Expert Details
Product Design and Manufacturing, Materials, Fastening and Joining, Consumer Product and Safety
ID: 711797
Minnesota, USA
He has served as a regular resource for grade school and junior high classes to discuss engineering as a career. He has served as a facilitator and participant in presentations to university engineering classes to assist in preparation for student entry into the job market (U of M, Minneapolis, and Duluth). He has presented at multiple seminars on using the Weibull calculation routines for reliability analysis of product design/test data. He has authored numerous related articles for national technical magazines. He regularly uses both 2D and 3D CADD systems. He is quite personally skilled as an operator of much metalworking equipment (i.e, milling machines, lathes, brakes, shears, etc.), plus, has owned all of these pieces and still owns some. He is quite familiar with multiple design standards such as ANSI A17.Safety Code for Elevators, ASME B71.1 Mowers, Orthopedic products, and others. He is a retired Professional Engineer (PE-Ret)). He was formerly registered in Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, Michigan, and Washington State. He can re-register in those states if necessary.
PRODUCT/EQUIPMENT DESIGN and ANALYSIS: Lawn/garden, snow, off-road vehicles, golf course equipment, medical, food equipment, and handicap devices. Experience includes consumer and business products, plastic and aluminum part design, FEA, solid modeling, computer simulation, and animation, failure analysis, cost reduction, UL, CSA, TUV/GS, NSF. Analysis by math and graphic modeling is a strong suit. One of the statistical modeling projects has evolved into a proprietary computer reliability program, Weibull-DR.
MANUFACTURING: Hardware production organization and troubleshooting, equipment justification, return of investment (ROI) analysis, testing, and packaging. Process equipment has ranged from envelope machines, special production machinery, PC board assembly analysis to production software, computer simulation, and many points between.
* Expert has an extensive list of past projects; List available upon request.
Education
| Year | Degree | Subject | Institution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year: 1965 | Degree: B.M.E. (5-year Program) | Subject: Mechanical-Industrial Engineering | Institution: University of Minnesota |
| Year: 1964 | Degree: BSME | Subject: Physics, Pre-Engineering | Institution: St. Olaf College |
| Year: 1973 | Degree: Pre-Engineering | Subject: Electronics Technology | Institution: Devry Institute |
Work History
| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
|---|---|---|---|
| Years: 1976 to Present | Employer: Undisclosed | Title: Principal | Department: Consulting Engineering efforts to many Minnesota manufacturers |
Responsibilities:He provides design and consulting for a wide variety of hardware products and equipment. Strong suits are in mathematical modeling of equipment accompanied by appropriate graphics to explain and clarify. Efforts have included much original design plus troubleshooting of various design or production problems. He has some limited familiarity with computer-controlled machining for manufacturing and has programmed in G-Code. He has been licensed to practice as a Professional Engineer in five states. Owns a very complete machine shop. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1979 to 1982 | Employer: Food Engineering Corporation | Title: Director of Engineering and Manufacturing | Department: Engineering and Assembly |
Responsibilities:Led all company efforts for the design and production of all food processing equipment. This involved responsibility for 60 people - most of the company. Typical customers were Kellogg, Pillsbury, General Foods, etc. Went back to consulting office as a result of a very nice consulting offer from Toro (former employer) to perform work on its products. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1973 to 1976 | Employer: Black & Decker | Title: | Department: Outdoor Appliance Engineering |
Responsibilities:Expert was responsible for the majority of outdoor appliances with the exception of lawnmowers. Since leaving B&D as an employee, he has performed work for them on a consulting basis. This work has included hedge trimmers, string trimmers, and an original design and prototype build of a bench grinder. Also performed consulting work for Black & Decker after leaving its employment to return to Minnesota. Considered B&D to be an excellent organization in a bad location - Towson MD (Baltimore area). |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1965 to 1973 | Employer: Toro Company | Title: Senior Design Engineer | Department: Consumer Division |
Responsibilities:Work on research and development in all areas of consumer products. For example, he was the project engineer for Toro's original line of large two-stage snowthrowers. He was also the originator of Toro's "Power Curve" snowthrower configuration, the bagging system that allows the operator to dump grass without getting off the lawn tractor, their original lawn vacuum, plus several other items still in the Toro system. Later, served 25-30 years as a consultant to Toro on all of its equipment lines. Have made significant contributions to alToro's's lines. A major contributor and/or originator in both R&D and initial start-up for all oToro's’s major new consumer product lines – with the exception of lawnmowers. He served as a lead project engineer fToro'so’s original, three-unit, two-stage snow thrower line. This was alToro'so’s first successful high-volume consumer product line that was more complex than a lawnmower. As an employee, he was the originator oToro's’s highly successful Power Curve blade configuration, the star feature of its present single-stage snow thrower. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1966 to 1967 | Employer: U.S. Army | Title: Fire Direction Center Chief and Artillery Instructor | Department: 24th Inf Division, 7th Artillery |
Responsibilities:(Augsburg, Germany), M-109 (155mm Self Propelled Guns). Fire Direction Center Chief and Artillery Instructor, incl. Special Weapons (Nuclear Rounds). This was essentially a training unit for troops on their way to a war zone(s). |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1962 to 1965 | Employer: Lincoln Dairy Plant Suppliers | Title: Engineering Assistant and Draftsman | Department: Engineering |
Responsibilities:He assisted company engineers while he was a student at the University of Minnesota. |
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Government Experience
