Bret Boyd

Big week for the team in Orlando last week.

Last week at the @DMCmeeting, our VP of Technology and AI thought leader Zachary Tschirhart broke down how Sustainment is building generative AI to accelerate manufacturing supply chains that helps strengthen the Defense Industrial Base. Thank you to Dr. Senthil Arul for convening this conversation — the level of seriousness about how we need to leverage AI to move the needle in defense manufacturing and readiness was exactly right. We were proud to showcase Sustainment's AI leadership as a deeply embedded partner in the DoW. #DefenseManufacturing #AI #SupplyChain #DIB #DMC #Sustainment

Our CEO @bretdboyd joined @XBowSystems, @CapitalFactory, and others at the Tectonic Defense Summit — talking about how critical tech areas are reshaping the battlefield and the Defense Industrial Base.

This is worth a read - we spent a lot of time last year talking to manufacturers to identify the real challenges and opportunities small and medium-sized manufacturers are facing. Check it out, links below. Thanks @NAIA for the collaboration.

We are proud to share our report on American manufacturing in partnership with the New American Industrial Alliance (@newindustrials)! 🇺🇸 You can download the full report today from our website. Link in comments below. #BackTheBuilders #AmericanManufacturing

Great event. Go Team America!

@kaylahaas Helpful summary

The 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy in one page.

@67Designs Very sorry to hear this. You are not the only company being caught on the horns of this dilemma.

STOPPING CONSUMER SALES AFTER 13 YEARS. After thirteen years of building a respected brand from nothing—driven by a bootstrapped ethos and anchored in a sincere effort to reindustrialise while also showing a new generation the quiet dignity of making world-class products with their own hands— @67Designs now finds itself compelled to cease direct sales to consumers at the close of this month, January 2026. This decision to withdraw from the consumer market is the inevitable consequence of a market utterly inundated with counterfeit goods, brazen knock-offs, almost exact replicas, all pouring in from China. We are witnessing a deliberate race to the bottom driven by Amazon and Shopify store ecommerce bros, where honest American manufacturers are dragged under by forces they cannot hope to compete/scale when the competitors use the slogan "The same as 67 Designs, but cheaper" - all while draping their Chinese products in the American flag deliberately to defraud veterans, law enforcement and the public at large. While enterprises wisely shift towards genuine Made-in-USA sourcing – a path 67 Designs will now prioritize – the consumer realm tells a different, grim story. Chinese producers in 2025 are largely holding prices steady, barely budging even amid inflation and tariffs, while American firms grapple with material costs soaring over 25% in 2025 alone. The fraudsters, waving American flags on their shoddy imports, profit handsomely from this imbalance. A product that costs a minimum of $25 to produce in Texas lands in the counterfeiters warehouse for around $4 from China. They reverse-engineer new @67Designs products in well under 120 days and have appropriated over 90% of our original portfolio – all the research, development, and market-building done by @67Designs. It is simply impossible to absorb escalating costs – whether raw materials or an 18% rise in staff BCBS health insurance – when the market is flooded with fakes priced below US sourced raw inputs. Throw in the predictable supply-demand curve for skilled machinists in the US and the costs will soar upwards massively by 2027. The acceleration has started and with retirements and death a factor for our nation's best machinists the cost per part could triple inside 24 months - yes, even with automation. In time, the company's site will shift to an informational resource, laying bare the stark reality facing every American innovator: sophisticated networks of domestic counterfeiters operating like modern pirates, plundering intellectual property with impunity. These are not amateur operations; they are organized, legally armored groups, exploiting a broken legal system that enriches lawyers and delivers perverse rulings from the bench. They shill for China. Make no mistake about it. Patents, trademarks, trade dress – all issued by the USPTO – mean little when the apparatus meant to protect them fails so spectacularly. We can debate whether a nation content with manufacturing only defense-related or nuclear technologies is sustainable, but the larger question looms: for three or four decades, we have lacked any credible Industrial Strategy to counter China. We still have no credible Strategy/Policy that can deliver tax and other incentives into the market to prevent the greatest loss of industrial knowledge in human history because there is little to no capital for generalized manufacturing services companies. Policymakers have allowed generalized commercial manufacturing (especially of consumer goods) to wither, unprotected and undermined. This is not just the story of one company; it is a symptom of a deeper US civilizational supply-chain complacency that has made America a consumer nation vs a balanced producer-consumer nation. If we continue to avert our gaze and think the DoW can alone save US manufacturing, we should not be surprised when the lights of genuine American ingenuity and creativity with atoms dim further. @JohnGardnerVoH @scotttmaier @ratwave @cpa_tradereform @NAIA

Technological superiority can't replace techno-industrial capacity realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/…

@jamoses92 Let's go!!!

The new Western alliance.

Looking forward to seeing you all in Detroit. I'm the cofounder/CEO of @SustainmentTech, a dual-use software and AI platform that helps manufacturers find and get work done with their suppliers across sourcing and procurement workflows. As part of our DoD work we've built out a network of thousands US manufacturing suppliers and are really proud to be part of @newindustrials and the onshoring & reindustrialization movement.

Thanks for highlighting Sustainment and our CEO @bretdboyd in this week's Future of Defense @demarest_colin! We appreciate the mention and encourage everyone to subscribe to this resourceful newsletter by @axios. Subscribe and read more here: axios.com/newsletters/ax… #NatSec #DefenseTech #FutureofDefense #Axios

The US needs a Manufacturing Ready Reserve to ensure we can quickly mobilize the full power of American manufacturing at scale. Increase economic competitiveness, reduce risk in protracted combat, and deter war via manufacturing strength. @SustainmentTech nationalreview.com/2025/05/americ…

Chris Hill and I were recently published in Real Clear Defense, talking about the significant challenges manufacturing businesses face when trying to enter the defense industrial base. In order to expand the defense industrial base, we will necessarily have to get more commercial manufacturers involved in defense manufacturing. Therefore we need to address the technological, financial, and policy barriers that keep them out. This is a complex issue where the details matter. realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/…

Looking forward to this convo between @SustainmentTech and @GuseMrsco!

@Berniverse42 This

A strong industrial base isn’t built on machines alone—it’s built on relationships. Trust between suppliers, manufacturers, and educators is the hidden infrastructure. You can digitize a factory, but without trust, nothing scales well. Rebuild the base. Start with people.

@RedStatesLead Well said and well done to Idaho and the other states who are moving in the right direction and reducing regulation.

The problem shouldn't be overstated, California style blue tape regulations are killing Red states. But we have seen the way forward and its progress. In less than 5 years Idaho became one of the least regulated states in the country and has the fastest growing economy of all 50 states. It can be done.

There are so many regulatory issues to address in context of reindustrialization - permitting, tax policy, labor law, land use, supply chain rules, etc. Decades of overregulation to undo. It's a bit daunting, actually.

@WallHWhite is on target in the @DailyCaller describing the challenges we face with China's scale advantages in drone manufacturing. Problem extends to shipbuilding and many other areas critical to our national security. dailycaller.com/2025/05/03/pen…