My Story

I have seen most facets of the automotive business, having worked in OEMs and suppliers, big companies and start-ups, manufacturing and product development. Through this I have gained experiences in a broad range of subjects and am able to see problems, and solutions, from many different angles. I like to make things, to take ideas and turn them into sellable product. To take disorder and make it ordered. To build, where nothing previously existed.

My career started at Ford Motor Company in Body & Assembly Operations (BAGO) in 1987, where I was a wheel alignment and chassis process engineer. During that time, I received The Henry Ford Technology Award, Ford's highest award for technical achievement, for new tooling I invented that saved millions on wheel alignment warranty. I went on to support over a dozen vehicle launches. 

After 7.5 years at BAGO, I transferred to product development where I was the suspension architect for the 2001 Ford Transit. The Transit program faced cost constraints but wanted to have both front and rear wheel drive derivatives. I conceived the package that allowed for the world's first vehicle to package FWD and RWD on the same platform. The architecture was so good it is still in use today. For this I won a Ford Significant Achievement Award.

I left Ford in 1999 to join MSX as a contract supervisor, working for Ford, on the Ford Transit Connect. It was an unusual program being jointly developed by Ford and the Turkish company Otosan. My MSX team, contracted to Ford, led development of the chassis systems from offices in the US, UK and Istanbul. We also trained Ototsan engineers on the Ford development system, project management, and engineering disciplines like DFMEA, DVP&R, GD&T and others. At MSX I led many other projects that culminated in the Think Neighbor.

The Think Neighbor was a low speed electric vehicle intended to provide EV credits in California and New York. The Neighbor was being engineered by a competitor of MSX and was going poorly. The Chief Engineer asked MSX to send someone in and see what was going on. That someone was me, an MSX employee, going to a competitor's facility, to figure out why they weren't performing. Within two months I had a small MSX team working inside their facility. Two months later, MSX took over the entire project. Due to cost overruns from the prior supplier, we reengineered over 70% of the vehicle, built two prototype phases, and launched it in 8 months. 

In 2002, I was offered an opportunity at Benteler Automotive, to be their North American Technical Director. After 14.5 years under Ford's roof, I left for the supply base. At Benteler, I ran a development team creating chassis structural components, and chassis modular assemblies. It was at Benteler that I really started to put my core principles to their fullest work, particularly the parts about DFMA. I shored up engineering support of ongoing products. I instilled a culture of early manufacturing involvement in product development and drove DFMA thinking into my engineers. I created KPIs and targets on part count reduction. I reorganized working groups to better involve CAE in program decisions, and used CAE to drive designs. Around six years after joining Benteler, the company announced that new product development would be moving to Germany, and the group would move to the main plant in Kalamazoo. Simultaneous to that, ArvinMeritor offered me a position to start a new group within the company that would focus on suspension components and assemblies. Given a choice of processing engineering changes, or doing something all new, the choice was easy. In June 2008 I left for ArvinMeritor.

 
The position at ArvinMeritor was brand new. It had no people, no budget, only an idea. I built the budget, coopted existing, or hired new people, and built a team of skilled chassis and vehicle dynamics engineers. During my tenure, I travelled to Russia for the first time to meet with Gaz to explore a JV and worked with Hero in India on another JV. Unfortunately, mid-2008 was a bad time to change jobs. With the economic downturn, ArvinMeritor decided to focus on the commercial vehicle market. It sold off what it could of the automotive market. Other areas, like mine, where liquidated in early 2009. 

 
Late in 2009, I joined a Rockledge, FL start-up called Mainstream Motors. Started by a MIT whiz-kid, the company had a plan of building an inexpensive, high mileage hybrid sport coupe. The company was funded by a parent company, Mainstream Engineering, who created high tech R&D solutions for the aerospace and defense industry. After a few months, it became apparent that my working style, and that of the CEO were not compatible. I carried the culture of the auto industry, he wanted to emulate Silicon Valley. In May 2010, we parted ways, and I returned to Michigan.

 
The 2010 economy in Michigan was not much better than in 2009. Jobs were sparse, and people were fleeing the area. Because my search was not fruitful, I decided to do independent consulting. I did project management consulting for start-ups and travelled to China to do technical business development for a Chinese Tier 1 supplier. When I was working, it was lucrative. Unfortunately, work was still scarce. In May 2011 I accepted an opportunity to be a contract Chief Engineer at Navistar Defense. 

 
Working in defense required some mind shifts. Work hours were billed to the government. As such, you needed to stick to billable work. Budgets were enforced. People did not waste time sitting idly in meetings. Conversations at the coffee pot were short. The pace was frenetic. Many people burned out. I was the third person in the job in four months. The first lasted eight days, the second, eight weeks. I hired a former Big3 engineer on Monday, he didn't return from lunch on Wednesday. Many couldn't cope. I thought it was fun. Never a dull moment, always something new. Customer feedback was immediate. There is nothing like seeing a six-hour old Facebook post of a group of soldiers standing in front of a blown-up vehicle with the caption "Thanks Navistar, you saved our lives today." With the war efforts winding down, and my job being contract, I felt I need more permanence. In January 2012, I joined Key Safety Systems running their global engineering services group.

 
Key Safety Systems (KSS) was a supplier in transition. It had survived the downturn through aggressive cost cutting and top down management. The methodology served them well when sales were falling. Sales were starting to rise, and during my tenure, KSS had a CAGR over 25%. Because of the aggressive cost controls, resources never met up with growth. Changes were needed. I modernized the engineering information systems, connected them to other enterprise IT systems, installed visual management and linked the departments globally for resource balancing. I changed the culture from top down, to bottom up; putting the authority to make decisions at the lowest practical level. Productivity surged. Emergency workorders dropped by over 90%. To reduce cost in the EU, and improve back-office support, I started a technical center at our plant in Arad, Romania. I insisted that the product engineers work at the plant, not a remote site. They needed to see where their work went and interact with the manufacturing team who would receive it. To get coffee, or use the restroom, the engineers had to walk past the manufacturing lines. The center grew rapidly, and in under two years could execute complete projects without oversite. 

 
In late 2016, I was given the opportunity to build a division of a start-up company. Bordrin Motor Corp., a Chinese start-up OEM, wanted a North American technical center to develop the parts of the vehicle they could not do in China. The company in North America had nothing. No IT systems, procedures, HR, etc. It all had to be built. Over the next 14 months the center grew from 5 to 55 people, with an average of over 18 years’ experience. I led selection, proof of concept and testing for critical data management systems. I built the financial forecasting and reporting systems. A management changeover above me made it impossible for me to continue. I resigned my position and took some time off to reconnect with my family.

Aras is a company that I knew for many years. A leader in the PLM industry, I implemented their software at Key Safety Systems and Bordrin to manage our product development system. At Aras, I am aiding companies in their digital transformations; moving from excel and paper based systems, to modern tools that make the product development system, visible, transparent and traceable. 

On July 6, 2022, I retired.