Jay Higashi Email & Phone Number

Minnetonka, Mn, Us

United States

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

I began my work at The Bernard Group in 2013. I was hired by the company's founder to build a prototype shop and hire a team of diversely talented fabricators and problem solvers. Our goal was to build retail display and fixture prototypes to win new business without interrupting ongoing production work streams. From the onset, a central tenet and key advantage we held over our competitors was our ability and willingness to iterate rapidly for highly intricate designs and projects. In partnership with my team we developed processes for requesting, estimating, and tracking the prototype work. I was also central in developing partnerships between our design teams, engineering teams, and sales staff to ensure that the prototypes achieved the customer requirements and could transition to high volume production.During my 7 years at The Bernard Group we built a prototype shop that was able to produce high quality displays using all different material types. The shop had capabilities in Wood (hardwood, MDF, veneer core and composites), Metal (steel, stainless steel, and aluminum), Plastics (acrylic, styrene, PVC, ABS, polycarbonate, acetal, solid surfaces and architectural films), Paint and Finishing (polyurethane, acrylic lacquer, water based, fiberglass, resin casting and mold making), Electronics (LEDs, Arduino, Raspberry pie, customer circuit boards),and Graphic Applications of all kinds. Before leaving I was setting up for sewing and basic screen printing.My team supported many top tier and amazing retail brands including Best Buy, The Home Depot, Sephora, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Target, MAC, Chanel, Sleep Number, American Standard, Kohler. I'm very proud of the client satisfaction we achieved through the quality of our work and the high standard for excellence we set for not only the company but the industry at large.

Manage the Creative Works Department by providing innovative mechanical designs/concepts and quick-turn prototypes that will be presented to leading Retailers & Brand Marketers. Our team works with a multitude of materials and fabrication techniques to meet the diverse and challenging project requirements of our customers.

As a Display Development Manager my role was to guide and coach a talented team of fixture and display designer. This included guiding them through challenging projects, recommending and partnering with outside vendors for prototypes, hosting and scheduling display review meetings with project stake holders, weekly 1:1 meetings with direct reports, quarterly and annual performance reviews, and working on special projects that come up.

Sr. Design Account Specialist is a internal resource for graphic designer and display designers. My job is to help guide our designers into the best solution, material choice, production method and vendor for our projects.

I host a Blog for HP Designjet printers. We discuss printing solutions, media choices, post "How To" articles and share tips and tricks.https://h41186.www4.hp.com/country/us/en/lfs/index.html?pageseq=96965828

Manage production workflow for large format trade show graphics. Keep up to date on print technology, provide training for production staff, oversee maintenance of production equipment and manage supply inventory.

I worked on all aspects of high quality archival framing. We specialized in matting and framing high value original art by artists such as...Max Ernst, Sir Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Ronnie Catrone, Peter Max, Leroy Nieman and Thomas McKnight to name a few. It was a privilege to have an opportunity to handle and preserve such amazing works.