Breaking the Stigma: Why Autistic Workers Make Great Employees in Manufacturing with Peter Mann

<p><strong>Connect with Peter Mann</strong></p><p><strong>LinkedIn: </strong>https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-mann/</p><p><strong>Lisa Ryan:&nbsp;</strong>Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturer's Network podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Peter Mann. Peter Mann is the CEO &amp; Founder of Virginia-based Oransi, a leading air purification company known for its efficient, intuitive, and reliable products for consumers, schools, organizations, and businesses. He is the Chair of the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers' Air Cleaner Council. Peter is late diagnosed autistic and now advocates for autism awareness in the workplace. Peter, welcome to the show.</p><p><strong>Peter Mann:&nbsp;</strong>Yeah, thanks, Lisa. I am excited to be here.</p><p><strong>Lisa Ryan:&nbsp;</strong>share a little about your background and what led you to do what you're doing with Oransi.</p><p><strong>Peter Mann:&nbsp;</strong>Sure. Yeah. I grew up in Syracuse, New York, and attended college in Rochester nearby. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I took a Navy ROTC scholarship which effectively paid for my college. Then I was in the Navy for four years, which was interesting and unexpected since the first Gulf War started. We got sent over to the Middle East and didn't anticipate that.</p><p>After four years, I got out; I got a job at a company called Tech Data in Clearwater, Florida. They're a large computer distributor. I was there for seven years. It was exciting because this was in the nineties, was the computer industry started to take off. We went from Fortune 500 to Fortune 100, and I moved up from an individual contributor to director of Marketing Operations.</p><p>In 2000, Dell recruited me. I moved to Austin, Texas, and did some development work for dell.com, and then I moved to a marketing role where I was a marketing leader with the Dell printer launch, managed pricing strategy, and a few other things. That's when the.com bubble burst.</p><p>I was at Dell for about three years, which push