Living The Red Life - How a Steam Engine Builder Revived American Manufacturing

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

What does it take to turn a childhood dream into a Guinness World Record, multiple manufacturing companies, and a movement to rebuild America's skilled workforce?In this episode of Living The Red Life, Kory and Ali Anderson share how a passion for engineering, craftsmanship, and entrepreneurship evolved into a mission to preserve American manufacturing and inspire the next generation of skilled trades professionals. From building the world's largest steam engine to acquiring foundries, launching Iron Warrior Academy, and creating educational programs that introduce young people to welding, fabrication, and engineering, they reveal the mindset, discipline, and vision required to build something that lasts. Along the way, they discuss AI, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and why the future belongs to those willing to create with their hands.Key TakeawaysWhy skilled trades may become one of the biggest opportunities of the next decadeHow Kory turned a childhood dream into a Guinness World Record achievementThe entrepreneurial strategy behind acquiring foundries and building manufacturing companiesHow AI and automation can strengthen, not replace, skilled trades careersWhy discipline, craftsmanship, and mentorship are essential for long-term successNotable Quotes"Technology has taken away the people aspect. It's taken away the teams.""It's a team. It's a community building something.""Everybody wants the corner office, but there's nobody to build the corner office.""There is no limit to what you can do.""We just want to be known as people who are fighting for American-made."Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

Technology is it's taken away the people aspect. It's taken away the teams. It's taken away collaboration and the personal connection. And that's what's so fun about the skilled trades. It's a team, it's a community building something, especially in our foundry where it's hot, dirty, and dangerous. And it actually fosters a really cool brotherhood. I was just overwhelmed with how cool it was.

I said, if we could just help educate what is a foundry, people will be really interested in working there. It is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. There is raw iron being poured. And like Corey mentioned, just this incredible brotherhood that hits you right when you walk in. Corey and Ali Anderson are driven, resilient, and visionary entrepreneurs and the founders of Anderson Industries,

known for building the world's largest steam engine to inspire others while creating projects that preserve history and help shape future generations. We just want to be known as people who are fighting for American Made, people who are fighting to create opportunities for the, skilled trades and training and instilling discipline and the character qualities to make our young people the next the next legacy makers of the skilled trade. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the

way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the Red Life, ditch the Blue Pill, take the Red Pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, the Red Life edition. Joining me today, fresh off their episode of Legacy Makers, is Corey and Ali Anderson. Folks, they may seem like quiet, simple, folks, but this is literally the future of American construction workhorse. Oh, gosh, please save me here. You guys are amazing. We had such an amazing interview. Please tell us what you do and why you're here. Yeah, so we have two missions,

really. It's to preserve American manufacturing and to create opportunities and develop up the next generation of skilled trades. So we do that through our manufacturing companies, Anderson Industries, and Anderson Foundries. We have a number of foundries. Dakota Foundry is a gray inductal iron foundry. And then Muncie castings, we just acquired. That's an aluminum foundry. And so we have a number of operations, mostly in the casting and foundry industry. And then we're also with our Iron Warrior Academy. It's a nonprofit. We're also building and creating opportunities for the next generation of young people to get into the skilled trades. Yeah, right on.

Gosh, Ali, like you guys are such a dynamic duo. How are you essentially his Batman to a Robin or vice versa? How are you supporting this man's vision here? It's definitely a fun journey for sure. We've been really, really blessed throughout the whole experience for sure. I mean, dating back to during the pandemic, developing Iron Warrior out of that in order to save the foundry to then launching the Iron Warrior Academy where we train the next generation of skilled trades.

today's focus, launching a children's book to really get those early concepts in the hands of kids so that they're really intrigued to go into Metal Fab, into foundry work. They want to get a toolbox. So very, very holistic mission here. They're all intertwined together, and it's been fun. I'd love to.

Let's talk about the next generation. A lot of folks are on their iPhones or under their roadblocks, and I'm with my AI. Folks have forgotten what it is to construct make things with their bare hands and have that energy flow from them into something that's in front of them. Talk about how you're bringing that back. So that's one of the most fulfilling parts of being involved in the skilled trades and actually learning a skill and being able to create and build

something with your hands. And it's going to be, it is a huge demand. A lot of that work over the last decades has been shipped to other countries and primarily China. They're one of the manufacturing leaders in the whole world. But we need to bring a lot of that work back. And a lot of the AI, as you mentioned, that transition is going to be replacing a lot of current jobs that we have today with AI. And it's going to have a huge impact to the whole job industry, the whole job market. But also, you know, it's going to eliminate some jobs, but it's going to create even more jobs because we need to build data centers. We need to build infrastructure. AI takes a lot of energy.

