Paul Ives

Paul has much experience with design, analysis and project management. Examples of his projects with Acutek Services are triple planetary reduction excavator travel drives, wet disk braking systems, truck bodies, front wheel stations, differential carriers and differential housings. Before founding Acutek he was employed as a Vehicle Team Leader at Caterpillar Inc for Cat's largest Wheel Loader. During his ten years of service at Caterpillar he had analysis and design input into many other projects and vehicles including motor graders, wheel tractor scrapers, articulated dump trucks, rigid frame dump trucks, wheel loaders and mining shovels. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University.

Brad Cook

Brad has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Texas A&M and a Masters degree from the University of Illinois. He is sought after by our customers for FEA and design solutions. Projects he has worked on include Drive-shaft Yoke Assembly modal frequency analysis and stress improvement design, Front Wheel Station stress and contact analysis, Rear Engine Enclosure modal analysis, Final Drive Bolted Joint casting design and Drawbar, Circle, and Moldboard assembly stress and fatigue. He has worked with Acutek since 2001 and before then he had several years of analysis and design experience at Caterpillar Inc.

Phil Cioffi

While Phil has been with Acutek he has designed Off-Highway Truck bodies and he is also our Pro Engineer expert/trainer. Before working with us he was a consultant for Rand Worldwide and designed assembly layouts while training hundreds of users on the software. Training is something he continues to be utilized for internally and at our customer sites. He has also been employed with Caterpillar where he became a leader in bucket design. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Math Science degree from Hudson Valley Community College.

Patrick Grossman

Patrick has many years of experience with FEA analysis and systems administration. Before coming to Acutek, he worked for GHSP Inc. which supplies transmission shifter products to the automotive industry. He has worked on motor grader frames and off-highway truck wheels, fuel tanks, truck bodies, radiators and final drive planet carriers. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University.

Don Mast

Don Mast joined Acutek in February 2007, after working at Caterpillar for 33 years. Over his distinguished career he has designed and evaluated many major structures associated with Caterpillar's motor graders, off-highway trucks, and wheel tractor-scrapers. Don holds several patents for rollover protective structures (ROPS) and bolted joints, as well as several design patents. He also has extensive experience in three-dimensional linkage design and evaluation.

In addition, Don developed the process presently being used by Caterpillar for evaluating sheetmetal fabrication designs. He also developed and taught the current basic structural analysis training program used at Caterpillar's Decatur facility. For the last three years Don has been managing all structural evaluation projects for Caterpillar's Decatur facility. He introduced many project management techniques to the structural analysis area that have been promulgated across Caterpillar.

Don has a bachelor of science degree in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Illinois.

Laura Ives

Laura holds degrees in Chemical and Electrical Engineering. Her previous job involved programming computers to remotely control a petrochemical plant. She has departed from the engineering field while working with Acutek and is currently in charge of administrative functions and business management.