Mechanical Engineer Senior

Chris Stratford, P.E. *****.*********@***.***

PO Box 2582 (cellular) 760-***-****

Oak Harbor WA, 98277 linkedin.com/in/chris-stratford-pe/

SUMMARY

A highly creative and experienced mechanical engineer with a history of innovative new product development- designs using Solidworks and several other 3D CAD packages. Enthusiastically wrestling elegant, manufacturable, robust cutting-edge designs into being with strong analytical skills, a solid grounding in engineering fundamentals, and a wide breadth of knowledge, tempered with hands-on experience in fabrication, assembly, test, and debug.

WORK EXPERIENCE

06/2023 – Present Contract - various Oak Harbor WA Man Behind the Curtain

Various ad hoc/ short term jobs

Designs using Solidworks. Manufacturability consulting, system architecting and early phase prototyping

Design and test of a hair braiding gear mechanism. Currently patent applied for. See https://www.halobraid.com/

Design and manufacturing release of a golf swing weight training aid. Go to endswate.com

Design and rapid prototyping of a torque calibration tool for an endovascular surgical robot

Design assembly and test of an adjustable base for an endovascular robot. See remedyrobotics.com

02/2022 – 06/2023 Precor/ Peloton Woodinville WA Senior Mechanical Engineer

Manufacturer of exercise equipment

Design for manufacturability, using Solidworks. Sustaining and support engineering.

Programmed a gantry robot for sealant dispensing, and commissioned it at vendor.

Investigated the effect of treadmill deck dynamic response on treadmill running experience.

10/2020 – 01/2022 Apem Inc. Vista CA Senior Mechanical Engineer

Manufacturer of Human Machine Interface devices such as joysticks.

Design for manufacturability, using Solidworks. Sustaining and support engineering.

Designed an injection molded sculpted joystick faceplate with 192 configurations using modular tooling.

Designed an injection molded thumbwheel with the theoretical minimum number of parts (wheel, spring, housing, printed circuit board) improved performance, added functionality, and reduced cost.

10/2009 – 03/2020 Retail Inkjet, Carlsbad CA Senior Mechanical Engineer

Manufacturer of the machine at Costco and other retailers that refills consumers inkjet cartridges.

Robust design, FEA, debug, and test injection molded cartridge adapters using Solidworks. Sustaining and support engineering. Implemented EPDM and pulled design control back in house.

Increased the companies offering by 50% by creating a protean inkjet refill adapter.

Slashed part count on cartridge adapters from 46 down to 12, dramatically lowering cost.

Managed subcontractors to develop a size reduced product. Retained control of core competencies, re-integrated the design. Monitored the prototype in its successful field test. Improved revenue/ sq ft by 30%

Designed a patented cartridge reset system with small sub-PCB’s blind mating with the main resitter to allow quick re-configuration of a store’s machine based on what the needed minute to minute.

01/2008 – 09/2009 Stratagene, San Diego CA Senior Mechanical Engineer

Stratagene is a biotech division of Agilent, making QPCR reagents and instruments

Robust Solidworks design, debug and test of an X-Y motion system for a next generation QPCR instrument. This needed to be less than half the cost of previous versions. Development from architecting through production release

10/2006 – 12/2007 PDG Oncore, San Diego CA Senior Mechanical Engineer

PDG Oncore was a contract design/ product development company, about 10 employees at that time

Architect, design, FEA, debug and test of customer new product development projects involving small mechanisms, motion control, and kinematic linkages. Designing molded, machined, and sheet metal parts. Robust design for manufacturing in Solidworks

Designed a wheelchair hand propulsion system, packaging it so that all of the drive system components fit into one module, easily installed or removed from a conventional chair. Managed junior engineers on same.

Modified and improved a customer design then built a continuously variable transmission protoype for a bicycle.

01/2005 – 10/2006, Kodak, San Diego CA Senior Mechanical Engineer

Early phase mechanical system architect, motor sizing and control algorithm definition. Optical media type detection and algorithm. Design for mass production. Thermal testing.

