Doing the occasional side job helps keep things fresh. - injection molded consumer product now on sale at Lowe’s - motorized roof top cargo box carriage, integrates with OEM Racks- glider tubing fabrication and load testing- design and prototype for human powered transmission- reverse engineering and fabrication of unavailable sailboat parts

At Exact Engineering I am part of a small team of experienced Engineers who specialize in design, analysis and integration of optomechanical and mechanical systems for new and existing applications. Our clients range from inventors looking for guidance and prototyping to bio-medical startups who lean into our optomechanical expertise. We've also worked with established defense contractors requiring precision production components. I've enjoyed working directly with clients to help them frame their design problems, brainstorm solutions, detail ideas in CAD, program/run CNC machines, and build assemblies in-house. I find great reward in hand delivering finished products.

Over the past five years I've brought a higher level of standardization to the organization and have introduced new technologies in terms of integrating instrumentation into new test devices.Our New Product Development model includes a high degree of technical Risk Management. Typical risks may be found in a new suspension system on a treadmill, a new approach to creating resistance in a cardio cross trainer or introducing a toughened glass surface to the user interface in a harsh gym environment. Through failure mode and effect analysis (DFMEA) we identify the riskiest components and assemblies, prototype them and run mechanical stress tests (HALT) such as increasing-static-load testing to identify the weakest parts. These tests are highly valuable as they can be designed, launched and documented in days or even hours and often lead to significant design improvements. This early vetting allows us to move into the more committing Product Validation testing with an already mature design and a high level of confidence.Some of my most value added activities have been using my working knowledge of the gym environment and asking the right questions of Design Engineering to propose testing parameters that allow for quick, practical verification.

Prior to my Reliability Engineering position at Cybex I was a Mechanical Engineer in R&D with a focus on technology scouting, mechanism design and prototyping commercial cardio equipment. I managed a multi-year field study focused on new treadmill belt and deck technologies which ultimately resulted in the largest per treadmill part cost reduction in company history while simultaneously improving product reliability.I enjoy working in Solidworks for layout work and detailed design. In the "elevation geometry..." example below I re-used 98% of the parts from the basic treadmill to design a "high performance" model and kept fatigue stress within an acceptable range.

I started off on a two man team: myself as a junior mechanical engineer along with a senior level Electrical Engineer. I owned the mechanical design and documentation of complex electronics cabinets in support of a much larger shipboard phased array antenna program. I gained exposure to shock, vibration, corrosive ocean air, heat removal, electromagnetic noise and the long established best practices used to produce a reliable design in a harsh environment. I moved within the Directorate into a group specialized in cooling equipment and had the opportunity to contribute to the actual installation aboard ship. After living some smaller projects and a couple complete design cycles from bid generation thru installation I was assigned to lead the field response to a high visibility, mission critical, cooling system crisis. We were able to prevent a schedule variance and I became regarded as a SME (subject matter expert) in the high purity liquid cooling systems used to manage heat in these high power installations. The highly process oriented experience I gained at Raytheon proved to be valuable in my future roles. At Cybex I drove the organization toward closing gaps in Standardization and along with demonstrating technical depth, my leadership was recognized by promotion to a management level position within Engineering. My Security Clearance from my work at Raytheon has expired.