The more you know about AFS Corporate Member Production Pattern & Foundry (PPF), the easier it is to think about football–– specifically, Walter Payton, the former Chicago Bears’ running back who inspired sportscasters to invent the term “juke” back in the ’80s. Sweetness, as he was known, was fast and agile, able to pivot on a dime. You could say the same thing about PPF, a Northern Nevada-based aluminum metalcaster that operates two foundries––green sand and permanent mold–– under one roof. Along with dual casting capabilities, the 83-year-old company performs a full range of cradle-to-grave services inhouse, says President John Wasson, making them a nimble, one-stop shop that can juke like many can’t––not with a fake, but rather a readiness to shift fast and tackle any customer deadline that comes at them.

PPF’s playbook is simple to say but requires extreme talent and strategic leadership to execute. Wasson sums it up on four fingers: Safety, efficiency, innovation, and commitment to responsive customer support. There’s no such thing as a typical volume at PPF, where they could be running 750 parts for one customer and 150,000 for another. The industries they chiefly serve are equally diverse: Heavy truck, specialty tooling, medical and dental, military, and sports equipment, as in baseball-pitching and football-throwing machines. Customers are signaling growth in their markets, and PPF is optimistic for a robust year of opportunity and growth in 2025.

“I would call our outlook exciting because we have so much strong customer demand,” said Wasson. “Within the first month of the new year we already won multiple bids, and some of these parts will last through the year. Our customers are telling us they’re going to grow and that they want us to grow with them. Sometimes we are bidding, but often a customer will come to us and say, ‘Hey, can you just quote this?’ We have those relationships where they trust what we can do and they already know they want to work with us.”

With an output of 340,000 parts delivered and 2.4 million lbs. of aluminum poured in 2024, PPF currently runs 1.5 shifts and tends to produce more castings on the permanent mold side of the business. The company can produce castings from .5–150 lbs. in sizes ranging from 2–3 inches to well over 5 feet when they employ a floor mold. PPF also designs and produces tooling and cores inhouse and offers a variety of material testing services including non-destructive testing, x-ray, dimensional analysis, and a salt spray test for paint.

The green sand foundry occupies approximately 5,000 sq. ft. and features an automated mold machine able to produce 250 molds per hour. The separate permanent mold foundry operates in an area of about 20,000 sq. ft. Once cores are placed inside the pattern and a cope and drag are formed, molds are moved to the melting/pouring department, at which point automation keeps the flow of parts from both foundries advancing seamlessly. Castings are transferred down a custom-built conveyor line to shakeout, then to heat treat, then to the trim operation where gating is cut and parting lines are smoothed. Next, parts move to machining, and then they’re transported to the separate paint shop located 500 yards down the street. They return to the main facility for final inspection and shipping. Meanwhile, sand is recycled back through PPF’s conveyor system––binders are added before sand is returned to the molding machine, thus tying up a continuous, closed-loop system of producing cast aluminum parts.
“With the equipment and automated processes we have in place, we have plenty of capacity to either double or triple the volume we’re currently producing,” Wasson said. “We run a single shift for green sand and a small crew working second shift on permanent mold,” he added. “But we have the opportunity to go with a full second shift, and we even have the ability to expand to additional weekend shifts.”

Strong Roots and New Shoots

America was at war in 1942 when a man named Bob Lambert founded his production pattern shop in Oakland California. The company entered the metalcasting market in 1956, but business conditions changed over the course of nearly five decades on the coast. By 2004, the cost of doing business in California drove PPF to seek a new home––they landed in Mound House, Nevada, less than 10 minutes from Carson City and 40 minutes northeast of Lake Tahoe. 

Today, the $20-million per year business is primarily owned by the founder’s daughter, Arlene Cochran, who played important roles in selecting the Nevada site and, together with its president at the time, oversaw the design and construction of PPF’s current 100,000-sq.-ft. home. The company now employs 75 people––the average tenure of the team is eight years, and the tenure leaps to a 20-year average among its highly-technical department supervisors, including Pattern Shop Lead Steve Geisler, who joined the business in 1978. The talent in the pattern shop alone comprises over 140 years of experience. Overall, PPF provides a rock of expertise on which customers frequently rely for part design advice as well as complete reverse engineering and manufacturabilty. 

