C. Fred Hood Email & Phone Number

Naples, Florida Area

Leads a newly-created group of 8 responsible for risk mitigation through all phases of manufacture of medical implants from fabrication through final assembly. The group creates & documents inspection plans including 1st Piece, In-Process and Final inspections and trains operators to ensure inspections are conducted properly. It develops process designs for blasting, tumbling, laser marking and laser welding, and work instructions for assembly operations. The group designs special tooling, fixtures, masks, and custom gauges for all manufacturing steps and fabricates many of them in-house.

Naples, Florida Area

Design and document final assembly fixtures and procedures for medical implant products. Develop and implement improved laser marking process (proof sheets, 1st Piece Inspection). Implement improved component handling procedures at the turning centers to enforce line clearance and reduce scrap.

Naples, Florida Area

Leading effort to automate QC data acquisition throughout all manufacturing stages of high volume products to speed product flow and provide the basis for SPC. Authored a VB program using standard Windows automation techniques to transfer CMM data directly into company in-process form without operator interaction as a demonstration. Evaluating commercial packages specializing in data capture and SPC output.Program and operate Mycrona CMM system running PC-DMIS 2009 to inspect first article implant products intended for the orthopedic surgery industry.Perform gage R&R and capability studies for customers as required

Multi-discipline integrator of technologies for novel industrial and business problemsProduct design and consultation- Identification, selection & qualification of 3rd party fabrication (foreign)- alternative energy sources- energy conservation- home securityBusiness developmentDatabase development & maintenance

Developed and maintained a sales, accounts receivable, warranty and contacts data base for small construction services company. Integrated MS Access, Outlook and Word to provide this functionality.

Managed a group responsible for automating crop development tasks performed in the field. Worked closely with VPs of various crop departments to identify prominent needs, developed project proposals, crafted budget requests and managed development group. Identified, qualified and supervised external machine fabrication firms.

Successfully completed work for PhD in Agricultural & Biological Engineering, "Automated Selection of Somatic Embryos". The research was in collaboration with the Fruit and Vegetable Crops department to develop a machine-vision based system to identify viable propagules of ipomea batatas (a variety of sweet potato) and to separate them from others in the growth medium (liquid rather than typical petri dish) as a means of generating synthetic seeds.

Studied energy use in Florida agriculture and found the the largest energy use was in the form of nitrogen fertilizer (primary feed stock for N-fertilizer is natural gas). Wrote several Extension publications showing ways to reduce N-fertilizer use in agricultural operations.

Full-capability electronic product design firm (concept through production-ready prototype) for the consumer, agriculture and industrial markets. Contract manufacturing for short-run products. Product design, P&L, hiring/firing, contract negotiations with foreign (Korean, Italian) and American firms.

Ross Gear manufactured hydraulic system components (pumps and motors) to ag and industrial customers and steering gear components to large truck manufacturers. I was hired to give company entry into electro-hydraulic applications in agriculture. Designed a reel speed control system for agricultural combines.

Product design for agricultural electronics. Designed and put 4 products into production in 3 years.

Phd, Machine Vision, Instrumentation

Dissertation title: "Automated Harvest of Somatic Embryos". Somatic embryogenesis offers unique benefits for the clonal propagation.

Ms, Automatic Control Theory

Thesis title: "Radiotelemetry of Hydrometerological Data" This was a portion of the work done to establish a completely computer sampled.

Bs, With Honors, Agricultural Engineering, Power & Machinery Option

-- Worked in department machine shop fabricating experimental field machinery designed either by my faculty or myself. -- Graded papers.