This is something that is probably long overdue. I’ve never really provided a lot of information about who I am, what I have done in my career, why I started Mechanical Advantage, and why should you trust me for your training and consulting needs.
Training history
I’m not exactly sure how many people I have trained over the past 10 years to use Fusion 360, Inventor, and AutoCAD. I would conservatively place that number at round 500 to 750 people. I think that number is probably even higher, but since I never thought to keep track, I can’t be sure. I’m very passionate about training and my goal is to give the customer their money’s worth and then some. Training is one of my favorite things to do and it’s extremely satisfying when I am contacted by a past training attendee letting me know that they are excelling at their work after attending the training class.
Education
A.A.S Mechanical Design and Drafting - North Dakota State College of Science
B.S Operations Management - Minnesota State University Moorhead
I didn’t exactly know what I wanted to do when I graduated high school. After a year of general studies attending North Dakota State University, I switched schools to a private college called Interstate Business College for Computer Aided Design. We were trained more to be CAD jockeys than we were about how to do design. Most of our days were spent learning how to run AutoCAD 2013. Although I rarely use AutoCAD these days, I’m still pretty proficient with AutoCAD. In my final semester at the Interstate Business College, it went under. I was given two choices. I could transfer my credits to another area college and pay for the schooling I had received, or I could have my student loans wiped out, but I would have to start over from scratch if I went to a different college.
I decided to start from scratch, and that was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made. I was a little older and knew exactly what I was looking for, and I found at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton North Dakota. The slogan for the college was ‘Where students learn by doing’ and they weren’t kidding.
The head of the department was a retired engineer. He didn’t much care about what CAD system was used. CAD was just a tool. Instead the program focused on how things were to be manufactured. We learned about machine capabilities. How to design for the manufacturing process that was going to be used. How it didn’t matter if you designed something cool but it couldn’t be made, or would be extremely expensive to manufacture. Never was CAD a big focus of the program. Instead we learned how to weld, how to machine, how to program robots, how to create designs and drawings for the manufacturing process and people that would be making those products.
I received an A.A.S. Degree in Mechanical Drafting and Design from NDSCS in May of 2000.
First job out of college
I took a job just West of Minneapolis Minnesota at a company that designs playground equipment called Landscape Structures Inc. I was hesitant to take the job wondering how much design work could there be in playground design? What would we do? Make a slide and fire pole and call it a year? Boy was I wrong. Taking that job was one of the other really good decisions I have made in my life. Landscape Structures is the industry leader in playground design. I had so much access to amazing technology, business systems, and leadership. I learned so much working there and I’ll always be grateful for the time spent employed by them. With the help and support from Pat Faust, who at the time was Vice President of Operations, I was able to return to college while still working remotely for Landscape Structures.
Education Part 2
In August of 2006 I returned to college to get a Bachelor of Science degree in Operations Management from Minnesota State University Moorhead. I worked part time for my old company while attending college during the day. My second go at college was much easier. After working in industry for the last six years, I was far more disciplined. I got some of the best grades I have ever had at education at any level, and even made the Dean’s list one semester.
In my second year of my return to college, my old company decided to cancel the project that I was helping with remotely. I started working as shop floor technician at an Automation company called Fargo Automation. I’m far better with a computer than I am with my hands however. Luckily the company found out that I had CNC programming experience and asked if I would be willing to shift roles to help with creating CNC programs. Fargo Automation used Pro/E and their integrated CAM software. I was pretty excited to use a higher end CAD/CAM platform with a recognized name like Pro/E. That excitement lasted about an hour. Coming from an Inventor and SolidWorks background I had a hard time figuring out why someone would choose to keep using Pro/E with much better solutions on the market. But that wasn’t my decision to make. T
The CAM in Pro/E was clunky, but I did figure out one thing. Integrated CAM was where it was at. Making geometry changes to a model and then having the toolpaths update instead of having to delete and redo was magic! If only the CAD platform wasn’t so clunky to use. Remember this part of the story for later.
Recession of 2008/2009
While working as an intern at Fargo Automation that turned into a full time internship, I was asked if I wanted to become a full time employee. I never cared much for the job at Fargo Automation and didn’t have any intention to stay there. So I declined their offer and continued to work for them as full time intern. In September of 2009 I was informed that I would no longer be working for the company. I wasn’t too torn up about their decision since I didn’t want to work there anyway.
