How Vision, Structure, and Shared Values Created a Standout Engineering Partner
A founder-story recap of the Growing Up B2B podcast featuring Jeff Kinsberg and Cristy Richards
When Jeff Kinsberg and Cristy Richards sit down together, it is clear that JAKTOOL is more than a company. It is a calling, a partnership, and a carefully engineered culture built one decision, one hire, and one breakthrough at a time.
In this episode of Growing Up B2B, hosted by Ed Delia of Delia Associates, Jeff and Cristy share their journey from a garage business to a leading engineering, product development, and prototyping firm. Their story shows how visionaries and integrators build success by aligning purpose, structure, and people.
This recap is for industry leaders and prospective JAKTOOL clients who want to understand not only what JAKTOOL does but also how it has become the kind of partner capable of solving the most complex engineering problems with precision, speed, and trust.
The Moment JAKTOOL Became a Calling
JAKTOOL’s origin story doesn’t start with a business plan. It starts with a moment of unexpected belief.
In 2006, Jeff was transitioning out of the model-hobby world into aerospace, defense, and med-device engineering. He visited a biannual train show where an older customer kept buying the same product from him repeatedly. When Jeff finally asked why, the man replied that he was not buying parts; he was investing in Jeff. He saw talent, purpose, and possibility in him that Jeff had not fully recognized in himself.
That conversation shifted everything. Jeff realized his skills were not only valuable but needed, and that he might be the next person in the chain responsible for moving a segment of engineering forward.
This belief-driven moment mirrors a pattern seen in great founders: someone else sees the spark before the founder does. Jeff took that spark and turned it into a trajectory.
How JAKTOOL’s Leadership Transition Accelerated Engineering Growth
By 2014, JAKTOOL had five employees, including interns, and had just secured its first major contract. The company needed structure, operational clarity, and someone to build the foundation for sustainable growth.
That person was Cristy.
With a background in medical device design, development, engineering, procurement, and supply chain, Cristy brought systems thinking and operational strength. She turned Jeff’s momentum into a scalable enterprise.
The transition was not planned years in advance. It happened in real time when a team member left, and Jeff immediately recognized that Cristy’s skillset was the missing piece. She stepped in with confidence, supporting the company so Jeff could continue the complex engineering and client work that fueled growth.
Cristy never questioned joining the company. As she put it, she never looked back. JAKTOOL then scaled from five team members in 2014 to twenty employees by 2020.
Visionary and Integrator: The Leadership Framework Behind this High-Performance Engineering Team
Jeff and Cristy did not adopt EOS because something was broken. They adopted it because something bigger was possible.
Introduced through a Rutgers business initiative, the EOS model gave JAKTOOL something every growing engineering firm inevitably needs:
- a shared language,
- a clear division of roles,
- a way to prioritize,
- and a repeatable system for decision-making.
For Jeff, the visionary, EOS helped clarify priorities and kept the business from relying only on hard work instead of smart structure.
For Cristy, the integrator, it formalized what she naturally brought to the organization: the ability to sequence, operationalize, and build the systems that keep JAKTOOL aligned and moving forward.
EOS did not change who they were. It gave a name to how they already worked and a framework to make that work repeatable for their leadership team.
Working With Your Spouse: Communication in a Rapidly Scaling Product Development House
Working together is not simple, but Jeff and Cristy make it work through communication, coaching, and shared goals. They describe their dynamic not as separate work and home life, but as operating one team across both fields: the home game and the away game.
The key is not rigid boundaries. It is intentional communication.
They ask each other:
“Do you have the bandwidth for this conversation right now?”
“Can this wait?”
“Are we solving this in the problem or on the problem?”
Their daughters have even become part of the wisdom loop, at times reminding them, “We’ve heard this before, you know what to do.”
How Core Values Strengthen Engineering Culture and Client Alignment
When JAKTOOL doubled its staff in over just a few years, Jeff and Cristy realized they needed clarity on what made the company special and what people needed to embody to thrive there.
Their core values were not aspirational. They were extracted from the leadership team itself. As Jeff explained, the business is a living system shaped by its people, and they needed a way to protect what made JAKTOOL exceptional as it scaled. Those core values now serve as a north star for every endeavor at JAKTOOL:
- hiring
- culture
- performance
- client selection
- supplier relationships
As Jeff put it plainly:
“If our customers don’t exude these values, it’s not going to be a good fit.” This mindset keeps JAKTOOL aligned with clients who value trust, rigor, collaboration, and solving complex problems, rather than transactional engineering.
AIM®: JAKTOOL’s Engineering Innovation Process for Faster, Clearer Product Development
JAKTOOL’s AIM® (Accelerated Innovation Methodology) process was designed to address a common challenge in product development: clients often know the desired outcome but lack clarity on the steps to achieve it.
AIM® gives structure to the unknown and provides:
- a common internal vocabulary,
- a way to educate clients,
- transparency into requirements and iterations,
- and a map from idea to viable prototype.
It is both a technical methodology and a communication tool, the glue that keeps engineering teams and clients aligned from day one.
How AI Fits Into the Future of Engineering
Jeff sees AI as an accelerant, not a replacement, for engineering intelligence.
In one example, his team produced a detailed proposal for a hardware development phase. Curious, Jeff gave the AI model the minimum prompt to describe the same phase. In 30 seconds, AI generated an answer similar to the team’s hours-long effort.
The lesson wasn’t that AI should replace the team.
The lesson was that parity with AI is no longer the bar.
“AI gives you a plausible solution,” Jeff said. “But if your solution matches AI’s, you’re not pushing hard enough.”
This is where JAKTOOL stands out:
AI is the new baseline. Ingenuity, experience, and deep problem-solving are the differentiators.
Cristy echoed this, seeing a future where AI enhances AIM®, indexing thousands of past DoD and aerospace programs to identify patterns, risks, and opportunities, all in service of better engineering outcomes.
The JAKTOOL “Unicorn” Factor
JAKTOOL is not a machine shop.
It’s not a CAD house.
And it’s not just an ordinary engineering firm.
Jeff describes the brand the way others describe it to him: a “unicorn,” something rare, difficult to define, but unmistakable once you experience it.
The difference between Jaktool and other specialized engineering firms lies in the complexity and high-stakes challenges they face. That combined with:
- valuing people over logos
- building trusted client relationships
- solving the problems others walk away from
- pushing engineering limits with discipline and creativity
As Jeff explained, “If I need to beat the brand into someone for them to understand what we do, they’re not the right fit.” Ideal clients are those who walk in and immediately recognize the value of our services and ethos.
The Future of JAKTOOL: Engineering Growth, New Technology, and Industry Evolution
Cristy sees the next decade shaped by deeper integration of AI, continued team growth, and expanded collective capability through challenging projects.
Jeff sees a future defined by agility, innovation, speed, and technological transformation across the defense, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing sectors. Humanity-scaled robotics, rapid deployment demands, and AI acceleration will raise the stakes, and JAKTOOL is built for exactly this type of environment. Not chasing scale for its own sake, but staying aligned with purpose, precision, and the clients who value both.
Watch the Full Episode or Build Something Exceptional with JAKTOOL
If you want to hear the full story — including leadership dynamics, EOS implementation, the AIM process, the role of AI, and what makes JAKTOOL a “unicorn” — watch the full Growing Up B2B episode:
Watch the full episode.
Growing Up B2B Podcast featuring Jeff Kinsberg & Cristy Richards
Or, if you’re building something hard, bold, or unconventional and need a partner who thrives at the intersection of precision, complexity, and speed:
Work with JAKTOOL.
Let’s engineer what others think can’t be done.