S5E14 Ian McEachern | Artificial Hearts, Times Square LED Displays, & Engineering Freelancing

Being an Engineer

Ian McEachern returns to discuss his career in R&D engineering, focusing on challenges in medical device development and the importance of persistence. He shares stories about developing artificial heart pumps and mentoring young engineers.

Main Topics:

• Challenges in sourcing components and standards interpretation for medical devices
• Defining the role of R&D engineers; streamlining manufacturing processes
• Failure and iteration in product development
• Ian's grandfather's journey from WWII to NASA
• Building an encouraging engineering culture.

About the guest: For over 15 years Ian McEachern has been helping cutting edge companies design highly complex products including artificial hearts, blood pumps, and class III medical devices. Products Ian has designed are in Times Square, the Disney Parks, the Smithsonian, and implanted in people around the world. Ian, I’m super excited to talk with you today, thank you for joining me on the show.

Links:
Ian McEachern - LinkedIn
Ian’s Website

About Being An Engineer

The Being An Engineer podcast is a repository for industry knowledge and a tool through which engineers learn about and connect with relevant companies, technologies, people resources, and opportunities. We feature successful mechanical engineers and interview engineers who are passionate about their work and who made a great impact on the engineering community.

The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment such as cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us on the web at www.teampipeline.us

Chapters

1. Common challenges Ian faces repeatedly in medical device R&D, including sourcing specialty components and interpreting standards (00:04:05)

2. Attributes needed for R&D engineering like world-building and defining interfaces (00:11:22)

3. Streamlining the manufacturing process through online sourcing platforms (00:15:30)

4. The importance of failure and persistence in R&D highlighted through the development of the artificial heart pump (00:23:23)

5. Ian's grandfather's journey from the Great Depression to WWII naval service to NASA and how it inspires Ian's work (00:30:30)

6. Building an encouraging engineering culture and the challenges of working in a toxic culture (00:39:10)

7. Ian's plans to dedicate more time to mentorship and freely sharing his knowledge and guidance with young engineers (00:46:13)