Today’s guest is John Walsh, founder and CEO of Endera, the Ottawa, Ohio-based specialty vehicle manufacturer building school and shuttle buses for transit agencies, airports, school districts, and private fleets across the country.

John came to the bus industry as an outsider —leaving a career in private equity in California with experience investing in cleantech and automotive companies, to launch Endera where he saw an opportunity to transform bus manufacturing in the U.S. by focusing on clean mobility solutions.

Early on, San Diego International Airport wrote the company a seven-figure deposit before Endera had a finished bus to deliver, giving John both real validation and an immediate lesson in what it would actually take to build a modern automotive manufacturing company.

That lesson ultimately pushed Endera toward Ohio and vertical integration: if they wanted to control their own destiny — quality, service, cost, and the customer experience — they needed to own more of the stack themselves. That brought John to Ottawa, Ohio, where Endera acquired manufacturing capability inside a former Philips plant, scaled production from roughly three buses a month to three a day, and where we recorded this conversation in person.

In our conversation, we talk about what it takes to break into a deeply relationship-driven industry as a young outsider, the realities of financing and scaling a capital-intensive manufacturer, building and developing a workforce, and how software, autonomy, and shared mobility fit into Endera’s longer-term vision. We also get into the harder parts of the entrepreneurial journey — including the moments when the company came close to the edge — and why John believes Ohio will play a leading role in the next generation of American manufacturing.