The timing of this departure couldn’t have been much worse. I was entering a job market during a major recession filled with experienced engineers that were also out of work that were willing to take jobs as designers to gain employment. A Mechanical Designer vs. an engineer for an open position wasn’t much of a fight. Eventually it all turned out OK though. I moved back to the Minneapolis area where I took a job with an HVAC company called Mammoth Incorporated designing HVAC equipment. It was good to get back into design work and I was using my old trusty friend, Autodesk Inventor.
The student becomes the teacher
While attending classes at Minnesota State University Moorhead, I had a financial based class around the time value of money with an adjunct instructor named Don Kaspari. He was different from the career college professors that I had for my other classes. He was current on industry trends and practices and brought a much different teaching style to the class compared to other classes.
While working at Mammoth Inc. Don Kaspari contacted me about a potential job with Minnesota State Community and Technical College in combination with Minnesota West Community and Technical College teaching mechanical systems and hydraulics for a green energy program on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota. It was an “interesting” job to say the least. The program was eventually cancelled and I was on the hunt for my next employment opportunity.
Autodesk Reseller Application Engineer
I found an online job ad for an application engineer for an Autodesk Reseller based out of Fargo, ND. I applied for the job and got it. I was employed with that company from 2011 to 2015 providing technical sales support (demos), training instructing for AutoCAD and Inventor, as well as technical support for what is known today as the Autodesk Product Design and Manufacturing Collection.
It was at this job that I realized that my favorite part of the job was teaching the training classes. I was able to combine my knowledge of manufacturing process with my knowledge of using the software to teach new users what they needed to know to get up to speed quickly and become proficient. I always told attendees that that the book for the classes ran about $60 but they paid well over $1,200 to be there. My job was to make up in value the difference between the cost of the book and the cost of the class. That has always been hugely important to me.
It was also during that time at the reseller when Autodesk acquired HSM. I was very excited about this acquisition. Finally I would have integrated CAM in an easy to use and intuitive CAD program, Inventor and Fusion 360. It was a dream come true compared to the implementation of Pro/E and their integrated CAM.
Introduction to Project Forge and Autodesk Expert Elite Program
I was invited to a beta program called Project Forge. I was intrigued to find out what this new product was. You know it today as Autodesk Fusion 360. I still remember that I was in Sioux Falls SD teaching an Intro to Inventor class when I received the email to join the Project Forge beta and hurried back to my hotel room at the end of the day to install Project Forge to see what it was all about. The coolest thing about it was that I could install it natively on my Mac without the need to run it on the Windows install through Boot Camp. Project Forge looked very much different than the Fusion 360 we know today. It even had local storage. The big differentiator was the clean modern lightweight UI and T-Splines technology. You could push and pull geometry like it was clay. For someone coming from a rigid mechanical design program like Inventor, see how this worked completely blew my mind!
a couple months later after using Project Forge and providing feedback, I was also asked to join the Autodesk Expert Elite Program. As part of that offer, I was invited to go to Autodesk headquarters in San Francisco to an Expert Elite Summit. At the conclusion of the the Expert Elite summit, A group of us were flown to Lake Oswego Oregon to meet with the Fusion 360 development team. We got to spend a day with the Fusion 360 product development team to hear about things that were being worked on for Fusion 360.
They also announced to us what the pricing for Fusion 360 was going to be. Keep in mind that I helped to sell a suite of Autodesk products that sold for between $5,500 and $7,500. I knew Fusion was going to cost less, but I wasn’t sure how much less. Would it be $3,500? $2,500? $1,500? You could have pushed me over with a feather when I found out that Fusion 360 was going to be sold for $25 a month billed annually. In my current world, that price was unheard of.
The genesis of Mechanical Advantage, LLC
I continued to work for the Autodesk reseller doing demos, training, and technical support. I was growing unhappy with the company policies around travel and expense reports. I spent many nights in low rate hotels and I’m not sure I ever submitted an expense report that I didn’t have some issue that I had to fight to get covered. There were also things I was becoming unhappy with in regards to the sales people at the company.
Autodesk had begun signaling that resellers should start to move away from focusing on software sales to focusing on services around the software. That is still a message Autodesk are pushing today. It was also a message that my employer wasn’t catching on to. I saw an opportunity to fill a void they were leaving open.
I knew Autodesk Fusion 360 was going to play a big role for Autodesk moving forward, but I also knew that the reseller model was going to be the achilles heel for Fusion 360. Why would a sales person who is paid on commission want to sell a product for $300 a year instead of a product that costs $7,500 a year and $1,500 a year to maintain?