So there's going to be a ton of infrastructure development, energy production, and all of this stuff that has to be built. can only be built by people who know how to build with their hands. For sure. It's crazy because I definitely want to talk about the children's books. You're going to go back into even younger generations and legacies. Before we do that, you know, it's funny because analog is coming back. Like the illusion 1212, that's a 1222 is a good old man. People are always on their phones and it's all digital.

There's nothing really happening. You're just talking to a computer. It's the year 2025, 2026. The computers are computing themselves now. It's time to get back to human being humans. So I feel like there's going to be quite a resurgence of this analog of woodwork, of people using their hands because now we have computers competing themselves. They're liable for whatever mistakes they make and whatever incoming doom that's coming in a couple of decades. But until then, we're going to build with our hands because we're going to human while computers, computer.

And folks like you are going to draw that line and be like, here's how it's done before the machines we took over. Talk about what the future looks like to you or for both of you. Yeah, I mean, the future, I think that we're going to see a huge resurgence of people in the skilled trades and people having to go from, you know, working with their mind primarily sitting behind a desk, working on a computer to actually building and being part of that whole process and having to learn skills and developing skills. And, and even, you know, the even better part of that is you get to work with people. And, you know, that's been a huge impact with technology is it's taken away the people aspect. It's taken away the teams. It's taken away collaboration and the personal connection. You know, everything is text and email.

And we have so less personal interaction. And that impacts us as humans because we're naturally community people, right? And that's what's so fun about the skilled trades. It's a team. It's a community building something, especially in our foundry where it's hot, dirty, and dangerous. You know, there's flames, there's sparks, there's molten iron. And it actually fosters a really cool brotherhood because it's just, I mean, these guys are essentially going to battle every day and have to be watching out for each other and keeping an eye, protecting each other, following the right processes. And they're doing hot, dirty, dangerous work every day.

And it really foster this tight brotherhood of, and then basically a second family for these guys. This is going to be a Warhammer podcast very soon. So let's not do that. Let's talk about these children's books. I saw these children's books. They're beautiful. already my AI mind was like, I can grab that and animate it. We can actually do a 30-second children's book novel animation.

That's great. What inspired it and talk about that journey and the art style. I saw a different name on there. You're the author, but there's an artist there. I am, yes. Definitely a blessing built in there for sure because I definitely, I'm not a drawer. But we were so inspired. You know, we take the 150 case on the road every summer.

And through our merch line, I get to talk with a ton of people. And there's just been a really high interest in kids' books. And so finally I said, you know what, let's do it. This year we're going to make a children's book. We're going to tell the story of the baby iron warrior Corey, building the 150 case. He finds Billy in the field. And by the end of the book discovers that, you know,

Billy's going to be the heart of this engine. And so it's a really powerful story based on a true story, which is not very common with children's books. It's also very value-based and faith. based. So it introduces these really important concepts to kids early on and gets them involved in the skilled trades at the back of the book. They can learn what a toolbox is. They can learn introduction to foundry fundamentals. So it'll be a really, really great tool for kids and just inspiring the next generation into the trades. Gosh, it's awesome. I hear foundries and I feel the heat,

but also I'm a gamer, so I'm always thinking about, oh, spells and swords and what's it like being in there. And then being in there and then being a Guinness World Record, like, talk about that evolution of starting very small, but then, bam. Yeah. Can I jump in here? Please jump in. When I met Corey and he said, I own a foundry, I thought, okay, it's, you know, maybe a piece of machinery or I had no idea. I mean, I was a corporate America executive, traveling around big cities and never been to town of Andover, 91 people, much less a foundry. And so when he took me there, I was just overwhelmed with how cool it was. I said if we could just help educate what is a foundry,

people will be really interested in working there. It is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. There is raw iron being poured. And like Corey mentioned, just this incredible brotherhood that hits you right when you walk in. Yeah, what a great first date. I was sold. Make sure you wear a steel toes and not heels.

Yeah, right out. Yeah, there you go. Cool, man. You guys, let's talk about the first thing. this Guinness World Record, you know, from this small, humble beginning is to go bam. And now you're sitting on lips, giant lips. Welcome to your life. Talk about this journey, bud. Yeah. So, I mean, building the 150 case was a childhood dream of mine. And it was, you know, it really guided me to start businesses, to acquire companies. I eventually bought the foundry because that was, that was a

necessary part of that project to be able to cast all of these parts. That tractor weighs 75,000 pounds. And so we had to make hundreds of castings and pour a lot of iron. We did all that in the foundry. And, you know, bringing that piece to life was just, you know, it was a fulfillment of my dream, but it was also a fulfillment of American innovation, you know, over 100 years ago and where we were and how we did things. And, you know, we applied a lot of new technology to that process, which, you know, back then would have taken thousands of people to build that engine, just all carving wood patterns out of hand, you know, out by hand. and just doing everything very manually without technology.

