S6 Ep.8 - Mary Buchzeiger, CEO, Lucerne International

0:00Welcome to the Michigan Opportunity, an economic development discussion series featuring candid conversations with business leaders and innovators across Michigan. You'll hear firsthand accounts on how the state is driving job growth in business investment, supporting a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, building vibrant communities, and helping to attract and retain one of the most diverse and talented workforces in the nation. And now your host Ed Clemente. Hello and welcome to the show. And today we're favorite to meet a person that I just recently met at Mary Bucks' Iger. She's the CEO of the Surin International. And welcome to the show Mary. Oh, thanks so much for having me Adam. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, and you've been of somewhat notoriety. You were a you were MC or were you the moderator at a panel not too long ago, right? No, I was a panelist at the Detroit Economic Club Outlook, not too long ago in

1:00January. So it's kind of like what the because you were on with my boss, right? With Quentin Messer. I was, yeah, I was I was one of the panelists with him and the gentleman from University of Michigan, the economist there. Oh, really good, very good. And so we took we say to the Surin International, but we think you're actually located here in America and in Michigan. Why don't you give us quick overview of what the Surin International is? Sure. Yeah. So the Surin International, we've been around since 1993. And the core of our business is contract manufacturing. So we make chassis, powertrain and body structural components for automotive and commercial vehicle space. And we actually manufacture globally. So that's where the international comes from. We've been manufacturing globally since the early 2000s. Yeah. And I mean, you say it's sort of casually, but the reality is that it's not that simple. And that's good. That's

2:07why we always want the elevator speech kind of upfront. But but I think your industry, obviously, it's like when I used to play in coach sports every season's a new season, right? And I'm sure every not even every year, I'm sure for you, it's almost moving all the time. So it's probably been challenging. I would guess just over the last since you guys started, how to keep pivoting for global economic forces, right? Yeah, you know, it's definitely been a path, especially I would say the last six years, the last six years have been the most challenging, maybe the last, maybe the last eight quite frankly, you know, back in the early 2000s, when I took the company, we were a local contract manufacturer. And in early 2003, I said, hey, we need to look globally because we had all of these contracts that were getting pulled away from us to low-cost countries. So it was sink or swim back in the early 2000s

3:09and we had to jump off shore like everybody else did because if you didn't have a low-cost solution, many of our customers wouldn't even talk to us. And now of course, here we are, 23, 24 years later. And now if you don't have a local solution, your customers won't talk to you anymore. So it's definitely been a bumpy road and have it get here, always changing. Yeah, I think somewhere too, and maybe it was on your website or maybe even your personal LinkedIn page, but you have reassuring is one of the things that you guys kind of have some expertise in, is that to help companies yourself or how would you kind of? Yeah, a little bit of everything. So it's, we actually recently got into a whole new side of the business, a whole new venture. Of course, where there's chaos, there's opportunity and with this big onslaught of tariffs that happened in early 25, we found ourselves scratching our heads going, uh-oh, how do we manage cash flow in the middle of all of this? So we went out and we got our

4:11foreign trade zone certification and activation, which, um, I don't know, do you know what a foreign trade zone is? Oh, yeah. I used to be the president of a chamber of commerce way back. So I used to have to work with the ones around the airport. Okay. Yeah. So basically for the listeners that don't understand a foreign trade zone is, when your goods come in from a, when they're imported into the country, you owe tariffs on those goods within three to seven days, say normally. In a foreign trade zone, um, you can actually bring those goods all the way into your facility and they can sit in the facility for as long as they need to until they're ready to ship out the door or until they're ready to enter US commerce. And then only then when they enter US commerce, just the clock start ticking and when the tariffs are due. Or if those goods come in and you re-export those goods, say to Canada, Mexico, anywhere, actually in the world, um, now you never owe tariffs on those goods. So you can re-export without having to pay the tariffs and get

