“If I had not had so much ambition and had not tried to do so many things, I probably would have been happier, but less useful.”
– Thomas Edison
Over the course of my life so far, I have found that being useful is one of the most significant drivers in how I choose to spend my time. While I certainly enjoy doing things that make me happy (as I am sure Mr. Edison did as well) I often trade off that instant gratification in an effort to achieve something greater or more complete. I think this attitude was ingrained through my high school athletic experiences. I joined the football team as a significantly undersized running back determined to eventually earn a starting role. With clearly superior athletes in front of me during my sophomore and junior years, I continued to work hard to increase my weight, strength, and speed—eventually becoming pound for pound one of the strongest on the team. Fortunately, I was among a good group of football classmates who were also working hard, and as our senior year arrived we had a great core of players. I earned a starting running back role, we enjoyed an undefeated regular season, and we came within a game of going to the state playoff finals. It was a thrilling experience that cemented the notion that if I put in the work, bide my time, and work as a member of a team, great things would follow.
Although those principles continue to serve as drivers, I will say life in general does not always work as cleanly as my high school football team experience. For one thing, my football exploits earned some interest from a few universities. My gravitation toward math and science (i.e. engineering) combined with a modest athletic scholarship offer from the Missouri University of Science and Technology sent me to that school. However, while there I was served a healthy dose of humility as we won fewer games during my entire tenure there than that one senior season in high school…despite me working just as hard or harder.
Nevertheless, I emerged with a bachelor’s of science in mechanical engineering and was able to gain employment through several different companies over the years, additionally earning a master’s of science in systems engineering along the way. Through the course of that education and experience, my engineering interests have turned toward 3D mechanical design and systems architecting, the latter of which is a driver for my top-down engineering philosophy. I have suffered through the sting of being given marching orders on design projects where we were given incomplete requirements, or worse, we were sent down the design path thinking we were solving the right problem when we really weren’t. These are big up-front mistakes with costly consequences. It seems all too many leaders, decision makers, and funders choose not to sufficiently concern themselves with early phases of design projects. Well, these are the phases that determine what problem gets solved and how remaining resources will be spent, so in my mind they are the most important. In the words of Aristotle: “Well begun is half done.”
Lately, I have stumbled into the world of outdoor power equipment…needless to say a realm I never thought I would explore. However, hours upon hours of raking and mowing leaves every fall drove me to work on coming up with a better way to manage yard debris. With the experiential learning of a few prototypes, I believe am on track with a product that will provide utility well beyond what is currently available. Along the way, I am learning a lot about what it takes to bring a product to market—namely small business formation, patenting processes, prototype development, and, of course, trying to find the time and money to do all of the above.
So that is a bit about my professional evolution and how I hope my experiences and abilities can be useful to you or your company’s design efforts. When trying to be more happy than useful, I primarily enjoy athletic endeavors such as cycling, running, and lifting: staying fit tends to help all other things in life go better. Family is a large component of my life as well, which from an engineering perspective consists of me trying not to drive my wife and kids too crazy with my tendency to analyze and optimize all actions and behaviors. Being in St. Louis blesses us with proximity to baseball’s greatest team, the Cardinals. The Blues also offer excellent entertainment and have finally become champions! However both of those are second fiddle to football (of course). The Rams departure was a blessing in disguise, allowing me to be a NFL fan free agent. I am much happier being a Packers fan now.
If you’ve read this far, I am fairly impressed. Or maybe you were looking for me to get to the point: if you need someone useful to help with your design projects, please contact TDE.