Oct. 2018
I started WideMouse Design in early 2018 . I thought it to be as good a time as any to apply my years of experience to some new and interesting problems. Here is a little bit of my background.
Education-
After four and a half years in the U.S.Coast Guard I landed in Spokane Washington and started college. My first stop was Spokane Falls Community College where I learned to read, write and do arithmetic. The stuff I was supposed to have learned in high school. Then off to the Eastern Washington University Technology program. My emphasis was on manufacturing and production. Most of my electives were related to product design so by the time I graduated I had a pretty good start to product development. While much of my career has been spent doing product design, I have always approached design problems with an eye to cost and manufacturability.
The Boat Building Years –
From college I made my way to Arlington Washington where I started work with Bayliner Marine. My position was in “documentation” where it was my job to follow a line of boats through the prototype and pre-production phases. I created the documentation needed by manufacturing folks and traveled to each of the twenty one production facilities across the US. In short order, that job lead to filling roles in design engineering and project/product management. This variety of roles over the ten years I spent at Bayliner helped me understand the importance of creating continuity through every phase of the product life cycle.
The Tool Making Years –
The next twenty years were spent with Janicki Industries in Sedro-Woolley Washington. I joined up as a contractor doing modeling with Unigraphics (now NX) at night and on weekends. This was a startup company with really smart motivated people. We actually did change a piece of the world. We created new and interesting ways to create molds and patterns. The tooling we built would be used in every segment of the composites industry. During this time I became involved in some of the worlds most innovative projects. There were yachts, four America’s Cup campaigns, wind turbines, standing waves, giant airplanes and things that go to space. Thinking back, the exposure I’ve had to industry and the world of composites is stunning.
WideMouse Design –
Now that I have some experience and have had a chance to plan the next chapter I’ve started WideMouse Design LLC. The name? I have wide hands and have trouble finding a mouse that is wide enough to be comfortable. I even use a gaming mouse from the nineties, it’s wide. When I told my friend about the new company “WideMouse Design” he replied – “Great name, it says you’re using technology across a wide range of design problems”. OK, so that’s what it means and I’m sticking to it!
I’ve gathered some great skills over the years. Through WideMouse I look for interesting ways to apply my skills to a wide variety of problems.
Jim-