Work

The most interesting engineering problems rarely arrive as clean requirements. They begin as an unmet need, a product that is not working, an unfamiliar technical challenge, or an opportunity no one has fully defined yet.

My work spans product development, mechanical design, electromechanical systems, manufacturing, robotics, automation, and the processes that turn prototypes into reliable products.

These projects show more than what I built. They show how I approach uncertain problems, make tradeoffs, test assumptions, work across disciplines, and carry engineering into the physical world.

Featured case studies

From Endoscope Research to a Platform Built to Expand

Imatest Benchtop Test Stand

An opportunity in endoscope testing revealed a much larger product possibility.

I researched the market and customer needs, then led the mechanical development of a compact platform that could support different cameras, targets, lighting systems, working distances, mounting methods, and levels of automation.

One of the central challenges was supporting configurations with dramatically different loads without making the motorized system prohibitively expensive. I separated structural support from actuation, using the rail architecture to carry the load while the drive system produced the motion.

What began as one endoscope-testing opportunity became a common mechanical architecture that Imatest could configure, manufacture, support, and continue expanding across a much wider range of image-quality applications.

Engineering demonstrated: Product research, system architecture, modular design, precision motion, load management, SolidWorks, electromechanical integration, prototyping, suppliers, and production release.

Learning the Physics the Product Needed

Imatest Stray Light LED Source

Stray light can create ghost objects, obscure real scene information, reduce contrast, and limit a camera’s dynamic range. Those become serious problems when vehicles and other computer-vision systems depend on camera data to understand the world.

After an externally developed prototype failed to meet the established optical, packaging, and commercial requirements, I led a new internal development effort.

The product required me to work across optics and thermodynamics: suppressing source-generated halo, creating a precise and adjustable optical path, extracting heat from an overdriven single LED, and managing the unforgiving alignment, tolerance, manufacturing, and thermal-interface problems connecting everything.

I ultimately developed the original source, the second-generation visible-light source, and two near-infrared versions.

Engineering demonstrated: Technical leadership, optomechanical development, thermal management, precision alignment, tolerance design, experimental testing, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and learning beyond my original expertise.

The engineer people bring the hard problems to

Not every valuable engineering problem becomes a major product launch. Sometimes someone needs an unusual mechanism, a persistent problem has gone unsolved for years, or a team needs an engineer willing to take responsibility for making something work.

An 18-inch iris in about a week

An image scientist needed a functional 18-inch mechanical iris for an experiment, with effectively no budget and very little time.

I designed and laser-cut the mechanism from scrap acrylic, pinned it together, tested it, and kept iterating until it worked. It was not a polished commercial product. It was the right solution for the actual need, delivered in about a week using the materials and tools available.

Closing a four-year fixture gap

The charts team had been requesting better QA fixtures for… a long time. Their existing process made repeatable inspection harder than it needed to be, but the project had never received the time or budget to move forward.

I secured approval to use scrap material, worked with the team to understand what the fixtures needed to accomplish, and delivered working fixtures within one month.

These are small stories compared with a product launch, but they say something important about how I work. I listen for the problems that keep slowing people down, and I do not assume a modest budget means the problem cannot be solved.

More engineering stories

Rebuilding a Motion System Around the Right Architecture

Modular Test Stand lifting column

A tall motorized gantry built around a vertical extrusion and offset stages created fundamental stability and vibration problems. Incremental refinement would not correct an architecture poorly suited to the job.

I used accelerometers and physical testing to characterize the problem, vibration, then made the case for replacing the existing approach with a purpose-built lifting column.

No available column met every mechanical, control, appearance, and integration requirement. So I sourced a column and developed the mechanical solution and controls, plus enclosure, then worked with the software team to incorporate the new axis into Imatest’s automated motion system.

It required more development than reusing the existing architecture, but it produced a fundamentally stronger system.

Engineering demonstrated: Root-cause investigation, accelerometer testing, motion systems, structural stability, controls integration, technical advocacy, and system redesign.

Turning a Supporting Idea Into a Product Line

Magnetic chart mounting

Image-quality testing often requires customers to position, exchange, and secure large mounted charts. I saw an opportunity to replace a cumbersome part of that process with a faster and more adaptable magnetic mounting system.

I introduced the concept while developing other projects, then designed, developed, and proved the approach. What began as one element of a larger system became a new product line and revenue stream.

Engineering demonstrated: Opportunity recognition, mechanical concept development, prototyping, product integration, and designing for continued expansion.

Improvements beyond the headline products

Strong product development also depends on the systems surrounding the design.

Approximately 50% shorter supplier lead time

During severe supply disruption, I identified and qualified a new aluminum-extrusion supplier. The change protected the availability of components used across multiple products while significantly reducing lead time.

Approximately 35% lower acrylic-part cost

I made the case for investing in in-house laser cutting and helped turn it into a working manufacturing capability. The change reduced acrylic-part costs, shortened iteration cycles, and allowed designs to be tested and refined without waiting for another external order.

Engineering beyond the CAD release

Across my projects, I created and maintained the drawings, BOMs, tolerance requirements, supplier packages, assembly procedures, inspection guidance, and customer-facing documentation needed to make designs repeatable.

I remained involved through supplier problems, assembly feedback, quality investigations, and production changes because the first release is rarely the end of the engineering.

Experience beyond Imatest

Robotics and automation

I worked with manufacturing automation and end-of-arm tooling, including gripper systems with Universal Robots collaborative robots to CNC tend.

That work strengthened my ability to translate an application into a physical mechanism while accounting for payload, access, interfaces, repeatability, safety, fabrication, and the realities of a production environment.

Manufacturing engineering

My manufacturing background taught me to see mechanical design from the other side of the drawing: how a component will be machined, inspected, assembled, handled, maintained, and improved.

That perspective still affects every product I design. A clever mechanism is not a complete solution if it is unnecessarily difficult to build, align, validate, or support.

A hands-on foundation

Years spent in machine shops and building physical systems gave me an intuitive connection between design decisions and real materials, processes, tools, and tolerances.

I use CAD extensively, but I do my best engineering when I remain connected to the prototype, the people building it, and the evidence produced by testing.

The work I want to keep doing

I am particularly interested in product development, mechanical design, engineering consulting, robotics and automation, aerospace, manufacturing, and complex electromechanical systems.

The industry matters less to me than the nature of the problem: something technically challenging, useful in the real world, and worth making better.

Have an uncertain product idea, a stubborn technical problem, or a system that needs stronger mechanical thinking?