5:13duty-draw the act which would happen in the past. So, um, so that was what we did early 2025 when, when all these tariffs started hitting us and it really helped us just internally with our cash flow. But then we said, gosh, this is a really great solution for a lot of companies that need it. So we pivoted and we're helping, we're helping others now manage their goods through our foreign trade zone as well as reaching out and helping with supply chains globally. So if our customers or even some of our suppliers come to us and say, hey, we need some help, we need to either reassure, we need to look at our supply chain, we need to re-examine where we're manufacturing what the best path is and we're stepping in and helping those companies do that now. Yeah, and I know, I've had some of us, I'm before I've talked about supply chains, but I think, obviously, the COVID era was probably where most Americans even knew what a supply chain was when stuff wasn't coming in. Remember all the ships like

6:16backed up in LA and Boston? We couldn't get toilet paper or paper towel. God knows why it was that commodity but you just couldn't get it anywhere. Yes, I remember. I mean, I think what it did, it was like almost like a course correction, I think for a lot of businesses from the old just in time stuff where you had to have maybe more inventory than you traditionally did after going through that. Is that what you guys found out or is a little different for you? Yeah, you know, we've always been big on safety stock because there's always ups and downs, but quite frankly, prior to COVID, I would say shipping was pretty dependable. There was, there was really, you know, with the occasional port strike or just some little nuances that would happen here and there. For years, decades, it was pretty reliable until COVID, so I think you're right. It really showed us what could happen in the middle of a crisis and just how fragile supply chains are. Yeah, and not only that, I mean, I mean, at Michigan State University, I know it

7:19has like just a whole like department just for supply chain. Yeah, they've got a great program there for supply chain. Yeah, and I would imagine the advent of blockchain originally, right, with where stuff or originated and you can find it, you know, where in that linear segment, something might have been misplaced or whatever, right? But then also now with AI, I would imagine you're having to change again, right? Yeah, you know, AI is really, it's exciting, I think, for supply chains, because it brings so much clarity and transparency if you use it correctly and also automation. So where it's kind of crazy, we just met with a company last week or the week before, and they've got this product where it automates your whole logistics process for you. So it's got an agent basically that comes in and you input what you need to ship. It goes out and it gets quotes from all these different shipping companies and it takes back all

8:23of that information. It dissects it and it decides what's going to be the best path forward. It will go schedule those trucks and then notify your shipping and receiving department that that truck is scheduled and coming in and it creates a building for you. So it's just those little nuances that are really starting to take place along all little paths of the supply chains right now. And I think too, with the digitization of businesses, you know, almost everything must happen a lot faster too. And then it can change a lot faster too, right? At the same time. And so those must be sort of something that you're constantly sort of, that these microchanges, you have to keep adjusting somewhat too. I would imagine. Am I guessing wrong? No, I think you're absolutely right. It's definitely challenging to keep up with the pace right now that things are going. At the end of the day, a supply chain is still a

9:25supply chain. And I think what AI is doing is just helping automate some of those processes. I can certainly say that with all the changes, at least for the global trade, that this onslaught of tariffs have brought on, that AI has been very helpful in sorting through that and really helping us navigate those changes. I think without AI, it would have been very difficult just to give you a figure. This is a great example. There's this chapter 99 is a code basically through customs when you do entries that they're all sorts of different tariff codes. And in the less, I don't know, 20 years, maybe one a year has been added. These chapter 99 codes just in the last year. There has been over 215 lines. Chapter 99. So you could imagine anybody that's dealing with global trade, how do you keep up with something like that?

