David W Pelsue

Multiple footwear design/development projects for the Duluth Trading Co: Men's/Wo's outdoor rugged and casual. LIA Footwear: Wo's day & evening travel collection, Majyk Equipe: horse competition/training boots and braces, Virago-Fitness: Wo's/Men's lightweight trainers, Humanoid Wakeboards, and multiple private labels. Thumbnail sketches to final tech packs followed by model, pullovers, and finished sales sample approval. Focused on Adult and Children's Footwear from design, development, and testing to production. * Worked with marketing, buyers to assure customer needs were met or ideally exceeded. * Responsible for coordinating communication with different factories. * Assured updates and resolved difficulties in a timely fashion with suppliers and factories. * Negotiated prices with suppliers to fulfill the buyer requirements and marketing goals. * Guided a team to handle development, production, and daily order processing activities from samples approval through to order placement, including production and shipment schedules. * Ensured that suppliers complied with each buyer policy and monitored quality control before shipping. * Updated the system regarding purchase orders and shipping schedules to keep uniformity in data. * Worked with QC for production inspection and issue resolution. * Established a short list of qualified vendors in the USA to troubleshoot any QC issues that escaped the factory.

Design and development of all cushioning and supportive technologies. Helped establish the Action Sports Industry's first bio mechanics lab (STI). Along with a seasoned tech developer, I lead my ACG group, implementing a number of new technologies as well as sustainable materials for the Outsole, Midsole, and Upper. Some projects included: changing from blown rubber to PU for Vulcanized construction, replacing die cut EVA with Injected EVA inserts - which not only reduced cost but eliminated waste, completely revising the internal cup sole constructions to reduce weight and cost, introducing a low cost Direct Attach construction, and several variations of non-toxic construction methods. * Designed and created detailed exploded views of all skateboarding brand's technologies for POP. * Researched new materials and manufacturing processes. * Managed multiple seasons of tech development. * Worked 2-5 years out on new tech ideas for future in-line development. In addition to my regular duties, I contributed inline footwear designs for all genders, technical illustrations, photo retouch, and renderings for catalog and POP. I also provided monthly project updates and new process presentations twice a year to the design and development staff. I would also hold classes for the junior design and development staff to cover patterns, lasts, mold making, blueprints, and rendering/sketching techniques.

Helping with the restoration and conversion of this historic battleship into an exciting interactive museum. Tasks and projects include general ops, tour guide, model shop, and painter.