Brantley Armour believes in the power of data—but only when it’s the right data, delivered at the right time. At MAVPAK Warehouse, he led the migration of the company’s accounts to a more robust warehouse management system, unlocking greater inventory traceability, enhanced customer visibility and major efficiency gains. He has built intuitive dashboards to track key performance indicators, transformed raw data into decision-ready insights and refined processes to help move products throughout the pipeline faster and more accurately. His commitment doesn’t end at the warehouse walls. A University of Indianapolis and Western Governors University grad, Brantley brings a lifelong learner’s mindset to every challenge–navigating the unknown, removing roadblocks for stakeholders and mentoring others through problem-solving.

When America’s appetite for on-demand retail sparked a surge in returned merchandise, Rod Baradaran saw both a problem and an opportunity. The problem: returns created a significant environmental burden, with many products ending up in landfills. The opportunity: a chance to bring a high-tech solution to the emerging reverse logistics industry. As co-founder and CEO of rScan, the 2025 Mira Awards Tech 25 honoree and IU Kelley School of Business graduate has led the development of software that dramatically reduces the time it takes to resell a product—while also pioneering innovations that are poised to influence the broader logistics industry.

When Makayla Barrett asked why her team had to perform a task in a particularly tedious way, someone told her it was because it had always been done that way. She took that answer as a challenge—and delivered a solution. Makayla developed a new system that cut down time spent on the task, saving the company $3,500 each week and allowing her team to focus on more value-added work. A Terre Haute native and Indiana State University graduate, Makayla now serves as a supply chain planner for a transmission built at Allison’s Hungary plant, ensuring all parts arrive on time for seamless assembly.

The candle business may seem simple, but Kaitlin Baxter knows otherwise. At Antique Candle, she’s been instrumental in streamlining everything from fragrance and wick development to onboarding new products and refining production processes. Her innovative thinking has driven major improvements—most notably in 2021, when she helped redesign the plant layout, introducing new production methods and retraining the team with minimal disruption. Thanks in large part to her efforts, the company’s daily output has soared from 500 to over 3,000 candles.

Spencer Brown is helping shape the future of recreational vehicles. At Ember, he has worked with the design team to develop 40 floorplans across three new series and created patented components and systems that are redefining what RVs can do. One of his designs, EmberTrack, features the use of E-Track which lets RV owners reconfigure their traditional bunk space— turning a sleeping area into storage space or even a desk with ease. A Goshen native and Trine University graduate, Spencer didn’t stop at design. He collaborated closely with Ember’s operations, sales, and product development teams to ensure the concept was both practical and marketable—an example, his team says, of his big-picture approach to innovation.

“Efficiency” might be the best word to sum up Scott Clark’s impact at Cook Medical. It appears again and again in descriptions of his work—both in the results he achieves and the thoughtful processes he uses to get there. A University of Louisville graduate, Scott helped drive critical efficiencies during the resource-constrained early 2020s by transferring processes to external partners. More recently, he implemented laser marking machines that streamlined operations on his product line. His secret? Alongside technical expertise, leaders point to his ability to connect with colleagues—a skill that fosters efficiency even amid constant change.

Logan Glaze’s last name might be on the sign out front, but joining the family business wasn’t a given. Wanting to prove himself, he launched his career at other firms. Once onboard, though, the Marian University football All-American quickly made an impact—helping Glaze Tool & Engineering earn a Manufacturing Readiness Grants award and gain eligibility for federal government contracts. But Logan’s ambitions extend beyond the business his grandfather started. Passionate about strengthening Indiana’s advanced manufacturing workforce, he has worked to secure funding for Ivy Tech classes for Glaze employees, collaborated with Purdue University and supported the efforts of northeast Indiana trade schools.

Isabel Gomez’s journey is a true American Dream. When her expected path to college in her native Mexico was blocked, 18-year-old Isabel moved to Oklahoma, where she spent several years working, learning English and navigating a new country. Eventually, she moved to Indianapolis in search of greater opportunity—landing a job as an external warehouse worker at Acción Performance. There, she quickly rose into leadership. Her accomplishments include bringing ISO 9001 certification to Acción, helping a Canadian client relocate operations to the U.S. (tripling production speed) and mentoring fellow workers—including several immigrants chasing their own version of the American Dream.

