First name: Jeff
Time at EDAG / year hired: December 2012
Title: Product Designer
My engineering career path emerged after a personal and professional crossroad in my life. For seven years, I was a graphic designer. Near the end of that career, I had a son on the way. The printshop industry was changing; larger corporations were buying out smaller family-owned businesses. Coupling that with the fact I was about to become a father, I reassessed my career path and decided to make a change. Two of my brothers, who were automotive design engineers, recommended I get into their line of work. Two-dimensional design had taken me as far as it could go. Progressing into three-dimensional design appeared like a much better career. I took a few weeks off from my graphic design job to enroll in a professional development course, gaining a certification in Unigraphics.
EDAG was busy with an exciting project electrifying a fleet of trucks. I learned through my brother, who was a designer at EDAG for a decade, that they were ramping up and aiming to hire a handful of designers. I was a little apprehensive about my new career path and concerned that my background with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts would prevent me from gaining employment in the automotive field. Fresh off my course in NX (3D modeling software commonly used in automotive), I interviewed and was hired. Receiving most of my product design experience as on-the-job training, I hold profound gratitude for this company and my development as a design engineer.
I love the people both inside and outside of EDAG that I get to work with. The variety of work, becoming proficient at juggling multiple projects, and managing my own projects while performing duties of both design engineer and program manager. From my early days of designing brackets for an electrified fleet of trucks, to creating driving solutions for one of the world’s largest multinational technology companies, designing a self-driving car for the 2nd largest company in the world, and juggling back-to-back meetings with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) Stellantis and General Motors. My projects at EDAG have been all over the map. In the beginning of 2024, I was juggling no less than seven different projects. Each company produced a different product, had different Design Responsible Engineers (DREs), levels of urgency, and several spoke different languages and resided in different time zones. It can be a lot to handle, but I excel at keeping multiple plates spinning.
I start my day by assessing how many projects I’m responsible for and what I can accomplish with each. I keep detailed daily design logs to keep everything organized. I populate my log with bulleted tasks that I know must be completed. As the day progresses, I cross off and add items as needed. Most of my duties pertain to representing suppliers, and their proprietary math data in Teamcenter, for the main OEMs. On one hand, I’m assessing where each soft trim program is for one of Stellantis’ leading manufacturers of floor mats while, on the other hand, working to resolve E.C.R.s (engineering change requests) for GM’s main supplier of rear cargo doors. In addition to these projects, any of the other five suppliers I handle can submit requests to me.
Between EDAG’s highly sought after OEM product lifecycle management (PLM) access and my Teamcenter login and expertise, I stay busy managing 3D product data. This can include making design changes to 3D data, releasing components/assemblies in each applicable system, supplying GM, Stellantis or Ford with incoming supplier data, pulling data from Teamcenter to provide to suppliers, creating 2D drawings with GD&T or making drawing changes.
I spend a lot of my time raising my two wonderful kids. I have an eleven-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter. Whether I’m playing Minecraft with my son or writing and performing songs with my daughter, they keep me very busy. On the weekends, you can find me hosting and featuring live musical performances on my weekly radio show inside the Rust Belt Market in downtown Ferndale. It streams live at 1pm ET at ferndaleradio.com. I also enjoy playing guitar, multitrack recording, gardening, building my chicken coop and creating pottery.