Meet the Owners

Meet the Owners…

Clay Stephens lives in the Charlotte area with his wife and two kids. After obtaining a Mechanical Engineering degree, he moved to Charlotte, NC to work for Robby Gordon Motorsports in the Nascar Series. At Robby Gordon Motorsports, he managed the Chassis Fabrication department. He was also responsible for the design and manufacturing of various parts and fixtures necessary for continual improvement both in the garage and on the race track. Most parts and fixtures were designed as solid models and then manufactured in-house on CNC machining centers, often by Clay.

After working in Nascar, Clay started working in the Formula Drift Series with Autosport Dynamics (ASD), where he gained a huge passion for the sport of drifting. He really liked the idea of building factory cars, with tons of power, and designing suspension to put the power to the ground. He served as a chassis builder, mechanical designer, crew chief, and CNC programmer/machinist. Clay was involved in all the Falken Tire/ASD teams including Vaughn Gittin Jr., Tyler McQuarrie (TMac), Justin Pawlak (JTP), and Darren McNamarra (DMac).

In 2014, Clay partnered with Skyler to form SS Manufacturing and immediately started managing/maintaining Tyler McQuarrie Racing GoPro Camaro in the Formula Drift Series.

Because of his engineering background, and racing experiences, Clay has formed a vision to be able to design top quality parts in such a cost-effective way, that the parts become within the budget of teams that would otherwise settled for a lesser product (often more expensive in the long term).  SS Manufacturing is the manifestation of that dream.

Skyler Schipper lives in the Charlotte area with his wife and two kids. He has acquired a degree in Advanced Manufacturing with a focus on multi-axis CNC Programming and machining. Through the years, he has developed a passion for machining. In more detail, he has huge passion for programming and operating high quality CNC Machining centers to make high quality parts. He has a unique skill set that he continues to hone, by utilizing the best available machines, tools, and fixturing, and pushing them all to the max performance, ultimately producing high quality parts in the most efficient way possible. Skyler has worked in various manufacturing facilities serving a wide range of industries including Nuclear, Aerospace, Defense, Medical, and Auto Racing. He has programmed and operated a wide range of CNC machining centers including 3 axis mills, 2 axis lathes, 5 axis mills, 4 axis horizontals, 12 axis mill-turns and swiss lathes. His wide range of CNC machine tool experience has prepared Skyler to be able to look at a project and determine the most efficient way possible to get from concept to manufacturing to a functioning part. Utilizing these skill sets, he continues to push SS Manufacturing toward the vision of providing customers with top quality parts, that meet or exceed expectation, and is very cost-effective.