Plenty of teenagers start businesses—but few can say they move $100 million in declared cargo value each year. Peyton Heckaman can. At just 16, he launched a freight brokerage and warehousing company that, combined with the trucking firm he now co-leads, helps a wide range of customers get products to market. Always fascinated by the working world, Peyton skipped college and instead co-founded Heckaman & Hollar with a friend he met in gym class at Argos Community Junior-Senior High School. By leveraging strong relationships and a focus on key industries, the company is blazing trails in the supply chain world—moving millions of dollars in cargo each month.

After taking the lead on virtually every aspect of Hopwood Cellars’ winemaking, Sayge Hopwood is about to take the next step in her career: freshman year in college. At just 17, she leads a team that produces more than 56,000 bottles of wine a year, overseeing everything from precise winter pruning to harvest timing, chemistry testing and bottling line operations. She even learned to program and maintain a state-of-the-art bottling system—then taught the rest of the team how to use it. Looking forward to exploring the real-world impact of biochemistry, Sayge leaves Zionsville High School with a GPA above 4.0, perfect attendance and an already remarkable résumé.

As Brianne Hovde took time to reflect on the demands and pace of her work, her answer became clear: the impact of her contributions—supporting human health—is well worth the challenge. That sense of purpose drives her to lead with precision, ensuring her team operates efficiently and delivers essential medicines to patients faster than ever before. At Eli Lilly, Brianne supports the manufacturing of critical products, stewarding medicine integrity from formulation to filling. Her leadership has helped accelerate FDA approvals and cut production timelines—directly improving patient access to life-changing treatments. A University of Michigan chemical engineering graduate, Brianne also plays a key role in mentoring new Lilly engineers—helping reinvigorate her team post-COVID and guiding colleagues as they grow their careers.

Christian Huber began working at the winery and distillery that bears his family’s name at just 10 years old, which instilled in him a deep sense of responsibility for the family legacy. Eager to expand his knowledge, he pursued studies in supply chain management, the beverage industry, viticulture and enology—journeys that took him from Indianapolis to California, Canada and Italy. Armed with this global perspective, he returned home with an ambitious vision: to create a sustainable and innovative program that continues the steep heritage of this seventh-generation family-based operation.  This vision culminated in securing a Manufacturing Readiness Grants award in 2023.

Shaun Hughes describes his role at True Essence as standing “at the crossroads of marketing and sales, holding green and red flags.” These flags allow him to drive new business while ensuring his team takes the necessary pauses to focus and recalibrate when needed. For Shaun, success is a shared experience: he celebrates his customers’ wins and encourages his team to reach their full potential. By connecting internal innovation, customer success and market impact, he has played a pivotal role in helping True Essence expand into new markets, including China, Taiwan and Australia. Outside of True Essence, Shaun launched IndyFoodKing, a food-and-beverage-marketing firm, and serves on the board of Stonewall Sports Indianapolis, a community-driven sports organization for LGBTQ+ individuals and allies.

As a junior at Bloomington High School South, Zoe Hughes took an internship with a local precision-manufactured-parts company. Ten years later, she’s a leader at that firm, helping MSP Manufacturing increase production efficiencies, reduce scrap rates, install new process controls and modernize equipment. One key result: She helped achieve 45% revenue growth with only 2% increase in expenses. While her leaders point to her operational excellence as an important driver in her success, they note that her real gift is working with people. Known for performing selfless and generous acts of appreciation and encouraging her team to succeed, Zoe is credited with creating a culture of collaboration and excellence.

After earning a mechanical engineering degree from Miami University of Ohio, Michael Jackson launched a career in engineering but quickly realized that working at a large company did not align well with his personal ambitions. Encouraged by a mentor to pursue an MBA, he discovered entrepreneurial finance at Butler University—and a new path forward. Within a couple of years, Michael had assembled investors and acquired Kent Machine, a 40-year-old firm seeking growth and innovation. He set to work streamlining operations, upgrading technology, improving quality standards and implementing workforce development programs. Michael is passionate about advanced manufacturing, focusing not only on boosting Kent Machine’s success, but also on driving growth in Indiana’s manufacturing sector.

Ashley Jeffirs describes one of her long-term goals as finding satisfaction in a career defined by the achievement of short-term objectives—and her work at Zimmer Biomet reflects just that. For example, when a tooling component failed every three weeks, Ashley led a redesign project that extended its lifespan to six months. She also spearheaded a scrap-reduction initiative that saved the company $383,000. Currently, she is heavily involved in expanding a Zimmer Biomet foundry, managing a portion of the $40 million project. A Trine University graduate who recently added a master’s degree and industry certifications to her resumé, Ashley is now paying forward her internship experience by mentoring new cohorts of interns at Zimmer Biomet.