10:28And we've really implemented AI to help us compile the data, sort the data, put in executive orders, put in these new 99 codes, bring in all the things from CVP, and really just help us sort it and make sense of it against all of the different components that either we're bringing in or our customers are bringing in to really help us wrap our arms around that part of the supply chain. That's so important. Understanding what tariffs you owe, if you can even bring the goods in, if there's anti-dumping, countervailing duties, there's all these things now that you really have to think about when you're importing any kind of goods. And I think from my experience of dealing with Americans in general, they usually think, oh, well, we've done these things, but they got to realize that it's being changed on the other end of the spectrum, and sometimes the parts in between too, like shipping and, you know, and all those other things. So it's like 3D chess, like in

11:32Star Trek or something, right? You're just... Yeah, well, I always have to, yeah, you're right, it's like chess. You have to be, you have to be a few moves ahead to be able to make it make sense. Well, I would imagine, not just even a few moves ahead, because even that's probably hard to do. I would guess you have to have a few options ahead in several different directions, so that you can move quickly and not lose much profit share or whatever it would, whatever it might be challenging you, I guess. Yeah, it's difficult. As I mentioned earlier, historically, traditionally, we are very embedded in the automotive industry. So the automotive industry is very much like an old dog. It's really hard to get it moving, and you know, you can't teach an old dog new tricks while we're trying really hard. Things change doesn't happen fast in the automotive industry, and a lot of people don't understand that. They can't move supply chains overnight. We don't have the resources

12:32here in the United States to make every commodity that we wish we could make here. We haven't made it here in 60 years plus, right? So it's very difficult to flip a switch and make those changes, especially in manufacturing, especially in automotive that has such long lead times when it comes to any kind of changes. Yeah, and I think it's even more ironic, because I know you recommended a couple of books to each other, but like people think, you know, this is more of a China phenomenon, but really it happened, if you go back far enough, when the Japanese and the German companies were coming back in the 70s, even to America, and how there was adaptation and craziness then too, and so that global supply chain does shift even globally, somewhat, as to where parts are made, or where engineering takes place, and where assembly takes place, right?

13:34Absolutely. I think you've seen that morph over in the, gosh, 30 plus years now that I've been around in this industry, who has seen so many changes, and it really, it, you know, once upon a time, China was this just low cost manufacturing center, and I remember growing up, and you know, don't put that in your mouth. It's from China. Oh, you don't know what's in it, right? So people have this, they have this picture in their head that China is nothing but cheap garbage coming out of the manufacturing sector. Well, once upon a time, that was probably true, but then Europe went in, and we went in, and we really helped build up Chinese manufacturing now to a point where, guess what, the best technology in the world is now coming out of China. So definitely, there's been some tables turned, and we're seeing some big shifts in those supply chains, like you're talking about. Yeah, and once again, our guest is really Bucziger,

14:38CEO for LeSurn, and we'll be back in just a minute. You're listening to the Michigan Opportunity, featuring candid conversations with Michigan Business Leaders and Innovators on what makes Michigan a leading state to live, work, and play. Listen to more episodes at michiganbusiness.org forward slash podcast, or download the Michigan Opportunity through your preferred podcast platform. Welcome back to the show with Mary Bucziger. She's a CEO of LeSurn International, and we were just talking about a lot of supply chain issues, but you know, your name is pretty international, but where did you come up with LeSurn? Is it named out of the Switzerland? Or what? So my father actually started LeSurn back in 1993, and he had a partner when they started it, and they were just sitting, just sitting around saying, gosh, what are we going to name the company? And literally, my father's partner had just went on vacation with his family to LeSurn, Switzerland. So he's like, are we hearing a beautiful

15:39place? How about we name it that? And they said, great, that's the story. That's great. Yeah, it is named after LeSurn, Switzerland. And I actually, for the very first time, a year and a half ago, got to visit LeSurn, Switzerland, our name's name. And it is beautiful. So I'm pretty happy with the name, actually. Yeah, and I forget is LeSurn, where the collider is, they were, they do all the research, or you know, it's, I don't even know the exact city either, but it's somewhere in Switzerland where it's like famous for scientists to go to. I can't remember I don't know if it's LeSurn, it's, so it's, it's Lake LeSurn, that LeSurn is beautiful lake. It's surrounded by mountains, and it's absolutely gorgeous there. And where did you, was the company always in Auburn Hills, or did it start somewhere else, or? Originally, it actually did start in Auburn Hills, and then for a while, we bought a building out in Northern Oakland County of Waterford. So we were in Waterford, but then I brought it back

