In 2008, with my industrial engineering degree in hand, I began my career at Honeywell. I worked there for 8 years, building pressure and load sensors. In 2013, I began noticing videos on YouTube about this new (to me) concept of 3D printing. I thought it was fascinating!

I knew I had the ability to design the files needed to create anything I could dream up and bring those ideas to life, right before my eyes..instantly. I talked my wife into it and bought my first at-home desktop 3D printer in early 2014. After many trails and errors, disassembling and reassembling the printer several times, I could finally wrap my brain around the mechanics and essentially taught myself the art of 3D printing. As with most skills, my ability to design files and print objects grew better over time. I started dedicating my free time to inventing 3D printed items: bathtub wine glass holders, lawn mower beer can holders, floating beverage pontoons (see the theme? haha). My wife was already on Etsy selling handmade crafts and digital files, so I too joined the wonderful world of Etsy and that's when SOLIDink3d was born.

I fell in love with 3D printing and soon convinced Honeywell to integrate 3D printers into their manufacturing processes. This only fueled my interest more and soon I was looking for a way to make 3D printing my full-time gig. In late 2016, I landed my dream job at Owens Corning - Science & Technology Center as an Additive Engineer with the intent of creating an entire lab for 3D printing. Since then I have been extremely fortunate to have the opportunity and resources to expand my knowledge to include the operation of dozens of different printers and the ability to print with a not only plastics but a wide variety of materials like metal and fiberglass.

The ability to print in metal has been a game-changer for me. I started with personalized silver jewelry for my wife and a rose gold wedding band for my brother and then migrated to stainless steel branding irons. I absolutely love the process of turning a logo, signature or wedding monogram, etc into a 3D rendering and then bringing it to life in the form of a custom branding iron. Giving someone the ability to literally 'leave their mark' on something they create is beyond rewarding.