Interview by Audrey Russo and Jonathan Kersting
Stuart Lawrence, founder and CEO of Titan Robotics, joins Jonathan Kersting and Audrey Russo from the Huntington Bank Studios to share the remarkable story behind his Pittsburgh-based robotics company.
What started as a Carnegie Mellon / Air Force Research Lab project to strip paint off fighter jets with high-powered lasers became a 14-year journey of grit, pivots, and breakthroughs. Stuart walks us through:
The origin story: How a torpedo defense engineer turned robotics builder landed at Carnegie Mellon's NREC, got hooked by 25-ton robots with 40-foot reach and lasers, and spun out Titan Robotics
The near-death moment: When a three-star general blocked $75 million in contract awards, forcing a years-long pivot from government-only work to commercial manufacturing
Solving "dull, dirty, and dangerous": How Titan's autonomous systems tackle weld removal, grinding, and sanding of composites without requiring a programmer to operate them
The labor gap advantage: Why the welding skills shortage is Titan's biggest commercial opportunity, and how adaptive robotics empower operators instead of replacing them
14 years, zero fundraising: How Stuart bootstrapped Titan to ~70 employees on government contracts alone, and why now is finally the time to consider outside capital
Leadership lessons: Why "don't lie to yourself" is his #1 piece of advice, and how instrumenting ROI data guided every technology decision
From vaporizing carcinogenic coatings down to 10 pounds of safe material (versus 2,000 pounds of hazardous waste from traditional methods) to giving factory workers a robot that works like a hammer—intuitive and in their control—Titan Robotics is quietly building the future of autonomous industrial robotics in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Learn more at titanrobots.com