MagneticsPro.com is pleased to launch our Magnetic Technology Leadership Series — candid, in-depth conversations with executives shaping the global magnetics industry.

First up: Robert Bunting Jr, President/CEO of Bunting Magnetics & Magnet Applications, on the state of the domestic rare earth magnet supply chain, Bunting’s $150M Project Walker initiative, and where he sees the biggest growth opportunities in the years ahead.

Q1. Tell us about your company and the primary products or services you offer.

Bunting is a third-generation, family-owned manufacturer that has been engineering magnetic solutions since 1959. We operate across two primary business segments: magnetic separation, metal detection, conveyor equipment, and permanent magnet manufacturing and assemblies.

On the equipment side, we build the systems that protect food, pharmaceutical, plastics, and recycling lines from metal contamination — everything from drawer magnets and plate magnets to eddy current separators and metal detectors. On the magnetics side, through our Magnet Applications division, we design and manufacture custom permanent magnet assemblies — NdFeB, SmCo, ferrite, and AlNiCo — used in motors, sensors, medical devices, and defense systems.

We have facilities in Newton, Kansas; DuBois, Pennsylvania; and two locations in the United Kingdom — Berkhamsted and Redditch. Combined, we employ roughly 250 people and serve customers across North America, Europe, and beyond. Our UK operations give us a strong global footprint in magnetic separation.

What makes Bunting different is that we sit at the intersection of magnetic materials science and application engineering. We don’t just sell magnets. We solve problems.

Q2. How did you come to lead this organization, and what drew you to your industry?

I joined Bunting in 2007 in inside sales, which, looking back, was the best possible place to start. You learn what customers actually need — not what we assume they need. I worked through different parts of the business and became CEO in October 2022, succeeding my father, who led the company for roughly 15 years.

I didn’t set out to run a magnetics company. But the longer I’ve been here, the more I’ve come to appreciate what magnetics actually represents — it’s a foundational technology. Permanent magnets enable electric motors, wind turbines, MRI machines, precision guidance systems, defense platforms. There is almost no high-tech industry that doesn’t depend on magnets in a critical way.

What I didn’t fully understand when I started was how dependent the entire Western world had become on Chinese-sourced rare earth magnets. Once I understood that supply chain vulnerability — and what it would take to rebuild domestic capability — I realized this wasn’t just a business. It was a strategic national challenge. That’s when the job got genuinely interesting to me.

What changed my perspective entirely was understanding the rare earth magnet supply chain — how completely the United States had offshored not just NdFeB magnet production but the engineering knowledge that goes with it. That realization turned this from a family business succession into something with real national stakes. Domestic rare earth magnet manufacturing resilience isn’t just a business opportunity. It is a supply chain security imperative, and it’s the lens through which I make most of our strategic decisions today.

Q3. What’s the most significant shift you’ve seen in the industry over the past few years?

The single biggest shift is the acceleration of supply chain risk awareness. For decades, the assumption was that China would remain a reliable, low-cost source for rare earth magnets — NdFeB in particular. That assumption is now under serious pressure, and it’s forcing every OEM, defense contractor, and motor manufacturer to ask a question they’ve avoided for years: what do we do if that supply gets disrupted?

The DFARS compliance deadline — requiring domestic sourcing for rare earth magnets in defense platforms — is creating a real forcing function. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS Act, and increasing DOD investment in the defense industrial base have all elevated the conversation around critical mineral supply chains and permanent magnet manufacturing.

But what I’ve also seen is a gap between the policy conversation and operational reality. There is broad consensus that the United States needs to rebuild domestic rare earth magnet capability. What gets far less attention is what that actually requires on the ground. It’s not just mining. It’s not just refining. The last mile — designing, cutting, finishing, coating, and magnetizing finished magnets to the precise tolerances required by each application — is genuinely hard work that requires years of process knowledge, application engineering expertise, and capital.

The shift I’m watching most closely is whether policymakers and OEMs will actually invest in the full supply chain — mine to magnet, not just mine — or whether they’ll check the box on upstream and leave the downstream underfunded again.

Q4. Where do you see the greatest growth opportunities in your market segment right now?

Three areas stand out to me.

