About ZILA

Started early. Oxygen acetylene at 12. Fixed cars, specialty bicycles, satellite dish mounts. At 18 I did a full welding and fabrication apprenticeship in Germany. Shear cutting, press brake, rolling, MIG, TIG — the real stuff.

Moved to the US in my twenties. Worked at a repair shop fixing heavy equipment: wood chippers, skid steers, track machines, excavators, trailers, medium-duty trucks. Then rotary shells for asphalt plants, corn dryers, potash dryers and hydraulic cylinders.

2009 I went self-employed. Lived in the scrap yards fixing cranes, material handlers, shears, balers, conveyors. But that was only part of it. Welded hundreds of feet of high-pressure hydraulic line raising bridges over the Milwaukee River. Built hydraulic cylinders for bridges. Welded the metal skeleton of a big restaurant. Converted aluminum dry powder cement tanker trailers into water tankers — full catwalks and railings. Repaired deep fryers, steel and aluminum boats… you name it.

Also trained well over 100 autobody shops in the greater Chicagoland area and got them through their aluminum welding tests. Collision repair world is no joke — those guys needed real aluminum skills and I delivered them.

A lot of that work is still on my YouTube channel. The jobs I love? The ones other contractors already told the customer couldn't be done. Cast iron. Aluminum. AR plate. High-pressure hard lines. One of them was setting a 36-foot, 18-inch tall I-beam that everyone else said was impossible. We built a custom sideways slider. Worked like a charm.

Later my good friend (founder and owner of HTP at the time) asked me to come on as the “tech guy.” I told him straight: I'll train that guy after you hire him, but that isn't me. We made a deal. First consultant, then full time for a few years. I was the driving force and the engineering and designing brain behind a lot of the machines HTP still carries.

When ownership changed I knew I needed more. I didn't want to be limited to electric arc welding. I wanted CNC plasma, robotics, robot welding, laser welding — stay up with cutting-edge tech and grow with like-minded people who have the same goals.

Married. Three kids. In business since 2009.

Over the years I helped thousands of customers learn aluminum welding over the phone. Met well over a hundred face-to-face in their shop or mine. Same thing every time: 2 hours of hands-on beats 2 weeks of phone calls and frustration. 2 days hands-on will revolutionize your business and save you 2 months of beating your head against the wall.

I've shown tricks that made welds dramatically better for guys just starting out, small shops, midsize companies, and bigger operations that had been doing it the hard way for decades. Helped YouTubers build their own aluminum boats. Brought in pulse, CNC plasma, laser, and the right filler metals to fix real problems.

That's ZILA.

Not a sales pitch. Not a catalog. Not for homeowners or DIY.

For professionals who are in business or ready to go pro. Shops that want to stop fighting equipment and start running cleaner, faster, more consistent work.

Training at my facility or on your site. Repair solutions and manufacturing optimization. Consulting. And equipment — but only after we figure out exactly what the job needs. I don't push machines. I find the best tool for that specific situation.

Today I'm ready to do the same thing for you and your company.

Knowledge. Solutions. Perfection. Success.
That’s it. That’s ZILA.