Brian Gilliard Email & Phone Number

Warren, Mi, Us

Hired as an Independent Contractor to use my expertise in composite applications and industry contacts to develop new business opportunities for Borealis at General Motors (GM). I recently completed a market study on the use of glass fiber reinforced composites at GM. The information from this study will enable Borealis to identify automotive parts where they can sell their materials to fill up the capacity for their new plant in the US.

Warren, Mi

Design Release Engineer for the 2014 Buick LaCrosse MCE and the 2014 Chevrolet Malibu MCE bumpers, fascias, grilles and wheelhouse liners. Responsibilities include program management, application engineering and launch support in the GM Fairfax Kansas City and Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plants.

Worked with the new vehicle Product Develop Teams to identify possible warranty issues from designs that don’t follow best practices based on knowledge gained from past warranty issues. Responsible for warranty issues with suppliers of TPO fascias, functional black plastic components, chrome plated ABS grilles and chrome plated metal bumpers. Direct the resolution of warranty spills and work with the supplier on a daily basis to find the root cause, contain the bad parts, and replace service stock with the new parts. Develop plans with suppliers to prevent future warranty spills.

Novi, Mi

Responsible for program management, application engineering and field quality support of automotive products molded from AcoustiMax lightweight glass mat thermoplastic for headliners. A member of the team that commercialized the Mazda J61J headliner coordinating design and DVP&R testing, working on the PPAP, molding and process support in the Intier manufacturing plant and field quality. The headliner program has $1,500,000 of annual sales. Led the development of commercial applications in the Recreational Vehicle industry for composite materials to replace luan in the roof and wall construction with the potential of $2,000,000 in annual sales. Other responsibilities include application engineer for sound insulators and absorbers from VersaMat polyester fiber products. I completed the APQP for PSC Fabricating who supplied VersaMat die-cut parts to Toyota Boshoku. Key programs include Project Engineer on the Toyota Venza Rear Quarter Panel Acoustic Insulator - $400,000 annual sales, Pontiac G6 Package Tray Insulator – $180,000 annual sales and the Mazda 6 Headliner Absorber - $250,000 annual sales.

Responsible for the engineering and design of exterior automotive products made from thermoplastic injection, compression, and blow molded materials. Job consisted of providing technical support to GE marketing personnel, molder customers and OEMs all over the world. I followed projects through from prototype to production, initiating project ideas, performing finite element analysis (FEA), working with model and tool makers in the design of prototype and production tooling, conducting molding trials, documenting project results, giving technical and marketing presentations to customers and controlling the budget and project resources. Responsibilities also included supervising and directing the efforts of a computer application engineer who did finite element analysis.

Job consisted of initiating project ideas, controlling the budget and project resources, directing the activities of other personnel involved in the project, and documenting project results. Responsibilities include providing engineering support to designers, specifying materials, working with model and tool makers in the design and build of prototype tooling, and providing technical assistance in bringing composite automobile body panels to production. Project activities included the design and prototype of the GM-80 (1990 Camaro / Firebird) SMC door with a hinged outer panel to simplify access to the hardware. This feature resulted in me receiving a patent for the GM-80 door design.Other project activities included defining the parameters for door beams in composite and steel doors. Coordinating the design, build and testing of composite doors for the Seville Composite Vehicle project, the forerunner of the 199X Cadillac Family-of-Cars concept. Building a finite element model of a roof for the GM-80 vehicle to determine the feasibility of a one piece GTX thermoplastic roof design.