Polygon Composites President & CEO Bree Katulak says Alex could easily have used his education and experience to land a high-profile role with a Fortune 500 company. Instead, the Purdue University engineering graduate and former global consulting firm veteran chose to join Polygon, a 70-year-old, family-owned company in Walkerton seeking to accelerate its growth. Drawing on his consulting experience at Deloitte and Boston Consulting Group, he brought to Polygon a level of commercial strategy and operational rigor rarely seen in rural manufacturing environments—transforming sales reporting, improving pipeline performance and helping lead a major capacity expansion initiative—driving millions of dollars in growth.

Ateios Systems CEO Rajan Kumar doesn’t hesitate when describing Swapneel Kulkarni’s impact: “In less than three years, Swapneel has become a cornerstone of Ateios Systems.” What’s behind such high praise? A unique combination of technical expertise, practical skills and collaborative leadership. Swapneel has played a key role in transitioning the next-generation battery manufacturing firm from early-stage R&D to manufacturing production. During this evolution, he drove innovation across various processes, improving efficiency and reducing variability. With both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue University, Swapneel excels at bridging cutting-edge science with operations to help Ateios Systems bring new battery technologies to market.

Emily Lazaga achieved much of what earned her a Rising 30 nomination as an intern. In a six-month stint after graduating from IU McKinney School of Law, she took an internship with Hitachi Astemo to learn more about the business world. Assigned to help boost the company’s summer intern program, her bosses say she redesigned marketing materials, updated the company’s corporate social responsibility program, worked with the state to arrange advanced manufacturing training, created internal training videos and more. Since joining the firm full-time, the IU Kelley School of Business graduate has supported the company’s marketing, CSR and compliance activities, continuing to make a mark in an industry she is now deeply invested in.

Emily Lintott didn’t expect to find her calling in supply chain through the world of diagnostics—but once she did, she ran with it. A Purdue engineering grad, she began her career as a field engineer at Roche Diagnostics before making the leap into logistics, where she quickly grew into a leadership role. She spent a good part of last year living in Germany, leading a cross-border expansion project supporting operations in the Netherlands. Now the Senior Supervisor for Instrument Operations, she leads a team ensuring diagnostic instruments reach customers across the U.S. and around the world. In her free time, she channels her passion for connection into Let’s Be Friends | Indy, a thriving women’s social group she founded to help others find friendship and a sense of belonging.

Jonathan Lozada is already making a significant impact at Innovative Designs, with his contributions touching everything from web design to standardizing processes for producing sewn products for RV, marine and medical applications. But one of his most transformative achievements happened during the pandemic, when a shortage of high-skilled sewers threatened to bottleneck growth, Jonathan successfully convinced ownership to invest in the company’s first CNC quilting machine. That single move not only relieved a major production constraint—it also positioned Innovative Designs to compete with larger companies and scale faster than ever before. Within a year, he helped grow that investment into a fleet of four CNC quilting machines, and more recently, led the acquisition of a CNC cutting machine that’s fueling the next phase of the company’s growth.

When Georgiana Morar informed her bosses that the physical demands of her job as a final finisher were unsustainable, they refused to let a talented worker slip away. Instead, they created a new position that leveraged her skills and strong work ethic. Drawing on the knowledge she gained from earning a marketing degree in her native Romania, along with ongoing training in safety, operational efficiency and more, Georgiana has had a broad impact, including an 80% reduction in recordable workplace accidents. Despite the challenges of mastering a new language, she has also become a committed community contributor, leading a Christmas adopt-a-family program, participating in the local Rotary Club and serving as president of Knox Main Street United.

Working at Cummins’ Columbus Engine Plant is safer because of Cristhian Padilla and his appreciation for the way technology can support safety programs. Among his contributions is the innovative use of QR codes to engage employees in identifying and reporting safety concerns and developing a dashboard to analyze the information by department to make sure concerns are addressed quickly. He also led the implementation of industrial mobile robots to reduce forklift-related accidents, which not only reduced injuries but also improved product-handling efficiencies. Other uses of digital tools and technology have had similar impact, as this native Ecuadorean and first-generation college graduate continually strives to improve work conditions and opportunities for others.

