Every year at 3DEXPERIENCE World, the thing we look most forward to is meeting our users face to face. Certainly one of our favorites this year was meeting Eric Timmons, an engineer and SOLIDWORKS user, and his wife, Erika, who together created a 28-video series for Black History Month, featuring many black engineers and some of their many historic accomplishments in engineering.
The couple owns two companies: Black Hand Design, an industrial and mechanical design firm, and E5Productions, a video production company. During his 20-year-long engineering career, Eric has long been the only black engineer and/or designer in his department, a reality that has caused disappointments and discrimination throughout his career. His goal with Black Hand Design is to encourage and mentor other young black engineers.
Erica, his wife, of 30 years, has been in the film industry for nearly 15 years and is now in school earning her degree in Cinematography. Erika’s production company is called E5Productions. Together they are building what they hope will be companies that will empower people of color to tell their stories and propagate the continued growth of all touched by their business.
Learning from history
During our interview with this dynamic duo, Eric shared his motivation for all the effort that went into the project. “I have, more often than not, been the only minority in a department or in a building. I won’t go into how uncomfortable those times were but after all these years, I’ve been able to turn that into motivation. I want to ‘Flip the Room,’ to ensure that Black engineers coming out of college and into the field of engineering have a clear path that will lead to their success while reducing the anxiety felt by the feeling of ostracism.”
Erika added that the work that went into the project was far more challenging than she thought from the onset. “I understood that conducting the research for these American Engineers would be challenging. What I was not prepared for was the lack of information available for these brilliant men and women. It was so convoluted that one picture was often attributed to more than one person. I often felt overwhelmed and disappointed in the how irreverent Black history has been recorded in this country.” Erika went on to say that despite the disappointment she experienced that she was proud of the project and hoped that people would use the series as a learning tool.
Let’s take a closer look at each of just a few of these engineering pioneers and their respective discoveries that changed the world. Please note that the video links provided will take you to the videos created by Eric and Erika’s collaboration.
Augustus Jackson
Augustus Jackson was born on April 16, 1808, in Philadelphia, PA. Jackson became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Philadelphia, acquiring his fortune making ice cream. Although ice cream has been around since the 4th century B.C., originating from Persia, Jackson is known for his ice cream making technique and his inventive ice cream recipes. That innovative ice cream manufacturing technique led to his unprecedented success.
Historically ice cream recipes used eggs, but Jackson devised an eggless recipe. He also added salt to the ice, mixing it with his new flavors and cream. The salt made his delicious flavors taste better and lowered the temperature of the ice cream. It also allowed it to be kept colder for a longer time, which helped with packaging and shipping. Jackson’s technique is still used today.
Jackson packaged his ice cream in metal tins and sold them to ice cream parlors owned by other Blacks in Philadelphia. His many flavored ice creams became popular and sold for up to $1 a quart. Up to this point ice cream was affordable only to the rich. Jackson’s new technique reduced the cost of production and made his “Philadelphia style” ice cream affordable to the masses.
There is no evidence that Jackson patented his ice cream-making techniques nor of any of his recipes surviving until today. He shared his ideas with the five other Black ice cream parlor owners in Philadelphia, most of whom found similar success with ice cream making well into the 19th century. Unfortunately, racial prejudice drove most of them out of business.
Both Eric and Erika were simply a joy to interview, and it is our hope that they will continue to create content that will bring people together through education, engagement, and enlightenment. For more from them, you can listen to their podcast, More Than Memories on Buzzsprout. You can also follow their respective companies on Erika’s Facebook, or Eric’s Facebook, Instagram, and Erika’s LinkedIn or Eric’s LinkedIn.