16:43to Auburn Hills in 2016. So we've been around here for a while. And when you look at some of your clients, are you diversifying your clients? Like you just said, it's tough for the auto industry, obviously, to move quickly itself as OEMs do. But like, I know I've had a lot of guests on and more in their space industry, defense contracting, a lot of different things. Are you diversifying your portfolio to somewhere? We are, absolutely. And you know, you see a lot of automotive companies at diversifying right now. I've got a lot of friends in the industry, and we just see it happening left and right. It's difficult because the automotive industry would, it's not just the, you know, you've got the EV to ICE, ICE to EV. Now EV platforms are canceled. So it's all this delay. And then put on top of it, the geopolitical risks and, you know, the uncertainty,

17:43that's the key word for the automotive industry right now is uncertainty. So nobody's really making any moves. So you're seeing either programs, new launches delayed, canceled, older lines continuing on. So there's really just not a lot of, there's not a lot of really excitement happening in the industry. So I think people are starting to realize, gosh, we better look outside and see if we can diversify a little bit. We are definitely diversifying right now. We are, with our warehousing and our foreign trade zone, our fulfillment center, about 85% of what we do, our customers right now are actually non-automotive and consumer good-facing. So you're like almost like a consultant, assertive almost in some things? We do some consulting, but for the most part with our foreign trade zone, we've become a fulfillment center at the end of the day in its repeal. Interesting. Yeah. So it's exciting. It's, it's, it's what we've always done for ourselves through our global contract manufacturing. And now instead of owning the parts, owning the process, having all that

18:47investment, we just take care of the end process, which is warehousing, repackaging some assembly, distribution, kidding, sequencing, all that, that end kind of last mile for our customers now. Yeah, and it sounds like any smart business person in what you would do is diversify your portfolio a little bit. So when one thing's down, maybe another one's doing well, but you don't want to take too much risk, you know, in fact, you said EV and ICE just for listeners, electric vehicles, of course, but ICE is internal combustion engines. Yeah, yeah. And so I just want to make sure. And so also the, I think too that, you know, I always look at the strengths, you know, and it's, you know, you obviously hear complaints about whether Michigan is keeping up, you know, can we compete globally, keeping the automotive industry here? And that's always a legitimate question. But actually, I think that's what make us stronger and more focused is when we are challenged.

19:51Because if we're not challenged, I mean, I won't mention any other like Midwest states, but like, if you're just an agriculture state, no one's trying to poach your business. Right. But when you've got probably globally in the US, we're probably the leading place for advanced manufacturing. And you know, thanks to places like Automationally, the MMTC and all these other places that help us keep that competitive edge. We're actually a place people want to steal from, which is sometimes good, but bad too. But it is, it's better than the other way round of not having these things in place and the engineers and all the intellectual property that floats around here too. I mean, those things all add up to that many other places in America, you can find all that circumdence, I think too. I agree. And I think that's what brings us so much opportunity to be able to diversify. I was, I was down at CES, the Consumer Electronic Show. And, you know,

20:56it is amazing to see, it's crazy because when you go to CES years past, I always, you're amazed by the technology. And then a couple of years later, it's just part of your everyday life, that technology that you were so amazed by. In this year, if it's any, you know, it was crazy to see how many humanoid robots and drones and the evitals and all of that that was just permeated through CES. And that's really just a brand new industry that's got so much opportunity and so much growth out of it. And I said this when I was on the panel at the Detroit Economic Club that we, it would be a shame to waste that opportunity because I really think that Detroit and Michigan in general has an opportunity to capitalize on that and use our engineering skills, use that R&D, be able to really break into that market and be one of the leaders in that market. Yeah, there's an old,