First, domestic rare earth magnet finishing and manufacturing. The United States currently has virtually no commercial-scale, sintered NdFeB magnet finishing capacity. Everything from the raw alloy to the finished, magnetized magnet is almost entirely done offshore — predominantly in China. With DFARS 252.225-7052 compliance deadlines approaching and significant DOD demand for domestically sourced magnets, the opportunity to build that capability here is enormous. At Bunting, we are actively pursuing what we call Project Walker — a proposed domestic NdFeB sintered magnet finishing and Grain Boundary Diffusion facility, targeting our DuBois, Pennsylvania location. We’re talking roughly $150 million in total capital, targeting around 100 skilled manufacturing jobs, and commercial operations by mid-2028. GBD technology is particularly compelling because it reduces dysprosium consumption by approximately 70 percent — which is significant when you’re trying to reduce dependence on Chinese heavy rare earths.

Second, the transition from Chinese-sourced to domestically produced magnets is not simply a procurement swap. It requires deep application engineering work — redesigning specifications, re-qualifying materials, and often re-engineering the device itself to accommodate different magnet geometries or performance curves. That application engineering capability is extremely scarce right now in the United States. Companies that build it will have a durable competitive advantage.

Third, the European market for magnetic separation is strong, and we’re actively pursuing inorganic growth there. We have existing operations in the UK, and we’re in discussions that could meaningfully expand our European footprint.

Q5. What broader trends are affecting demand for your products?

On the equipment side, food safety regulations and sustainability pressure are both tailwinds. Every time there is a recall, food processors get a reminder of why magnetic separation and metal detection matter. The growth in plastics recycling and the circular economy more broadly is also creating new demand for our separation systems — you can’t effectively recycle mixed material streams without getting the metals out.

On the magnetics side, the megatrends are electrification and defense modernization. Electric vehicles, e-bikes, electric motors for HVAC and industrial equipment, wind turbines — all of these require permanent magnets, and demand is growing faster than domestic supply. The DOD is simultaneously accelerating investment in platforms and systems that rely on high-performance NdFeB magnets, at a time when supply chain security is a national security priority.

The MVCS Act and related Congressional action around domestic magnet production are important signals. The question of whether that legislation creates meaningful Tier 1 and Tier 2 coercivity thresholds — and whether it treats bonded and sintered NdFeB differently — will have significant commercial implications for the whole industry.

Longer term, I think the rare earth magnet recycling and reclamation industry will be a meaningful demand driver for our equipment and a strategic resource for domestic magnet supply. The loop from magnet production to end-of-life reclamation is one of the most important pieces of a truly resilient domestic supply chain.

Q6. What’s a common misconception engineers or buyers have about your product that you’d like to address?

The biggest misconception I encounter — and it’s genuinely damaging to buyers and to the broader domestic supply chain conversation — is that switching from a Chinese-made magnet to a domestically produced magnet is straightforward. That you just find a domestic source, order the same part number, and move on.

It is not that simple. Not even close.

When an OEM or tier supplier has been buying a Chinese-made NdFeB magnet for ten years, the magnet is deeply embedded in their product design. The geometry, the grade, the coating specification, the tolerance stack-up, the magnetization direction — all of that has been optimized around what Chinese suppliers produce at scale. Domestic production, at this stage of development, often means working with different equipment, different process windows, and potentially different achievable geometries.

What that means in practice is that transitioning to domestic rare earth magnets requires application engineering — real, deep expertise in magnet design, material selection, and motor or device re-optimization. That expertise is extraordinarily scarce in the United States right now. We have spent decades offshoring not just the production, but the knowledge base. The engineers who knew how to specify and design around domestic magnet production largely retired or moved on during the years when China was the only game in town.

So when I hear policymakers talk about domestic rare earth magnet supply chains, I always push them on this point: the last mile matters. The cutting, grinding, finishing, coating, and magnetizing of precision magnet components — and the application engineering that allows OEMs to actually use those components — is chronically undervalued and underfunded in the policy conversation. Mining and refining get the headlines. The finishing and application layer gets ignored. That is where the real bottleneck will be.

Q7. What does your R&D or product development focus look like heading into the next 12–18 months?

On the equipment side, we’re investing in smarter, more connected detection and separation systems. Our customers want data — not just metal-free product, but documentation, traceability, and integration with their quality management systems. That’s driving development work in sensors, controls, and digital connectivity.

On the magnetics side, our development focus is squarely on building the application engineering and process capability to support domestic NdFeB production. That means investing in GBD process knowledge — Grain Boundary Diffusion is the technology that allows you to achieve high coercivity without loading the entire magnet body with dysprosium, which is both expensive and predominantly sourced from China. GBD treats the surface of the magnet rather than the bulk, which dramatically reduces heavy rare earth consumption. For a domestic supply chain trying to minimize Chinese input materials, that’s a critical technology.

Longer term, Project Walker is the centerpiece of our capital strategy. If we execute on that, we will have built something the United States genuinely doesn’t have today — a scalable, ITAR-compliant, domestic sintered NdFeB finishing and GBD facility. That’s not just a business investment. That’s infrastructure for American manufacturing.