When you’re virtually inventing an industry, you need someone who can invent, fabricate and implement the equipment needed to run it. FiberX – a company pursuing sustainable uses for the leftovers from corn harvests – found that person in Angela Perez. As the company transitioned from manual to automated processes, Angela played a key role in preparing FiberX for two major scale-ups. The result? The company expects to increase production by 15 times in 2025 and 50 times in 2026. Described as a tireless worker, Angela is also an ongoing learner. Most recently, she has taken up welding to improve her ability to create the machinery FiberX needs to continue its growth.

The simplicity of Kaylie Pruiett’s title hides the complexity of her role, which involves leading the Tri-State Manufacturers’ Alliance, Family Business Alliance, Young Professionals Alliance and Business Retention and Expansion Program for the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership. The common thread across these initiatives is her drive to strengthen the Evansville-area manufacturing sector—a mission Kaylie embraced wholeheartedly, despite having no prior manufacturing background. Described as a quick learner by her supervisors, she has made a tangible impact by uniting the local manufacturing community and expanding knowledge of automation, lean manufacturing, supply chain and finance. In the past year alone, she launched TSMA’s first regional summit and helped train over 200 local manufacturing employees through targeted industry partnerships.

The robots are coming—and in fact, they’re already here at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana, thanks in part to Samuel Reshad. A robotics team participant in both high school and college, Samuel has played a key role in integrating robots and cobots at the Princeton Toyota plant. His superiors credit him with transforming inefficient, ergonomically challenging processes, much of which was made possible by the strong relationships he built with robotics manufacturers, vendors and Toyota’s maintenance teams. Among his many successes, Samuel has significantly reduced downtime and cycle time, gained buy-in from initially hesitant team members and set a precedent that other Toyota operations can now follow.

A description of her job might involve grand phrases like “feed the growing world” or “bring innovative solutions to farmers,” but Jennifer Skelton’s focus is on the smaller scale—specifically, molecules. As a formulation scientist at Corteva Agriscience, she looks at massive opportunities through a micro lens, assessing ingredients identified by other Corteva scientists. Lauded for her passion for science, Jennifer has bridged teams by connecting formulation development with Corteva’s Predictive Safety Center to accelerate safer product development. Outside of her work cultivating food-producing products, she also coordinates the company’s Indianapolis intern program with exceptional attention to detail—creating meaningful student projects, facilitating networking opportunities and strengthening the pipeline of future talent.

Although Jianxiang Tao initially had little interest in agriculture or computer programs when he enrolled at a university known for both fields, everything changed after a glimpse of a drone collecting plant samples at Purdue. This sparked his fascination with the intersection of the digital world and farming. At Anu, he has since been credited with driving innovation, particularly by leveraging AI to optimize the growing environment for the company’s innovative rotating seed pod systems. Notably, he is responsible for helping Anu eliminate single use plastics in seed pods. Additionally, one of the key technologies he and his team developed uses computer vision to continuously monitor plant growth, delivering essential data efficiently and freeing up science team members from manual measurements.

At Tactile Engineering, one piece of equipment stands out amidst the high-end industrial systems: a robot created from scrap parts by Nick Will to automate part of the assembly process. Known as DotBot, this machine was fully conceptualized, built, programmed and integrated into production by Nick himself—making it not just a tool, but a testament to his innovation and engineering skill. DotBot has become a critical part of the company’s ability to mass-produce the Cadence Tablet, a revolutionary device for the blind and visually impaired. Nick’s deep understanding of automation, coupled with his ability to solve complex manufacturing problems affordably and creatively, has helped transform long-standing challenges in assistive tech into viable, scalable solutions. His work continues to influence the company’s future, with DotBot now serving as the blueprint for scaled-up production systems.

For entrepreneurs and innovators looking to turn their ideas into products or businesses, Paul Williams is a hands-on expert. A maker, artist and entrepreneur himself, Paul has used his role at 16 Tech and Machyne, Central Indiana’s premier makerspace, to guide over 100 entrepreneurs in bringing their ideas to life. Through training, equipment setup, and hands-on support, he helps transform visions into tangible realities. A graduate of Herron School of Art & Design currently pursuing a master’s in public affairs with a focus on innovation and social change, Paul manages a facility and team that provides start-ups and small businesses with the workspace and equipment they need to thrive.