CSWE Profile: Will Mayo

Name: William Mayo

Position: Design Engineer

Company: IDEAL Fastener Corporation

Date of CSWP: Nov, 2009

Date of CSWE: Aug, 2010

Advanced Certifications: Sheet Metal, Surfacing, Mold Tools

William (Will) Mayo has been a CSWE since 2010 and is one of the first 100 users to have achieved the highest SolidWorks certification.  Will graduated in Mechanical Engineering from NC State and started learning SolidWorks there in his engineering classes starting all the way back in 2005.  Will actively used SolidWorks for many of his engineering projects beyond his CAD and design classes and this led to his initial expertise.  Upon graduation in December, 2008 he and some business partners started their own company.  In spite of the fact that he didn’t actively use SolidWorks in this business venture he still maintained his SolidWorks skills and eventually achieved his CSWP almost a year after graduating. 

IDEAL Fasteners is one of the industry leaders in supplying zippers to the fashion and clothing industry.  Will started working for IDEAL Fastener in December, 2009 and attributes his CSWP as a major factor in his getting hired.  At that time IDEAL had relatively recently purchased their first seat of SolidWorks and were looking for a user that would make the best use of it.  Prior to this, IDEAL primarily used AutoCAD (of which Will is certified as well) for their CAD design. After being hired Will used SolidWorks as the primary CAD tool to design the manufacturing machines that IDEAL uses in their factory.  His responsibilities include updating the older factory machines to either be more automated or be more structurally sound.  Will also designs completely new machines when a much more efficient manufacturing process is recognized.  Occasionally he also uses his skills to create zipper models for prototype manufacturing or 3D printing. 

After starting at IDEAL Will converted most of their 2D CAD and paper drawings into 3D parts and assemblies.  This practice along with practicing various on-line tutorials made available by members of the SolidWorks community helped him hone his 3D CAD skills.   

Will attributed the SolidWorks Certification exams in helping him learn skills that make his current job much, much easier.  To pass the CSWP Will had to learn to master equations, configurations and Design Tables.  He now uses these features to create families of parts for many of his factory machine components and has turned jobs that used to take hours into minutes.  Without the need to study these areas for the CSWP Will feels that he would have continued modeling in the way he always had and would not have taken advantage of these time saving functionalities.   

Another example of how the Certification exams have helped with his job was the Advanced Surfacing test.  To pass this exam he studied a lot of advanced surfacing techniques.  He now applies many of those surfacing techniques in designing parts for both factory machines and product for customers.

IDEAL has recently hired 2 recent graduates from NC State to supplement their growing CAD group.  Will has been tapped to be their mentor and has advocated their passing of the SolidWorks Certification exams since he has recognized the value they have had in his own career. 

Note: If you are a Certified SolidWorks Expert and would like to be featured in a future CSWE Profile, email us at certification@solidworks.com and include a short message telling us about what you do.