And so we applied a lot of innovation, a lot of technology, and basically built the world's largest theme tractor and got a Guinness World Record for that. Wow. What was it like getting that phone call or email or page? I don't know when this happened. Yeah. Guinness actually reached out.

And they had seen our videos on YouTube. You know, we have like 60 million views of that tractor on YouTube. And they had learned about it. And they're like, hey, we'd love to feature this tractor and give you an award for bringing this tractor to life and for building the world's largest tractor and just the feat that it took to do that. And so we were really honored. I mean, it was, at first I was like, is this really a thing? Like, do they reach out? But it was awesome. I can't be a part of that. Talk about your YouTube channel and how you're getting the word out there and letting

folks into your culture or your tribe. Yeah. So on my YouTube, Corey Anderson, we share a lot of videos like there's videos of building the tractor. We share a lot of videos where we take, like Allie mentioned, the tractor out on the road we do big plowing demonstrations you know have you know there's there's events where there'll be 10 15 20 000 people that come and see it and you know so we're really preserving the the history of how farming and how food production looked back you know in the early 1900s but also just it's also a great testament to american innovation because this tractor when it was developed most of the work at the time was still being done with horses and this was one of the American innovations by the case company to just massively create more powerful work and

meals of doing work. And so it really was a huge shift from very manual labor doing work with horses and ox and and mule and by hand and to steam power being able to transform and multiply our ability to feed the world. Right on. Gosh, I got to ask, what's your take on, you know, battery powered Tesla's, you know, all these robots and all this digital age? Just think that the things that are around the corner that we've been kind of seeing in movies for decades.

Now it's literally kind of now here. What's your take on it and kind of seeing around and seeing this tech? Yeah, I mean, I am a big supporter of AI and robotics because I'm driven. I'm naturally efficiency driven. So, I mean, I understand the importance of efficiency in producing at the lowest cost, right? And, you know, where we can replace manual, hard, physical processes or repetitive processes with robots, where we can replace and basically speed up innovation in design and production of, you know, videos, pictures, all sorts of stuff.

Where we can, you know, gain efficiencies using AI, I think is a great thing. I mean, it also creates, it's great for especially entrepreneurs and small businesses, because it gives them a great tool to magnify their business with. They might not have a huge marketing team. And with AI, you don't need a huge team anymore. You can really do a lot with AI tools that exist now. Yeah, Ronald, good for you for understanding how AI can help us enhance our life. Talking about life, you know, there's a lot of hard work in what we do.

We enjoy the hard work. You know, one of my good friends and mentors, he's a Emmy nominated a choreographer, but he came from pulling calf at 45, 45 in the morning. So he's got the regiment locked in there. That's discipline piece. The discipline piece, which is what I was getting at. Oh, now that kind of deterred me here. I want to go back to actually, this is one question I had.

I looked down my neighborhood where I live where I was born. My grandfather was a welder and my grandparents raised me. Much of the neighborhood has changed, but the houses have it. There's no more families. A lot of the friends that I grew up the longer there. But the windows that my grandfather welded, all that every window down the neighborhood. is still there. So it's a moment of reflection where it's like, I may not know my neighbors as well as I did back then, but those windows were windows that my grandfather ruled it.

And that's a piece of my history, our history, in these homes. So it's interesting to see how that that philosophy of a village coming together truly is. And it's a legacy. It's a legacy that he left behind, right? I mean, that's what's cool about the skill of trade, the stuff that we build with our hands that lives, that outlives us. Like your grandfather, those windows are still standing and that's a testament of his skill and knowledge and abilities. Yeah. What do you tell? I actually have a partner here that works with us.

Her father, her brother, he's in the skills trade, but he hasn't quite figured out how to hand us down to his own son because his own son is into computers. He's got a huge, you know, a crop of land. And how does, for folks that are listening, how does one get their legacy out of, out of, out of, out of in front of the video games and out into field and getting their hands dirty, you know, and breaking a couple of nails and, you know, I don't know, playing with dirt. Right. You know, I think, I think one of the things is we just have to overcome kind of a branding problem with the skilled trades. You know, for a number of decades, you know, we were told that you had to go get a four-year degree to have a good job.

And, you know, the skilled trade was kind of shunned for a long time. But now we're seeing a massive shift in demand where it's like everybody wants the corner office, but there's nobody to build the corner office. Right. And so now it's like, oh, wow, we need these skilled trades jobs. and we need people to build, and now there's just this huge demand. And so I think it's really just about telling the story of success and like educating people that, you know, you can make a great living in the skilled trades. And arguably now, probably a better living in the skilled trades than most of the college degrees that we have been, you know, going after for jobs over the last 20, 30 years.

