Built by Engineers.
Trusted by Facilities.

Thean graduated from St. Cloud State University in 2004 with a Mechanical Engineering degree — and immediately dove into the deep end of industrial automation. His first job at MidMac Systems meant learning robot programming, PLC systems, and machine design from the ground up. Not theory. Real systems — Fanuc, Kawasaki, ABB, Kuka — that had to work every single shift.

From there, he joined Aetrium, where he spent five years designing gravity handler systems for some of the most demanding environments on the planet — semiconductor manufacturing floors at Texas Instruments, Maxim, and major chip makers worldwide. Every project ran the full cycle: concept, design, build, debug, and delivery. If a machine failed in that environment, it could halt a $10 million production line. You learn to build things right.

Thean returned to the automation and integrator world — first as a Senior Robotics Engineer, then rising to VP of Engineering. He led teams, set robotics strategy, and oversaw complex system integrations across mechanical, electrical, and process controls. The engineers were exceptional. Passionate people who stayed late solving impossible problems for clients, who genuinely cared about the craft. But when leadership stopped caring about the team and began treating brilliant engineers as dispensable — protecting only their own interests — it became clear that the right answer wasn't to fix that company. It was to build a better one.

In 2020, Thean founded Sproutmation on a simple belief: engineers who care about their work, and who care about their clients, deserve a company built around those values. Sproutmation exists because of that frustration — and because of that conviction. It shows in everything we do.