22:00I'm paraphrasing, but today's magic is tomorrow's technology, right? And, but so if you had it, if you could, this is my CES question because I don't get to go, but like what was your favorite thing even beyond work stuff? Did you see anything really there you liked a lot? Yeah, you know, it's always really cool. I mean, there's so many cool little gadgets and stuff. Everything was so heavy. I mean, as you can imagine, AI, there was so much AI there. So it was pretty cool to see that and get to like play with some different things. Well, my favorite thing really was the humanoid robots. It was just cool to see, you know, how much advancement has been made just in the last year, I would say. And I think with with AI growing in an exponential rate and continuing to push upon itself, that is only going to snowball with the humanoid robots base to continue to progress even faster. Yeah, and I want to compliment you. You don't even know why, but using the word,

23:04the adjective of humanoid robot, because I think people think all robots are humanoid, but the reality is like if you go into a fulfillment center, I've been to like Amazon's and like 99% of them are little things that don't even look like robots or logistical little metal thing that drives around. You're saying specifically things that could come in your house and clean your house or do something, right? Yeah, the interaction. Yeah, and you're right. So, you know, being in the industry, we've been around robotics forever because you walk out into factory and there's robots doing all sorts of things, but it's just like a weird arm picking things up and moving things and you know, automated material handling systems that are also robotics, just driving around with material, but yes, specifically the humanoid robots. And it's really interesting because there's so much opportunity as well, not just for the consumer side, but also for that industrial

24:04side of potentially replacing humans. It's certain jobs that, you know, that the robotic arms and the things that we've been accustomed to and manufacturing really can't do, but these humanoid robots have so much more learning capacity to deal with those things. Yeah, I heard a podcast recently on the economist and it talked about how we're just beginning the new phase of the new style of robots, not just humanoid, just in general because of the mobility they can do, which they didn't have that ability before, and then also the combination with that with AI, how it's going to change a lot of stuff quickly. And you know, and a lot of people are even holding off and investing until they kind of know how this is going to turn out because you don't want too much if something gets leapfrogged quickly. And yeah, yeah, no, it's kind of an interesting, so maybe last couple of questions for you too, but one is, is there any other future trends that

25:04you haven't mentioned? You've mentioned quite a few futuristic things, but any other things you see out there? You know, I really feel like, like I said, the humanoid robots as far as Michigan and our industry, I think there's just so much opportunity with all of these trends that are happening with the humanoid robots, with the evital, which is the electric, you know, the flying vehicles. Oh, yeah, flying taxis, the robo taxis, those I think are really a lot closer than we think they are. And then the other opportunities, of course, are just the data centers that continue in need, growing need for data centers that we're seeing around here. And I think that Michigan, in general, has this capacity and ability to be able to really jump on board and be able to diversify into those industries? Yeah, and, you know, and, you know, we've had several speakers who kind of hit those points, and we also think that how we can kind of create that invisible thread that

26:08pulls those things you're talking about together, I think is going to be the sort of the secret sauce, like how do we do that? Because, you know, that's what's kind of differentiated you globally, I think, too, as a state, or as a region to become a sort of an ecosystem for the things you're talking about, I would guess, too. Absolutely. And I know that even though it's not a popular, or maybe not the most popular opinion, but we really need to look at this on a global scale. They can't be called yours, because when I was at CES, 90% of the humanoid robots were all coming out of Korea. You know, and as in the rest of them were coming out of China, so all this technology is really being bred elsewhere, but it needs to come to the U.S. and we've got this opportunity to partner with and bring these other companies in rather than close our doors and sit in the sandbox and play by ourselves. Yeah, and last couple of questions for you. You went to an interesting

