Inside HQ: Introducing Tim Potter
Continuing our Inside HQ series celebrating the people of Hooper Quinn, we’ve been talking to Tim Potter, Senior Design Engineer within our Product Development division.
Who are you and what do you do at Hooper Quinn?
I have been with the company for five months. My title is Senior Design Engineer which I think reflects the number of years I’ve been working in this field. I’m part of the Product Development team currently working on an exciting project incorporating many complex systems, and will soon be looking at Hooper Quinn’s CAD processes to streamline and improve productivity.
Tell us a little about your career to date and how you arrived at Hooper Quinn?
I started my working life as part of a large engineering team to design, manufacture and build the largest fusion reactor in the world (JET). This involved the usual aspects of mechanical engineering but with a greater involvement in ultra-high vacuum, safety and exotic materials. I also worked on remote handling equipment design to aid assembly and decommissioning, which involved using CATIA to write offline programs to demonstrate how the reactor could be put together. This is where I found a love and talent for CAD. I was responsible for teaching every designer CATIA and implementing all design processes for the CAD office.
I spent the next five years representing IBM, teaching CATIA on and off site around the UK and Ireland. I was the UK’s CATIA robotic expert, spending time at Dassault Systèmes in France developing the tools, as well as three years as a CATIA application specialist at BAE sites and Jaguar Land Rover.
I then spent 20 years working at Ilmor Engineering (which became Mercedes AMG HPP) where I was responsible for all CATIA training, setting up standards and process implementation, hand holding all engineers with day-to-day use of CATIA, as well as supporting those on the Graduate scheme with HPP’s many processes (including Hooper Quinn’s founder, Greg). I was part of a small team to implement and maintain HPP’s first PLM [Product Lifecycle Management] system, and the Integration team making sure the power unit fitted the team’s chassis, working on the design and manufacture of a 3D printed power unit for each team in good time for the start of each race season.
My most recent assignment prior to Hooper Quinn was as chief designer at a small composites engineering company working in automotive and aerospace design.
What do you love about your job?
I love everything to do with mechanical engineering and have been very lucky to have been involved in so many interesting projects with so many talented people, and this continues at Hooper Quinn.
What is something that usually surprises people about you?
I ‘ve represented Great Britain twice, winning two bronze medals, and won the Britannia Cup at Henley Royal Regatta (as a cox). I’ve also played rugby to a good club standard for many years.
Do you have any other hobbies?
Other than rugby, cycling and windsurfing, my love for engineering continues in the form of cars, motorbikes and model aircraft. Among the many aircraft I have are a 1/3 scale Piper Pawnee for towing 6,7 and 8 metre gliders, a 1/3 scale P-47, and a Hawker Hunter with a 16.6 kg thrust gas turbine which will max out at 180-200 mph. I also enjoy scale helicopters and designing and building autogyros.
Good engineering is...
Simple and elegant. The statement “if it looks right, it is right” is in my experience, very true.
