Alexander Szela

Supporting and builting a talented team of individuals to make world-class gear for Cascade Design's family of brands.

Lead a team of Industrial Designers, Mechanical Engineers, and Product Developers to design equipment for the Climb, Mountain, and Ski categories. Travel to international vendors to rebuild relationships, transition projects to new factories, and onboard new employees in good style. Create systems and structures to improve the efficiency of the team, and commercialize innovative products on time! Worked as a Product Creation Manager, and a Director of Product Development in this role.

Innovating meaningful and highly functional gear for Alpine climbing, hiking, and snow sports.

Research and Product Development for high-end bicycle helmets, Ski and Snow helmets, Goggles, and shoes.

Highly creative and explorative role, with an effort to advance the protectivity of helmets in the coming years. Worked on an aggressive "fail-fast" model that tried out hundreds of ideas around helmet safety, protection, sustainability, and manufacturing efficiency problems. Many of the projects are currently patent-pending, or are active projects for BELL, GIRO, RIDDELL, and Blackburn and can not be shared until they are released. This has been a highly rewarding job, with an incredible amount of product development experience.

My main goal is to properly diagnose and test equipment produced by Easton-Bell for their degree of safety. I achieve this through education, hands-on testing and virtual testing in FEA software. Brands include Bell, Giro, Blackburn and Easton. I also play a role in product development and identifying modes of failure and performance metrics. In addition, I also aim to meet the growing need to improve test procedures and testing equipment, to maintain a lead in the safety of Easton-Bell's products.

Worked as a contracted engineer for W.L.Gore through a grant under the guidance of Dr. David Burris. My role included characterizing the semipermiability of fabrics for their textile line. Developed, machined, and built two different test rigs to create custom tests for W.L.Gore specifically.

Worked as a mechanic, consultant, and bike builder for new arriving bicycles for the shop. The role required extensive bicycle knowledge and industry presence.

Worked with a small group of peers on the executive board, we organized a TEDxUD event on campus at the University of Delaware with several speakers and performances. I worked as a curator of the main speaker of the evening, as well as helped promote and run the event

Worked with Dr. David Burris of the University of Delaware, in conjunction with the Atlantic Offshore Wind Consortium to understand bearing loads and modes of failure of large wind turbines. Drive-train reliability has become a primary concern in off-shore wind energy and is one of the highest contributors to maintenance costs in alternative energy sources. Understand how these bearings fail is critical in material selection and better designs for future models. I developed machined, and built a test rig with one other student as well as run tests to begin the research project. Upon graduation, I also participated in educating future students on the project, giving presentations on my joint research in multiple venues.

Worked as an unofficial floor manager, running the shop when the owner was not present. Performed repairs, sales and transactions as necessary to keep the buisness running.

Graduated with a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering, with a concentration in Material Science. Worked in parallel with graduate students in the Tribology Lab, researching friction, lubrication, and wear or mechanical and biological systems. Ran 3 years as a UDel Division 1 Track Athlete in the 400 and 800 meters. Served as Secretary and President for Delaware Cycling Team for two years, also competing in the ECCC.

Took an intensive language and two additional history classes in the pristegous Jagielloian University in Poland's capitol city, Krakow.