And there's a big shift in opportunity there. And it's just education. It's just like showing the example. telling the stories, having people like that who share their story of making a great business and entrepreneurship in the skilled trades. And the cool thing with the skilled trades is anybody who's in it, whether it's a plumber, an electrician, like you can become very good at your trade. And then you have the opportunity to start your own business. And that's a great thing about being an American, right? We just, you always have the opportunity to work harder. And if you're

willing to work and put in the work and have the discipline and start a company, and build a team, like there's no limit to what you can do. Right. Oh, you go ahead. I feel like you had something to say. Oh, yeah, I was just going to plug in. You know, part of our mission is that branding piece, is that education. And so actually next year, we're going to be launching what we call millionaire tradesmen.

Yep. So Corey's going to be doing not only an educational piece on how you get into the trades, how you rise within the trades, but then also a really cool complimentary piece where he's interviewing people that have done it. People that started from nothing in their garage have very similar stories as Corey and built this amazing company to a million dollar plus. So it's going to be really inspiring but also very educational and we're really excited to move the needle on that, that sexy piece of the skill trades. Why do you all think you are all legacy makers? Let's let's conclude with that question. Well, I believe we're legacy makers because, you know, not only have we with the steam

mention we've preserved a great piece of American history. And now we use that as a tool to educate, educate young people on the importance of history, the importance of learning where we came from to know where you're going. And so the preservation of history and also, you know, now with our businesses being in manufacturing, just being a force to try to drive strength in our American manufacturing economy and also just creating opportunities and investing in teaching the next generation of skilled trades people. That's the legacy that we ultimately want to leave. We just want to be known as people who are fighting for American Made,

people who are fighting to create opportunities for the skilled trades and training and instilling discipline and the character qualities to make our young people the next legacy makers of the skilled trade. Right on. Great answer. Would you like to follow up with that? I think you got it. Right on. Very, very cool. It's pretty simple, huh? Yeah, yeah.

Very simple. I got to ask, and you may not even have to use this in the edit. Do you really think this tariff squeeze is going to bring back American work? It may not be apparent in the next five weeks, but it's going to be apparent in the next five years. So the tariffs is an interesting, it's an interesting solution that creates an even bigger complex problem. So the concept with the tariffs is to bring back manufacturing to the U.S. And the only way that can happen is we have to have the people to build the process. And we have to have the workforce and we also have to have the innovation and the efficiency.

Right. And so it's just it's a combination of we need skilled workers, but we also need a massive influx and innovation in our processes. We need to utilize AI as much as possible because the tariff thing will not work if all it does is increase cost of product. And so there's no point in bringing back jobs if it just increased the cost. So we have to be innovative. We have to utilize technology, utilize AI.

but we also have to have a well-trained workforce that can, you know, compete. The reason those jobs went to China and other countries in the first place is because they were willing to do the work for 10, 20% of what we... The non-American way. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.

And, you know, I mean, we don't believe in technically slavery here, right? I mean, we pay people... We don't know. ...goal... ...because they have to build an iPhone to build a room. Right. No. Right.

And so we have to take a higher cost in our workforce. course, but we also have to combine innovation and technology so that we can continue to keep product costs low so that we don't just create attacks on the American civilization. Yeah, it's funny how culture and American spirit, you know, it's precious. It's just like you're going to get quality, you're going to get the energy, you're going to get the freedom. Everyone else is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we just want to survive. Like, no, there's the American dream and God we trust on every bill for a reason, you know, like we have an oath to to give back to the creator. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. With that, I would love to end it with that. Is there any closing comments? Actually, how can folks find you and continue their journey of discovery with both of you? Yeah. So we are live on just about every platform. The unique thing about us, we got multiple brands. So if you're interested in our foundry, follow us at Anderson Foundries.

If you're interested in what we're doing on the Iron Warrior side, or in our welding, our engineering, Anderson Industries. or if you just want to follow the fitness stuff, Iron Warrior and our nonprofits at Iron Warrior Academy. And then Corey, all things Corey at Corey.anderson on YouTube. There's 100,000 subscribers there, some really great content. And yeah. Yeah. That's what I got. Follow us on, I mean, follow us on YouTube and Instagram mainly.

And, you know, if you follow me, Corey Anderson, you know, you kind of get the holistic glimpse of everything we're doing because I have, you know, snippets of the preservation of history. manufacturing, Iron Warrior, everything that we're doing kind of in a holistic mission. And if you're interested in my book, at Billy the Boiler, it will be launching this month. So we're really excited hot off the press, paperback, hardback, and an activity book. Yeah, you're all coming back for the mastermind next week, right? We are. We'll be there. So definitely bring a couple of copies and start handing them out.

And I'll introduce you to Rudy. He'll be there. For that, that concludes another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, Red Life Edition. This is, uh, yep, the end. is Corey and Lee Anderson. And I'm Reg Gutierrez and we are Inside Success.