Kansas. The discussion revolved around high-rate manufacturing for aerospace, next-generation aerospace and the growing trend around urban air mobility (UAM). We recently sat down with one of the panelists, Mitchell Smith, technology leader at ST Engineering MRAS (Baltimore, Md.), to continue the conversation.

Workforce development is a perennial challenge for the manufacturing industries. Finding skilled workers is always a concern, especially as we look to succession planning and carrying businesses forward. But today's workforce concerns are influenced by more recent trends such as increased adoption of automation solutions and the advent of AI. In this installment of CW Talks, we explore the evolving role of AI in workforce development — both in terms of challenges as well as opportunities for those looking for careers in manufacturing, particularly involving advanced materials. In this interview, Michael Novak, president of AIJ Search, a recruiting firm devoted to helping clients build teams, offers his insights into how AI is shaping the search for talented and skilled workers.

The composites community benefits from several associations and entities that work to forward advanced materials research, one of those being the Institute for Advanced Composite Manufacturing Innovation (IACMI). In this special National Composites Week installment of CW Talks, CompositesWorld interviews IACMI CEO Chad Duty to discuss the myriad ways that composite materials and composites manufacturing contribute to the products and structures that shape our lives. Duty discusses the institute's 10th anniversary, its mission in the industry and rising to meet the challenges and opportunities facing the composites industry today.

In this episode of CW Talks, CompositesWorld speaks with Francesco Ierullo, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Exel Composites (Vantaa, Finland). Ierullo started in Italy as a one-man team and now oversees Exel's engineered composites business globally. He's worked across Europe and the U.S. and played a key role in developing Exel's conductor core program. CW sat down with Ierullo to hear about the role the company's capabilities are playing in numerous applications today from renewable energy to data centers to EVs, as well as his insights into how the composites industry has grown over the past decade.