MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
MANUFACTURING ENGINEER SHARES AND ADAPTS
Connections are vital to create networking, training, and community engagement opportunities, along with access to critical resources.
Written by Cathy Cecere
Radisek helps his son down the ladder in the USS Cod Submarine Memorial during the ASME NorthEast Ohio Professional Section tour in September 2023. Photo: Pamela Radisek
WHEN JOSEPH RADISEK accepted a manufacturing engineering job with Honeywell in Nebraska City after years of living in Dallas, his first thought was, “Who do I even know here?” His initial inclination was to turn to his college alumni group and, not surprisingly, the closest University of Dayton (UD) chapter was hundreds of miles away. Without a Dayton lead, the mechanical engineer turned to the ASME and found the Nebraska Section.
Nearby, he located members working at Offutt Air Force Base, at Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant, and frozen food manufacturer Conagra. Now working in Cleveland, Radisek is reminded of how ASME connections can help anchor an engineer. His current role as a new product development manager at Pursuit Aerospace brought Radisek back to his hometown. And this latest move reminded him that there is always an ASME member or professional section ready to welcome a mechanical engineer, no matter where life may send them.
The ASME NorthEast Ohio Professional Section tour at the National Polymer Innovation Center in October 2025. From left: Dhruba Panthi, Asmita Shinde, Colin Flowers, Joseph Radisek, and Andrew Knoll. Photo: Mandar Golvaskar
Starting Early
Radisek grew up in both volunteerism and engineering. He described joining his father at local ASM chapter events at eight years old. During meetings “we would be running around,” he explained. “[My father] would give out name badges and [my siblings and I] would bring them back. And when he’d hold a student night, mostly for college kids and high schoolers, we would get all the little trinkets.”
And as much as Radisek had an affinity with ASM and materials science, he arrived at the UD campus that had no ASM student chapter. His cousin, a fifth year and fellow mechanical engineering major, invited him to a free pizza night hosted by the Dayton ASME section. That first casual evening turned into monthly meetings, a conference, and then a fateful leadership lunch and learn. “I go into this lunch meeting and there’s six students and there’s six open roles,” Radisek recalled. “And they say, ‘Congratulations, you all now have a role.’”
Radisek spent several years in ASME student section leadership roles. And after graduation he wondered what was next for him. For Radisek, it made sense to continue working with students—helping with student leadership training and participating in the ECLIPSE program. The continued volunteering led to an invite on the Committee of Organization and Rules, which he thought “would be a great way to understand the inner workings of ASME.”
As Radisek transitions into his mid-career, he explained that it was time to “dig a little deeper and sink my teeth into [ASME].” That drive led to his current work in History and Heritage, the E-Fest Steering Committee, and his local Cleveland Section.
Lessons Learned
The biggest lesson that Radisek has learned throughout his work with ASME is “communication is everything.” Being able to translate complex ideas into language people can actually use is a game changer. He explained that when you work with “the same people day in and day out, you develop a language.” That shorthand may work well within an engineering team or industry, but it can make conversations difficult for anyone outside the group to fully understand what is being discussed.
Radisek explained that your ability to communicate what is happening at a technical level to other technical-minded people will lead to a better understanding of that moment and what can be applied with that knowledge. And being able to learn from what others have done is a big part of engineering. You need to learn “what others have done and do. So, whatever your skill set is, if you can adapt and apply, you should be in decent shape,” he added.
The ASME History & Heritage Committee at the ASME annual meeting in Long Beach in June 2024. From left: Elizabeth Deeb, Karen Russo, Joseph Radisek, Julie Kulik, and Nikhil Menezes. Photo: Joseph Radisek
Radisek is optimistic for the engineers growing careers in tomorrow’s industries. And he understands that staking your career in manufacturing could be “difficult when the market moves to cheaper and faster.”
Currently working with aerospace forgings, Radisek understands that among casting, additive, and forging the competition for market share is based on improving technology. Forging airfoils is the tried-and-true process which for existing manufacturers is difficult to beat on price, speed, and performance.
“No one’s going to play with you until technology catches up. But in other [areas], there’s a real fight,” he admitted. And casting has found an edge on performance going contrary to forging’s material strength with the grains. “People are willing to pay top dollar for something that has no grains in it,” Radisek explained. He offers that the frontier seems to be additive manufacturing which is gaining both interest and investment.
Young Professionals Are Our Future
Whether mentoring co-ops or presenting as a guest lecturer at Auburn University and Cleveland State University, Radisek spends a great deal of time surrounded by students and young professional engineers. He expects a future filled with capable young people. “The talent is there,” he said. “They are smart and genuinely interested and are trying things that science says can’t be done.”
Radisek offered the example of injection molding of tungsten carbide. The simulation models and experts insisted it was not feasible or achievable. “And despite early results at 60 percent scrapped product, we proved the process is possible,” he said.
And the same can be said in more legacy technologies such as forging. “You’ve got a new shape that [the customer] wants to make out of their specific material and you want to [form the shape] in as few hits as possible to keep the material integrity and to keep your costs down. So, even old technology can accept innovative ideas,” he said.
The mechanical engineer pointed out that is where ASME shines. When “you have a struggle to see how to apply something, then you’re going to share that struggle with a lot of other people,” he explained.
That dynamic becomes even more important as industries continue to adapt and change. “We look at artificial intelligence, automation, and trying to simplify the work,” he said. In any system, the work itself can be done by an operator, a programmed robot, or the equipment itself. Radisek added, “There’s a positive to [adaptation and change], but you [always must consider] where you fit the human element into it.”
Cathy Cecere is membership content program manager.
An ASME NorthEast Ohio Professional Section social held at Akron Rubberducks Canal Park in August 2025. From left: Joseph Santocildes, Alex Radisek, Joseph Radisek and his twin sons, Sidi N'Dioubnan, Jon Moody, Asmita Shinde, Colin Flowers, Jay Narayanan, and Sudharsun Govindaraj. Photo: Zane Maier/Akron Rubberducks
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