Throughout his career, Drae has worked in demanding environments ranging from deep-sea robotics to aerospace and defense job shops. His experience spans an impressive range of advanced equipment and complex applications. On the turning side, he has run Mazak lathes and Integrexes, including 9-axis mill-turn machines, along with Mori, Haas, and Miyano lathes. For the last decade, much of his focus has been as a mill programmer, working extensively with Matsuura, Haas, Okuma, Mazak, YCM, and EMCO 3-, 4-, and 5-axis vertical and horizontal machining centers. He has also programmed and operated Matsuura Lumex hybrid additive manufacturing and milling systems, giving him experience at the forefront of advanced manufacturing technology.

Drae’s material background is equally impressive. Most of his work has involved hard metals and superalloys, including titanium, 17-4 stainless, 316 stainless, Inconel 625 and 718, super duplex, and Hastelloy, along with significant experience in aluminum, Delrin, and composite materials. He is especially drawn to high-level machining challenges where process control, efficiency, and execution all have to come together perfectly.

Among the many machines he has worked on, Drae’s favorites are YCM and Matsuura machining centers. In his experience, they consistently perform at the highest level and deliver exceptional results. He enjoys taking a part from concept and design all the way through to a finished product, refining every step of the process along the way. For Drae, there is something uniquely rewarding about seeing a part come to life through skill, discipline, and smart process development, and that feeling never gets old.

What excites Drae most is refining programs and building clean, efficient processes that run flawlessly. He thrives on complex parts and manufacturing workflows that can be tuned so precisely they run with little to no intervention. That pursuit of precision, consistency, and efficiency is a major part of what defines his approach to machining.

At TITANS of CNC, Drae values both the people he works with and the people he has the opportunity to impact through education. He believes one of the biggest challenges in manufacturing has always been that too few people are willing to teach others how to do the work correctly. Being part of a mission that is helping change that is one of the things he appreciates most about being here. For him, helping machinists become more capable, confident, and successful is just as meaningful as the work happening on the shop floor.

Drae represents the kind of talent that drives TITANS of CNC forward: deeply experienced, technically sharp, passionate about advanced machining, and committed to raising the standard for the next generation of manufacturers.