34 Years of Industrial Design and Fabrication

I started working in sign shops at the age of 14 - sweeping the floors. I worked part-time under my dad and uncle. I counted nuts and bolts. I dug holes. I wired signs and laid out neon strokes on paper patterns by hand. I stretched flex faces and cleaned windows.

After doing the "menial" sign work during my schooling, I wanted to experience "big work," so I trained as an apprentice in the Baltimore-Washington region and travelled the country installing everything from multi-panel stadium message centers to architectural facades. After years of road work, I moved into the shop to learn fabrication in Baltimore. I had great mentors in metalworking, welding, and design. 

We split when my brother took a senior position with a national sign company. I started a new company that focused on installations. I handled rebranding, new construction, and service contracts on national accounts. We were moving full steam until the great recession. We lost almost everything.

I went back to school and studied math and computer science - programming software and designing fixtures in a machine shop for 5 years. I studied CAD and architecture in my spare time and took a GM position for a sheet metal division of a large fabricator.

I continued my fabrication journey into heavy plate. And, the satisfaction of being even a small part of such large structures across the world is undeniable - to be sure.

However, my passion for designing, fabricating, and erecting signs has not diminished. And to that end, I have begun again in a trade I thought was in my past. Once a sign guy....