Thomas Meier Email & Phone Number

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Technical leader for Hardgoods programs in the Home Care Division. Accomplishments include:Managed technical aspects of the Scotch-Brite Disposable Toilet Bowl Scrubber (DTBS) from NPIActivation through Post-Launch. Led Ideation sessions to gather insights for concept development.Rapid prototyped multiple design iterations for quick and effective tool evaluations and product usefeedback. Managed supplier relationship to develop prototype injection molded tooling for criticalConsumer Home Use Test. Collaborated with Manufacturing and Chinese/Mexican vendors to qualifycomponents and assemblies for production. Visited OUS manufacturers to assist in ProductionStart-up and Debug efforts.Led hardgoods development of the Scotch-Brite Sink Corner Caddy.Team member supporting the Consumer Health Care’s Scrum Sprint project, “Connected Wellness”

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Mechanical Team Leader for the Audio Visual Information (AVI) group. Responsibilities include:Oversaw mechanical engineering work for TDK, Memorex, and XtremeMac consumer audio products.Duties include detail design and collaboration with in-house Industrial Design group and managementof engineering work by external resources including our Hong Kong office and engineers from overseasvendors.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Technical leader for Writing Tools / Ergonomic Mice in the Office Supplies Division. Accomplishments include:Designed the Post-it Label Roll. Created innovative and patentable part to allow multiple label rollswith various widths to be used effectively in effort to reduce part count and product cost.Designed and developed the Post-it Flag + Pen/Highlighter Writing Tool. Interviewed and observed“target market” research subjects during usage trials of writing instruments focus group. Refinedfeature set based on user feedback. Collaborated with Marketing, Industrial Design, Manufacturing andsuppliers to create cost effective solution that met consumer requirements. Product successfullyentered the market in 2009.Managed technical aspects of the 3M Ergomouse. Was part of the M&A product acquisition team.Assisted in new vendor selection for Ergomouse manufacturing to improve quality and cost structures;developed next generation Ergomouse with enhanced feature set.

Camas, Washington

Responsible for the design of audio headsets. Accomplishments include:Technical leader for design, development, and engineering of the Premium Notebook and USBHeadsets. These “A-list” products shipped on time and under budget.Met aggressive marketing specifications for headset adjustability utilizing novel pivoting concepts andtensioning devices. Determined required pivot tensioning loads via experiments and used analyticalmethods to design critical parts that met load requirements. Verified designs through FEA and testing.Initiated and managed material characterization efforts (stress, strain, and fatigue properties) forvarious polymer alloys used in headband designs following ASTM standards. This included outsourcedtest vendor selection, test procedure definition, and final reporting of results.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Responsible for the design of home fitness products. Accomplishments include:Technical leader for design, engineering, and project management for next generation elliptical fitnessproduct. Created and implemented project plan including schedule and budget goals, resourcerequirements, and detailed specifications. Led brainstorming for creation of patentable inventionconcepts. Designed and prototyped patent ideas for evaluation.Analyzed critical linkage failure for exercise machine. Re-designed successful part with improvedgeometry and material selection. Verified design through stress calculations and finite elementanalysis.Responsible for design and engineering of the Pro350 Elliptical Crosstraining machine. Monitored andapproved all tooling and fixtures, managed product costs, and created Bill of Materials. Wrote testspecifications and oversaw product testing. Validated sub-contractor quality procedures and standards.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

Led the development of multiple projects for various clients. Accomplishments include:Designed, developed, and tested snow sled for the recreational snow sports industry.Engineered injection molded plastic parts for a wrist-worn medical device from concept throughtooling database.Developed hinged door mechanism for “Job Dig” employment newspaper kiosks.

Cupertino, California

Technical leader of the PowerBook thermal design team. Accomplishments include:Led thermal design efforts and application of new heat pipe technology for next generation portablecomputers. Managed design team to develop novel thermal solutions through analysis, R&D,mechanical prototyping, and testing.Designed and developed evaluation prototypes utilizing cutting-edge thermal technologies.Brought battery latch mechanism of the Titanium PowerBook G4 to stable performance levels throughdesign improvements, vendor interaction, improved assembly methods, and detailed debug and reworkprocedures on the production line. Traveled to Taiwan to oversee pre-production builds for TitaniumPowerBook G4.

Sunnyvale, California

Responsible for design and development of multiple projects for various clients. Accomplishments include:Developed working prototype of sunglasses with embedded microelectronics and Bluetooth transceiverto wirelessly communicate with personal mobile phone. Created summary explaining creative eyewearproduct function and associated manufacturing processes for patent search and application.Engineered “Cranium Cosmo”, an office version of the popular Cranium board game, for high-volumeproduction requiring concept definition, mechanical design with 3D CAD, and prototyping usingstereolithography techniques. Prepared and managed Request For Quote package for vendor selection.Introduced to the market Fall 2001.Designed Internet Appliance utilizing magnesium castings, injection molded plastics, and Santopreneelastomers.

Levelite Technologies, Mountain View, CAContract engineering work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California; UnitedDefense, Fridley, Minnesota; and 3M Company, St. Paul, Minnesota.Nordic Track, Inc., Chaska, MN