Q8. What’s the most important thing you look for when hiring or building your team?

Intellectual curiosity paired with the willingness to figure things out without a roadmap. In an industry that is rebuilding capability from the ground up, you simply cannot hire your way into people who have already done everything you need. The playbook doesn’t exist yet. The people who thrive here are the ones who can learn fast, synthesize across disciplines, and stay effective even when the path isn’t clear.

On the technical side, we put a premium on application engineers who genuinely understand the relationship between magnet materials, motor design, and system performance. Those people are rare. The shortage of domestic application engineering talent is, frankly, one of the most serious constraints on rebuilding the American rare earth magnet supply chain. We are investing in building that capability internally, because we can’t assume it exists in the labor market.

Beyond technical skills, I look for people who take ownership. Not just of their functional area, but of outcomes. In a company our size, you can’t have people waiting to be told what to do. You need people who see a problem and walk toward it.

On the technical side, we are actively recruiting rare earth magnet application engineers, GBD process engineers, and materials scientists who understand sintered NdFeB production. Finding them in the United States is genuinely difficult — not because the talent doesn’t exist, but because we haven’t been training people against a domestic production base. That is changing, and we are investing in building that capability internally rather than waiting for the labor market to catch up.

The domestic rare earth magnet manufacturing workforce doesn’t fully exist yet. Building it is as important as building the facility. You can have the best GBD process equipment in the world, but without engineers who understand sintered NdFeB finishing, DFARS compliance requirements, and application-level magnet design, the machine sits idle. Workforce development and capital investment have to move together.

Q9. What advice would you give to a young engineer or professional entering your industry today?

Learn the physics, but obsess over the applications. Magnetics is one of those disciplines where deep theoretical knowledge is table stakes, but the practitioners who build great careers are the ones who can translate that knowledge into real-world designs that actually work inside a motor, a sensor, a medical device, or a defense system.

Second, understand the supply chain, not just the technology. The entire global rare earth magnet supply chain is in the middle of a structural reorganization that will play out over the next decade. The engineers and professionals who understand where materials come from, how they’re processed, what the geopolitical constraints are, and how to build resilient supply relationships — those people will be extraordinarily valuable.

Third, don’t overlook the domestic opportunity. There is meaningful, well-funded momentum to rebuild American rare earth magnet manufacturing capability. If you want to work on something that matters — that touches defense, clean energy, electrification, and national security simultaneously — this is the industry to be in, right now.

If I were starting today I would get deep on NdFeB magnet design, Grain Boundary Diffusion processing, and DFARS supply chain compliance. Those three skill sets sit at the intersection of the most underfunded part of the domestic rare earth supply chain — the last mile between raw alloy and finished, magnetized, application-ready magnets — and almost no academic program is producing people who understand all three. The engineers who build that knowledge in the next five years will be extraordinarily valuable.

Q10. Is there a recent innovation, success story, or project your company is particularly proud of?

Project Walker is the one I’m most proud of — and I’m proud of it precisely because it isn’t finished yet. It represents the most ambitious thing we’ve attempted as a company, and it’s also one of the most important things anyone in this industry could attempt right now.

The United States today has virtually no commercial-scale domestic capability to take sintered NdFeB alloy and turn it into finished, precision-ground, magnetized magnets ready for defense or commercial applications. That last mile of the supply chain — the finishing, the GBD processing, the quality control, the application engineering — is almost entirely done offshore. Project Walker is our answer to that gap.

What we’re proposing is a facility at our DuBois, Pennsylvania site — where our Magnet Applications division already operates in an ITAR-compliant environment and holds DFARS-compliant bonded NdFeB production capability — that would add sintered NdFeB finishing and Grain Boundary Diffusion processing. Approximately $150 million in total capital, roughly 100 skilled jobs, targeting commercial operations by Q2 2028.

We’re pursuing a financing stack that includes DOE loan financing, MESC grant support, and Bunting equity. We’ve been engaged on Capitol Hill through our federal advisory team, meeting with the House Select Committee on China, Senate offices representing Pennsylvania and Kansas, and DOE and DOD stakeholders. The bipartisan support for this type of domestic rare earth magnet manufacturing investment has been genuinely encouraging.

When we talk about ‘mine to magnet’ as the goal for American rare earth supply chain independence, Project Walker is our contribution to closing the most neglected part of that chain. Not the mine. Not the refinery. The part that actually makes the magnet work inside a defense platform or a clean energy system. That’s the part we’re building.

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