When Mike Gates sees something going on in a market that could signal problematic changes for his industry, he doesn’t just wait around for the fallout to occur. At least twice in his life, he ended up making major life changes.
In the mid-1980s when he was in his 20s, he and his father James were involved in companies that made high-temperature heat shields for the aerospace industry in San Diego. “Then we noticed some changes being made to aerospace,” Gates says. “People making important parts for aircraft had to have a clean room. And they wanted me to pick