Wasson, a 24-year aerospace manufacturing veteran with an investment casting background, joined PPF in 2024. A pragmatic leader who views the people of the company as its No. 1 asset, he’s moving the company in a new direction underpinned by a Kaizen continuous-improvement mindset. 

To him, company culture is the hinge upon which every opportunity, innovation, and solution swings. In fact, the focus on building strong culture minimizes labor defection and feeds directly into PPF’s core values of safety, quality, customer focus, and integrity. Pay naturally comes into the culture conversation, but it’s only one piece of the pie.
“We’ve done a lot with competitive wages, with medical benefits, and with PTO, and our retention is actually now quite high,” Wasson said. “Aside from that, I’m huge on culture that stresses working with a team, setting goals, praising people, and celebrating all the wins, big and small.” 

More Than a Feeling

Mantras and mindsets might bring people through the door, but PPF is about follow-through and putting its culture ideals into practice. For instance, being a family-oriented guy himself, Wasson says he applies that value across all levels of the company. 

“When someone has something going on, whether it’s with kids or doctor visits or anything of that sort, I say, ‘Go ahead, take care of that, and you can make up the hours another time. The other day, I was in a meeting with one of our department leads, and he got a phone call from his wife––there was something going on with his son. He told her he was in a meeting, and I said, ‘I need you to go take care of your family first.’ He’s like ‘Ok boss,’ and we just finished our meeting later. That’s the kind of culture I’m looking for.

“But the biggest thing we’ve done is create a safety-first culture, he added. “This means, on a daily basis, looking at what can we do to improve processes and a make a safer environment for our employees. We need their observations and input to do this, so the communication factor is important. People know they’re valued and they’re being heard, and when they need something, we’re supplying them the tools or the changes to make improvements.”
Wasson’s emphasis on a safe and healthy work environment includes daily safety huddles, and he says listening to the team is just as important as talking to them. He walks the talk with tangible investments, too. In 2025, the company will install cooling stations at every work area and is working to improve systems that pull heat out of the plant floor. Also, a new robotic cell installation is coming midyear that will minimze bandsaw cutting.

The range of tools PPF uses to further build out its resilient people culture is substantial:

Safety-first environment––it’s worth repeating, and they’re not kidding. 

Comradery and fun––Taco Tuesdays (the name says it all) is one example of how PPF brings the team together to form friendships. Free daily caffeine and snacks boost morale, too. 

Four 10s––giving employees a four-day workweek of 10 hours per day is a highly valued employment perk in their region.

Training––which demonstrates the company values people and wants them to develop and grow.

Career paths––for those who are hungry and want to move up, PPF develops individual career plans for advancement within the company.

Merit raises––that provide incentive to raise the performance bar.

Town hall meetings––communication is transparent and frequent. Wasson says buy-in happens when people understand the “why” of what’s going on.

Field Goals

Although PPF anticipates a year of growth, like any foundry it will deal with a few key issues this year. 

“The No 1 challenge we have is with material cost,” Wasson said. “A lot of our aluminum is imported from multiple areas, and there’s always concerns about price fluctuations. When you’re in this aluminum manufacturing world, a small change can actually mean a lot to us and our customers.”

One thing they can control is improving efficiency in the business. As lead-time demands put the squeeze on management, they in turn apply the principles of Kaizen, Root Cause Corrective Action, and another tool in their toolbox, the “5 Whys,” to drive operational excellence, problem-solving, and continuous improvement initiatives. That includes how they address the complex and ongoing EHS challenges as they arise. 

As Wasson and his leadership team offensively move the ball downfield on multiple fronts, they’re not taking their eyes off the priority goal of expanding business development––which explains why PPF hired Client Relationship and Sales Manager Tiffany Schembre in December of 2024. 

“We’re focused on penetrating the market as well as strengthening relationships with our current customers,” Wasson said. “Whether it’s customer service, the delivery of quality castings, and a strong line of communication, we want them to feel comfortable giving us more work––and the exciting thing is, we already see more of that happening.”