Early Career
2D wireframe CAD
Here
are some of the projects I worked on way back before 3D parametric solid modeling CAD
was common.
As a co-op student through Northeastern University in Boston, I used CADAM at Dynapert / Emhart Industries (a small division of Black and Decker) in Beverly, MA, for my first design projects and lots of drawing creation and editing. This was approximately from 1990 to 1993.
After Dynapert closed their doors, I found temp agencies and became a contractor working for various companies using CadKey from
1993 to1998.
In 1998, I seized an opportunity to learn Pro/Engineer while working for Northern Research and Engineering.
I sure do wish I had screen shots from back then... Read more about the next phase of my career on the "Rapid growth years" page.Dynapert / Emhart Industries
As a co-op student, I learned about clearances and tolerances and how to create a "good" working drawing. I probably learned more at this job than any other job I have had since. Much of my time there was also spent in the lab working on prototype builds of the machinery.
Dynapert was a leading provider of automated insertion machinery in Through Hole Technology PCB industry. Surface Mount Technology was being heavily adopted by industry at that time and I was working on the development of a new SMT turret machine. Sadly I could not find any images of that work.
New Balance
The Outsoles and Midsoles for athletic shoes were provided to engineering as renderings created by industrial designers. As a contractor at New Balance, I would convert the rendering to a 2D vector file consisting of only lines and arcs using Cadkey. The resulting DXF file would then be sent via modem to the tooling supplier in Asia. This job kept me busy for about 6 months at the beginning of 1994. The images here are examples of documentation for running shoe's Outsole and Midsole design. These are not an actual drawings I worked on.
United Plastic Fabricating
For the latter half of 1994, I designed welded polypropylene water tanks for fire trucks and firefighting attack trailers using Cadkey.
Charm Sciences
Starting in February 1995 I worked for about a year and a half mostly developing a novel packaging and dispensing method for a sanitation test. When a sample taken from a surface
containing any biocontamination is mixed with luciferase, the presence of ATP in the sample will generate minute amounts of light. Accurately measuring the quantity of light using a photomultiplier tube, correlates to the level of contamination on the surface.
The test had been in production for some time before my involvement, but required test tubes, manually dispensing reagents, mixing and pouring for each test location. The user friendly solution is the patented PocketSwab® which is still in production today. I am grateful to have been on the team for the development of this product, from initial conception through the first, home built production machine.
Northern Research and Engineering
Late in 1996, I started working here as a contractor developing assembly tooling, fixturing, and testing solutions for the development of a plate fin air-to-air heat exchanger to be used in a micro-turbine driven power generation system. I worked on fixtures for vacuum furnace brazing, leak testing, seam welding, resistance spot welding, braze alloy application, etc.
The end product was an electricity generator called "PowerWorks." and was ultimately sold, distributed, and serviced by Ingersoll Rand. My involvement with this company started with NREC, continued through the years under Ingersoll Rand, and ended well after Flex Energy took the reins. This story is continued in the next section "Rapid growth years"
