01
Specialization beats scale
We will not be a generalist agency that happens to have a trades division. Skilled trades and manufacturing is the whole firm. Every recruiter, every campaign, every relationship is built around that focus.
About Cannonball
Built by a recruiter who
Built by a recruiter who
knows the floor.
Cannonball Recruiting is a boutique skilled trades and manufacturing staffing firm. We do one thing, place the right people on the right floors, and we do it without the bureaucracy, the account manager carousel, or the resume flood that defines big-agency staffing.
Why we built it
Brett built a $100M+ trades division
Brett built a $100M+ trades division
at a national agency.
Then left to do it the right way.
Before Cannonball, Brett spent years placing welders, machinists, fabricators, and manufacturing leadership at a national staffing firm. He built their skilled trades division from the ground up into a $100M+ revenue vertical. He saw what worked. He also saw what was broken.
What was broken was the bureaucracy. The account manager hand-offs. The pressure to fill quotas with warm bodies instead of fits. The candidates submitted to three other shops in the same industrial park. The clients caught up in organizational changes who never got the senior attention they were paying for.
Cannonball is what staffing looks like when those layers are stripped out. Direct access to the people running the searches. Recruiters who actually know your equipment. A bench built through competitor sourcing, not job board scraping. And a reputation that rides on every single placement, because boutique firms don't survive bad ones.
80%
Sales meeting
close rate
close rate
87%
Contract-to-hire
conversion
conversion
1,000+
Skilled positions
filled
filled
$100M+
Trades division Brett
built before Cannonball
built before Cannonball
Five things
we won't compromise on.
These are the principles we built the firm around. Every search, every placement, every relationship is run against them.
02
Direct access, always
No account manager carousel. No hand-offs to junior recruiters. The person who runs intake is the person who runs the search. Our reputation rides on every placement because we have nowhere to hide it.
03
Find the people, don't post and hope
The best candidates are already employed at your competitors. We source directly. We use trade networks, equipment-specific databases, and competitor maps. Job boards are a fallback, not a strategy.
04
Match skill, not keywords
We screen at the level of the equipment, the tolerances, the certifications, and the shop-floor realities of your industry. Generalist agencies match keywords on resumes. We match capability against your actual floor.
05
Honesty over close rate
If we are not the right firm for your search, we will tell you. If a role is not a fit for our model, we will say so on the call. The 80 percent close rate comes from being honest, not from saying yes to everything.
06
Show up after the placement
The agency disappears once the contractor starts. We don't. Check-ins, performance conversations, proactive replacements when someone gives notice. Workforce management is part of the engagement, not an afterthought.
Veteran-owned. MBE-certified through NMSDC.
Built on trust, not turnover.
Built lean.
Built deliberate.
No layers, no middle management, no account manager carousel. You work with the people doing the work.
Brett Secor
Founder & President
Six years Army National Guard. Built a $100M+ skilled trades division at a national staffing firm before founding Cannonball in 2020. Leads the steel and metal trades vertical directly and handles strategic partnerships across all divisions.
BJ Ruble
Sales Manager
Leads the plastics, printing, and packaging division. Deep technical fluency in press operations, plastics manufacturing, and the niche skill sets that generalist firms miss. Cannonball's MBE certification operates through BJ.
Griffin Schappell
Recruitment Account Manager
Manages client relationships and active searches across the manufacturing and skilled trades verticals. The point of contact who keeps placements on track from intake through onboarding.
Delaney Lawrence
Dental Division Lead
Leads Cannonball's dedicated dental division at cb-dental.com. Brings contract-to-hire staffing to dental practices, a model most practice owners have never seen before.
Ready to talk?
Tell us what's open.