Ross Bartels

Radio Flyer is a family owned toy company founded in 1917. The Radio Flyer family continues that tradition by building safe, quality toys that spark imagination and inspire active play. From the original little red wagon to current wagons, tricycles, scooters, and other ride-ons, Radio Flyer toys bring smiles to children and families around the world and create warm memories that last a lifetime.

Advanced Concepts at Radio Flyer was created to focus on new categories as well as complex existing category projects. As Advanced Concepts Industrial Designer II, Ross was responsible for:
- Collaborating with Sales to provide pre/post sales support during customer meetings to help
exceed revenue goals for 4 new products introduced to mass retail
- Identifying potential new product innovations that align with the Radio Flyer brand and drive >10%
new product sales growth
- Managing domestic and international external design and procurement resources to proactively meet
project needs while staying within project budget constraints
- Supporting and supervising project timelines to meet all major milestones
- Working closely with engineers to stay within 2% target costs
- Driving margins up 3% with cost reductions and improved sustainability efforts around new
packaging/printing technologies
- Determining key insights from ethnographic research and identifying product solutions that build off
consumer provided insights
- Led concept generation through 2D/3D visualization and presented these concepts and features to
Product Development, Sales, Marketing, and Executive teams to ensure tactical execution and
alignment with strategic objectives
- Ensuring all new product innovations exceeded necessary toy safety requirements
- Leading the annual company wide volunteer project with a budget of $100,000 and organizing the
construction of 4 playgrounds throughout Chicago
- Mentoring Industrial Designers and Interns providing a great learning culture for new talent

New Product Development team at Radio Flyer is responsible for new products released in existing categories (wagons, scooters, tricycles, and ride-ons). The New Product Development Industrial Designer plays a key design role, creating innovative concepts and developing them into successful new products.

Responsibilities include the following:
- Conducting home research to identify 11 new product innovations generating over $10M in revenue in the first year of introduction
- Developing and creating a ride-on that was featured on the Today Show and the CBS Early Show and was the winner of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio 2010 Best Toy Platinum Award for Toddlers
- Managing domestic and international external design and procurement resources to proactively meet
project needs while staying within project budget constraints
- Supporting and supervising project timelines to meet all major milestones and new product ship dates
- Working closely with engineers to stay within 2% target costs
- Determining key insights from ethnographic research and identifying product solutions that build off
consumer provided insights
- Led concept generation through 2D/3D visualization and presented these concepts and features to
Product Development, Sales, Marketing, and Executive teams to ensure tactical execution and
alignment with strategic objectives
- Ensuring all new product innovations exceeded necessary toy safety requirements
- Prototyping 100% of concept mechanisms in house and iterating through at least 10 prototypes per
project to test in child research
- Mentoring other Industrial Designers and Interns providing a great learning culture for new talent

Motorola is a FORTUNE 500 company (previous NASDAQ symbol: MOT). Currently, Motorola Mobility (NASDAQ symbol: MMI) focuses on connecting seamlessly so consumers have the best content at their fingertips, every second of every day.

A Consumer eXperience Design Industrial Designer within the model shop at Motorola is responsible for providing advanced creativity and expertise developing prototypes for new launches such as RAZR, PEBL, and other mobile devices.

Responsibilities include:
- Enhanced and expedited the design process with new rapid prototyping techniques that reduced contract work by 40%
- Improved prototyping efficiencies in the shop allowing the team to increase the internal output and
reduce the number of prototypes outsourced by 50%
- Documented the design and prototyping process and provided standard operating procedures for new
hires to improve and expedite the learning curve for new team members
- Led 100% of internal prototyping part breakdown and designed functional aesthetic prototypes that met all customer needs
- Supervised high-end aesthetic prototyping for all customer sales meeting and executive reviews
- Managed all timelines, resources, and stayed within budget expectations

The School of Art + Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is committed to developing the creative, intellectual, and academic capabilities of our students, enabling them to pursue a career in the creative industries, in a studio practice, in education, or academia.

As a Graduate Assistant Professor in Industrial Design, Ross established yearlong educational courses for aspiring students by:
- Taught effective fundamental design skills and received 100% positive satisfaction scores from the
students
- Provided 5 project briefs and lesson plans each semester to challenge the students though process
- Motivated and stimulated the students to work hard and create at least 3 strong portfolio pieces
- Explained materials and processes, model making, and design methods to enhance learning

An Industrial Design and Prototyping Intern at Motorola gains valuable experience in the design studio and in the model shop. Responsibilities include:
- Oversaw the expansion of an internal model shop that produced superior models and reduced
outsourcing by 50%
- Monitored and maintained rapid prototyping machines to bring fast realistic models to life
- Assisted in the creation of aesthetic working prototypes to prove function and visual appearance

Models Plus, Inc. is a complete model making company that brings imagination to form. Models Plus, Inc. takes pride in the work and knows the importance of high quality, rapid turnaround, and customer service.

As a Model Making Intern at Models Plus, Ross was responsible for:
- Constructed appearance models for Fortune 500 companies like Motorola and Dell
- Fabricated helpful model making tools and fixtures to assist and enhance future prototyping productions and expedite the model making process by 20%
- Created Resin Transfer Molds that reduced multiple prototyping costs and enriched the appearance of the model