| Years | Agency | Role | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Years: 1986 to 1989 | Agency: United States Bureau of Health & Human Services | Role: | Description: Expert conducted two separate research, design, and study grants for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This included a study of over fifty residences around the Twin Cities metropolitan area regarding elderly people's ability to safely move around their homes. Subsequently, this involved the design of equipment to assist these folks to safely climb or descend stairways. |
| Years: 1980 to 1990 | Agency: United States Bureau of Mines | Role: Consultant Design | Description: He has designed and fabricated three variations of coal auger heads. This included the design of three extremely high-capacity gear heads (25,000 ft-lbs capacity). Bureau of Mines individuals performed testing. Other smaller analysis projects were completed for them throughout the '80s until the USBM Twin Cities office was closed. |
Career Accomplishments
| Associations / Societies |
|---|
| Member of the Minnesota chapters of the National Society of Professional Engineers and the American Consulting Engineers Council, and their local Minnesota chapters. Member of the Minnesota Reliability Consortium (MRC) Member of the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology Alumni Association is a past member of its Board of Directors. |
| Licenses / Certifications |
|---|
| He is a Registered Professional Engineer (retired status) in five states. If required, it is my understanding these licenses can be re-activated with appropriate notice. (Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, California, and Washington State) |
| Professional Appointments |
|---|
| He has long been a member of the Minnesota chapters of the National Society of Professional Engineers and semi-retired Life Member of American Consulting Engineers Council, has chaired several committees, and is a past member of both Boards of Directors. He is a past president of the Minnesota Professional Engineers in Industry. In addition, he is a past member of the University of Minnesota’s, Institute of Technology Alumni Board of Directors. |
| Awards / Recognition |
|---|
| Minnesota's Seven Wonders of Engineering Award and U.S. Small Business Innovation Research Grants x2 President's Award from the Minnesota Consulting Engineers Council (sole recipient) Minnesota Governor's Star Award for Handicapped Equipment Design University of Minnesota Duluth's Engineering Appreciation Award for Service to the College of Science and Engineering (sole recipient) Minnesota Consulting Engineer's Council's President's Award for active contribution to the group's goals (sole recipient) A No.1 with Consumer Reports has been awarded to four different product lines he has been responsible for: One snow thrower, a riding lawn mower, a hedge trimmer, and most recently, a yard blower vacuum, a high-speed blower by Toro that is constructed around his original compound fan design |
| Publications and Patents Summary |
|---|
| Expert is the credited inventor for 24 U.S. patents, plus related foreign patents. He is also the author and contributor to two articles for Machine Design magazine concerning the use of the Weibull distribution as a tool for product reliability calculation. |
Additional Experience
| Expert Witness Experience |
|---|
| Expert has provided expert testimony for both product liability and patent litigation issues. EXPERT / FORENSIC INVESTIGATION: Available as principle technical investigator for consumer or business products or equipment. Investigations have included mechanical-electrical equipment for law offices, insurance organizations, or private manufacturers. Efforts have included problem-solving, cost analysis, incl ROI, technical reports, and other typical industrial engineering efforts. This includes computer modeling and/or simulation for product and equipment design and standards issues. Expert is capable of generating 3D computer models of components. |
| Training / Seminars |
|---|
| He has worked with training seminars for reliability calculation issues. He has also presented multiple seminars for junior high school through college students to talk to them about engineering as a career. EDUCATION: BME Mechanical-Industrial Engineering (5-year, 250 credit program) from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Pre-engineering was from St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN. He has completed numerous courses or seminars on structures, reliability, computer issues, etc. While at Black & Decker, with the Veteran’s educational benefit, he completed two years of the Bell & Howell electronics program. This has served him well in subsequent years. |
| Other Relevant Experience |
|---|
Fields of Expertise
new consumer product development, new product development, product design, design for manufacturability, product manufacturing, biomedical engineering, consumer product safety, consumer product, product design manufacture, aluminum fastening, mobile home, snow blower, outdoor power equipment, automation technology, automation, computational method, off-road equipment, cost reduction, Weibull distribution, equipment design, design for assembly, safety, computer-aided electric machine design, computer-aided design, continuous solid handling machine, computer-aided mechanical design, computer-aided manufacturing, computer-aided engineering, manufacturing technology management, operations research, mechanical power transmission, mechanical behavior modeling, Manufacturing Automation Protocol, rotational molding, die casting, computer simulation, bearing selection, mechanical device design, machine design, high-speed mechanism design, automated machine design, design engineering, rigid-body dynamics, factory integration, computer manufacturing, manufacturing control, off-road vehicle, machining fixture, variable-speed motor control, legal patenting, automotive seat belt, computer numerical control, Weibull inference, Weibull density function, vibration modeling, value engineering, tensile strength, structural mechanics, strategic research planning, sporting equipment, safety engineering, safety code, rotary electric motor, roller bearing, robotics, research management, physics modeling, metal failure analysis, metal rolling, metal press forming, metal machining, mechanical fatigue, mechanical engineering, mathematical model, man-machine system, human factors engineering, friction-control lubrication, food processing equipment, finite element analysis, failure analysis, factory automation, dynamics, differential equation, deformation analysis, conventional machining, food appliance, computer integrated manufacturing, composite failure analysis, classical dynamics, bearing, automotive crashworthiness, manufacturing automation, agricultural machine