In January of 2015 I resigned from the Autodesk reseller to focus on Mechanical Advantage full time. I knew the resellers were going to ignore Fusion 360 because of the low price point, but for me, it was the perfect fit. I could focus on the thing that I enjoyed doing , and something that I am good at: Training and consulting services!
independent contractor
An Autodesk employee that I know connected me with a company called NexGen CAM. NexGen Cam used me as an independent contractor to provide demo, training, and support offerings for their customers. While I wasn’t a fan of the company or their business practices, a lot of good came during that time period. I was connected with several members of the Autodesk CAM team, including the director of Autodesk manufacturing who I now consider to be a good friend. The relationships and connections I have made with these individuals have been invaluable.
NYC CNC and selway applications
As I kept an eye on the progression of Autodesk Fusion 360, I would also keep an eye on YouTube to see what was happening related to Fusion 360 there. It seemed like anytime I did a search for Fusion 360 a new video from NYC CNC would pop up in the search results. I was watching one of his videos where he did a knife blade design where Fusion threw up some error messages. He thought the errors were with Fusion when in reality the errors were a result of how he used the commands. I wrote him an email asking if he would like to see a video of why he got the error message and how to fix it. John said he would be happy to learn and the following week he did a Fusion Friday redo using the new methods he was shown. You can view that video here.
Fast forward a few months and John and I had lunch in Las Vegas while attending Autodesk University. We didn’t speak again for quite a while until John emailed me inviting me to an open house he was hosting at his shop in Zanesville Ohio. A few months after that John invited me to take over his training classes and I have been doing that since September of 2016. I was also connected with a division of Selway Machine tools based out of California called Selway Applications. I started to travel to Union City California to lead training classes for Autodesk CAM products at their facility. I spent a lot of time traveling to Ohio and California to host training classes for both Fusion 360 and Inventor HSM.
Autodesk Education Team
I’ve also had the opportunity to travel to some of the best engineering colleges in the United States with the Autodesk Education team when they needed a little CAM expertise for instructions, support staff, and sometimes directly with students. It has been one of my favorite parts of the last couple of years. Visiting colleges such as MIT, University of Michigan, CAL Poly, Howard University, Texas A&M, and Arizona State University to name just a few.
Covid 19 to current
Business had been growing steadily year over year. I finally felt secure enough to buy my first home. The training classes in Ohio were going well, I was visiting more colleges with Autodesk. I was booked to work with Autodesk UK from around April 14th to May 7th visiting colleges in the UK. I closed on my house March 3rd of 2020. And then, this thing called Covid 19 entered the world. My UK trip was cancelled. I traveled to my NYC CNC training class later in March, but after only two days I had to return home after the governor shut the state down. Autodesk was no longer allowed to travel. Everything was unwinding quickly.
I was able to do some online work for customers until June when I returned to NYC CNC for a week of classes. I thought things were going to return to normal. I had another NYC CNC training class scheduled for August. In July I received a call from John telling me that he had to cancel all training classes until November. We did the November training classes, but he was forced to cancel December. Classes at NYC CNC are on indefinite hold due to Covid. I do not know when or if the classes there will resume.
Working with customers directly
When I realized that traveling for training classes was coming to a halt and would’t resume anytime soon, I knew I had to come up with a system to make it easier for customers to work with me. That is when I implemented an online consulting a scheduling system to automate that process. Customers have responded very positively to this new system and it is really starting to gain some traction. No more calls or emails are required just to find a time that works for everyone to meet. The scheduling system 100% streamlines and automates the process. Customers also like knowing that they have live support with a person that can be scheduled as they need it.
https://www.mechanicaladvantage.com/book-now
Online Training Classes
With my on-site training classes being put on indefinite hold, as well as customers being restricted from travel for safety reasons, now seems like the perfect time to offer online training classes. I’m excited for the classes I am offering. You can find those classes here Training — Mechanical Advantage. I’m also excited for the format afforded with online classes. Typically training classes are all day events hosted on consecutive days mostly done to maximize training time wile minimizing travel costs. One of the negative impacts of these classes is that a lot of information is presented in a short amount of time, and the attendee always falls behind work while they are out of the office. Four hour class sessions helps the attendees with information retention as well as letting them be productive in their day to day work. I’m also able to offer training classes outside of normal work hours for attendees who want to learn on their own or can’t be away from their day job for full days.
Get in touch
If you have any questions for me or would like to discuss a project or training opportunity, I’d love to use my years of real world and training experience to help you move forward with your needs. Don’t be afraid to contact me by emailing info@mechanicaladvantage.com. There is also a contact form on the website that you can use to contact me directly as well.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of who I am, what Mechanical Advantage is, and how I can help you and your company.
Thanks,
Kevin Ellingson
Mechanical Advantage LLC