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Sr. Industrial Designer
Chanhassen, MN
Jul 2017 - May 2020 (2 years 10 months)
• Work directly with sales teams and clients to design and render store environments and displays for a variety of global customers and store environments, from specialty retail to big box.
• Work with internal creative teams including prototyping, engineering and fixture project managers to determine the best methods to design and produce store fixtures based on given objectives.
• Create detailed presentation decks for sales teams to share with clients.
• Lead client tours of design showroom and showcase design team capabilities.
• Actively participate in phone calls or presentations with sales team and clients to both gather project information and communicate finished concepts.
• Participated on The Bernard Group’s sustainability committee to help look for more eco-friendly materials to replace traditional fixture and print materials and also help find ways to make our company more green as we move forward.
• Lead team in Employee Engagement efforts including setting up learnings with other groups and hosting two sales-centric design tours and capabilities presentations.
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Fixture Account Manager
Mar 2016 - Jul 2017 (1 year 4 months)
• Worked directly with sales staff to help develop fixture specific business with key accounts by merging sales and design experience.
• Directly helped secure a national plumbing account with both freestanding showrooms and big box retail fixture and signage opportunities by selling design team services, accurately translating project objectives back
to design team and then presenting finished concepts to client.
• Traveled and worked first hand with sales teams and clients to help understand stores, project opportunities and objectives.
• Acted as a creative director on behalf of the client while managing fixture projects with the design team.
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Design & Engineering Manager
Jul 2014 - Mar 2016 (1 year 8 months)
• Worked closely with sales and project management teams to review new projects and to distribute work between design and engineering staff.
• Collaborated with other departments to continually communicate team capacity and project lead times.
• Participated in meetings with sales and new clients to sell our team capabilities and services.
• Managed outside design resources on projects where alternate resources were required.
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Fixture Designer/Design Engineer
Dec 2011 - Jul 2014 (2 years 7 months)
• Joined The Bernard Group design team to help expand in-house design and engineering capabilities.
• Designed fixtures and displays in plastic, wood and metal for a variety of global clients.
• Presented design concepts in sketch and rendering form to sales team and clients.
• Created full engineering prints for production at our in-house fabrication shop or with outside vendor partners.
• Managed work within the given timelines of each project with tasks ranging from ideation, engineering drawings, material research and specification to collecting preliminary costing.
• Worked with outside vendor partners for prototypes, production parts and engineering drawings.
• Continually communicated with prototype, fabrication, and project management teams to help develop new workflow as company capabilities expand.
• Quickly switched gears between projects to accommodate extremely short timelines.
• Worked with new team members to teach standard practices for engineering drawings and presentations.
• Worked with design, engineering and project management teams to create a part numbering system, new templates and drawing standards for engineering drawings.
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Display Designer
Jan 2006 - Dec 2011 (5 years 11 months)
• Designed fixtures and in-store experiences for Best Buy stores and concepts.
• Created detailed prints to convey design and engineering intent to vendor partners.
• Acted as single point of contact between design team and business team to express Best Buy’s Channel Design and Brand Identity viewpoint and perspective on projects.
• Worked with internal clients to design fixtures and experiences for different departments within Best Buy.
• Presented design concepts and budgets to cross functional business teams.
• Performed project management function by managing design timelines, prototype budgets, and project scope for fixtures deploying to 1000+ international stores.
• Managed outside design resources on projects where outsourcing was required.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams including graphic design, visual merchandising, deployment and purchasing to make sure that all aspects of the project were covered from design to implementation.
• Participated in overnight renovations with deployment teams when new fixtures were being installed for the first time. Helped mitigate issues and relayed information and changes back to the design team.
• Worked with vendors and manufacturers to develop prototypes of different materials and processes.
• Helped maintain material sample library and create materials boards for each department within all of the Best Buy brands.