27:09program. By the way, you're a graduate of Lawrence Tech, right? Or you went to Lawrence Tech? Yep. Well, I went to a lot of places. I had a lot of fun. We won't go there. That's not this kind of podcast. Yeah. I did graduate from Lawrence Tech. Finally, I think it took me nine and a half, 10 years to get mine. That's all right. That's all good. Yeah. Well, no, we've had the president of Lawrence Tech on, so make sure he gets tagged when we put this out. But like, but then you also did this. Which is just like a minute to explain this triumph thing you did. I thought that was fascinating because I never heard of it, but it's like brilliant. And it fits exactly into the kind of things you're talking about like for the future to someone. It is. It was an amazing program. It was one of the best experiences in my life. So it's called TRIUM. And it was a try degree. So a master's degree, a global master's degree, a try degree between Paris, HEC, London School of Economics and Stern, New York. So I probably now have three

28:12diplomas from those three schools, which was such an incredible experience. It was an 18-month program. And there were six modules. So you do two weeks of intensive modules. And we went to Paris. So we did it at Paris, HEC, London School of Economics. We went to Stern, New York. We did a module in Dubai, which was amazing. And then a module in California and Silicon Valley. And then another module in Paris. So it was crazy for the best part about the program. The content was amazing. The education was amazing. But I had a cohort of 60 people representing 32 different countries. So just learning and they're all executives. So average age I think was 45 in my cohort. Just learning from other executives and other industries across the world was such an incredible experience. And you become like family after going through this program. As you battle,

29:14it's not an easy program. So you battle together. But the cool thing about it is now, honestly, I could pick up the phone. And if I wanted to do business or needed a favor, I was traveling somewhere anywhere in the world, either by John, South Africa, China. You name it. I've got a friend more than likely living in one of those countries that I can pick up the phone and do business with. So that in and of itself, that experience was incredible. But the key takeaway, I think, and this is the most important one is that especially in today's world, when the geopolitics sometimes makes us feel so divided, you go through a program like that. And it makes you realize that across the world, we all really basically want the same things in a life. And that kind of program, I feel like just brings people together and makes you understand cultural differences that helps you really understand people as a whole. And other things that you've been talking about actually

30:16fit into that sort of narrative because you digitization is what's made that possible. We couldn't have probably had a program like that 10, 15 years ago, the same way as you can now and how you can keep in touch with people. Oh yeah, we have we have like a zoom meeting, just there's a girls group because there is of course, there's nearly 20% of us that were girls. So not many of us, but you know, we'll still occasionally every six months have a zoom meeting and just solve the girls getting together and having a glass of wine and chip chatting, which is amazing. So yeah, that that's definitely helpful because digitization makes people not feel so far away. I forgot to ask you this. You told me before, but where'd you go to high school again? I forgot. I grew up in a little town called Ortonville. I've heard of it. Most people know about Cook's Farm Dairy or Pine Nod. So I grew up between Cook's Farm Dairy and Pine Nod music theater. So we're up by Clarkson. Yeah, not their No Kun Count. I think there's a state park

31:16there, a state wreck area, Ortonville, something where you can come. There's a couple. Yeah, yeah. Well, as you can maybe pick one more thing before you go, like what's your favorite activity in Michigan, or Southeast Michigan? I'm going to Florida. In the winter, I got it. The weather has been terrible. Oh my gosh. No, you know what I do love Michigan and I love the seasons in Michigan, quite frankly. And my husband and I play a lot of golf. So it's so. Oh yeah, well, that's a nice Florida. Yeah, you're two best states for golf and the summer Michigan's beautiful and then absolutely get it. Well, anyway, our guest again was Mary Bucketziger. She's CEO of Lissurne International and she's a very interesting person, as you can tell, and thank you very much Mary for doing this today. Thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun. The Michigan opportunity is brought to you by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

32:18Whether you're looking for small business resources, exploring an expansion or relocation, or seeking a world-class workforce, visit Michiganbusiness.org to learn how you can make it in Michigan.