Took over ownership of a failing sensor design. Invented an algorithm allowing the sensor to detect a greater number of media types than specifications required, improving performance at no cost

02/1995 – 12/2004, PDG/Flextronics, San Diego CA Senior Mechanical Engineer

Flextronics is a major contract manufacturer based in Singapore with about 40,000 employees

Worked on projects for HP, Horiba, Agilent, TRW, General Atomic, Energy Innovations, Delta Design, Nuvasive, and others. Mechanical architecture definition, breadboard design, prototype design, production design of molded, welded, machined, powder metal, and sheet metal parts. Motor sizing and control algorithm definition. Fluid dynamics, heat transfer analysis. Kinematic analysis, Electronics packaging.

Took over the failing design of a photo tray with only 4 weeks left until production release. Completely redesigned the mechanism with fewer parts, rapid prototyped, tested, and revised the part in time for release. Went into full production after that first iteration.

Devised an elegantly simple solution for an F-22 avionics test fixture which connected to 750 points on the backside of a PCB while still leaving access to manually test hundreds of points on the front side by using vacuum to hold the PCB without additional apparatus.

Replaced a premium $40,000 gas analyzer with an $8000 unit with no loss of functionality by mapping the nonlinearities of a butterfly valve and using it to vary flow, servoing on pollutant concentration to keep it in range.

Increased the utility of a printer test bed by designing a self-calibrating time optimal velocity control servo that allowed the heavier prototype carriage to reach full slew velocity earlier.

Designed a paper motion test bed, a hybrid DC motor slew/ stepper motor creep mechanism, that was twice as fast and accurate as a machine tool, saving time and resources by 1) being easier to tune and 2) eliminating position error as a cause of print artefacts in testing prototype heads.

Heat exchanger and enclosure for a satellite/ cellular car phone amplifier/ antenna.

Optimized the kinematics of the mechanism for an optical network analyzer to make the natural kinematics follow the desired position velocity profile thereby minimizing the variation required of the stepper motor.

Designed a transport table for flattening, moving, registering and holding a photoconductor strip, all without touching it, to present it to be cut and welded into a loop.

EDUCATION

MSME Brigham Young University Provo Utah

Master’s thesis: “Time Optimal Position Control of Double Integrator Systems with Non-Linear Damping and Velocity Dependent Saturation”

BSME Brigham Young University Provo Utah,

Majored in Mechanical Engineering, Springboard diver, Second major in Japanese.

SKILLS

MANAGEMENT SKILLS - Six Sigma classes. Bullet Proof Manager training.

CONTROLS - Master’s Thesis in time optimal position control. Bond graphs, Rosenberg and Karnopp methodology, dynamic simulation, Matlab, Mathcad, optimization

MECHANICAL DESIGN - Plastic: injection molded parts: two shot ground rubber rollers, high precision gears, snap fit parts, cosmetic skins. Sheet metal: structural parts, bracketry, cantilever springs, Aircraft parts in AL and Ti. “Thin sheet structures” class at Lockheed Technical Institute. rubber seals. Flexible mechanisms. Extrusions: plastic and aluminum multi lumen extrusions. Machined parts: designed with consideration of cutter access and number of setups. Die cast parts. Roto-molded parts. Vacuum formed parts

MANUFACTURING SKILLS - Hands-on shop: manual lathe and manual mill, sheet metal shear, brake. Assemble, debug, test, and evaluate prototypes and first articles.

OTHER – SolidWorks use consistently since 1998, Microsoft Office, Word, Project, Excel – with particular expertise in using iterative calculation (circular references) and the solver tool to optimize. Matlab, MathCad

PERSONAL/ HOBBIES/ OTHER

Licensed Professional Mechanical Engineer - California License number M27584.

PATENT #10,596,818 Systems and methods for resetting an inkjet cartridge.

PATENT #10,583,659 Systems and methods for determining a fill status of an inkjet cartridge.

Speak, read and write Japanese. Was a customer liaison and design consultant residing in Japan.

Eagle Scout, collegiate springboard diver, high school diving coach, Scoutmaster.

Volunteer set design and construction for local high school drama productions.

Kind to animals and small children, does not walk on water, but does swim very well.

よろしくお願いいたします

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