About the Team

D’Eramo Design is a product development firm knowledgeably guiding companies through the research, industrial design, mechanical engineering, manufacturing, and launch phases of the hardware production process.  Decades-long experience with leading tech firms, small start-ups, large publicly traded companies, and everything in between, has given us broad technical expertise and strong industry partnerships, both of which we leverage to help our client partners anticipate challenges and execute creative solutions.  Well versed in the domains of autonomous vehicles, micromobility products, robotic systems, advanced technology consumer products, and sensor and vision components, we help companies bring their vision to life through informed decisions about user experience, product and branding, project management, materials selection, production vendors, and manufacturing processes.

Core Values

Skill, tools, insight, experience… these things are your minimum expectation of us or any other group that you talk to. The cost of admission. Without these, we aren’t even getting in. But at D’Eramo Design, our shared values guide every project, every client interaction, and every design solution we create.  They reflect our dedication to excellence and hard work as well as our passion for innovation and transformative design, all while consistently giving the very best version of ourselves to each of you.

True Stewardship

True Stewardship means looking after the resources of our partners as if they were our own.  Time, finances, reputation, emotions, knowledge… We don’t gate keep.  We ask tough questions and make critical suggestions, all in the spirit of trying to help them get to where they want to go, together.

Humble Flex

Our humble flex is that we never rest, and are never satisfied.  “There is always someone better than you”. We constantly strive to do better and to do more.  We celebrate our wins, but we don’t count them. We will leave that to someone else.  We celebrate each other.  We let the work speak for itself.

Build With Heart

We care… A LOT. To build with heart means to have empathy for those around you, to have passion and sincerity in everything that you do.  There is a customer everywhere, someone that relies on the action you are about to take.  Clients, Vendors, Collaborators, End Users; we value the role that each plays in our process and take seriously the role that we have in their success. 

Efficient Precision

“You can’t get anything done sitting down”. Operate with urgency but operate with kindness. Minimize scope, execute, and improve.  Be committed, work the process, but stay nimble. There is no better time than now to change what you are doing.  Push boundaries and expand your reach. Keep your tools sharp and your cuts clean. 

Christopher D'Eramo

Principal

Throughout his career, Christopher has leverages his passions for design, engineering, and user experience to bring creative and practical leadership to product development organizations.  Christopher’s expertise encompasses research, design, prototyping, and technology development and deployment – all of which he brings to bear in the service of the high-performance technical teams he coaches.

 

His nearly 20 years of experience in product development with companies in the automotive, robotic, material science, and consumer product industries are complimented by over a decade of teaching at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helped students successfully navigate ever-changing technical landscapes.

 

Clients appreciate Christopher’s thoughtful, granular insight, and his leadership style that is simultaneously technical, creative, and personable.  Ask him about: woodfired pizzas, homemade pies, and how to bake a perfect StarWars birthday cake to two brothers that can’t agree on chocolate vs. vanilla.

Ian Rosenberg

Sr. Mechanical Engineer

Ian’s expertise in autonomous vehicles and consumer electronics is widely valued by industry leaders. Ian excels in quickly and assuredly delivering comprehensive production-data packages for large-scale manufacturing and specializes in working on highly aggressive timelines. His clients appreciate his clear technical documentation, his warp-speed CAD modeling, and his uncanny ability to question assumptions until they break to  reveal new solutions.

 

Ian graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Logic & Computation. 

 

Ask him about: (1) his bicycle, hand-built entirely from secondhand and trash-picked parts; (2) high-speed mountain biking; how the overlap of (1) and (2) informs his obsession with correct torque specs in assembly documentation.

Don Hogan

Sr. Industrial Designer

Don has spent his career listening intently to his clients and their users, and addressing their needs with innovative designs that become industry standards.  His more than two decades of experience span the disciplines of soft goods design, development and prototyping, aftermarket automotive and motorsport, and autonomous vehicles.

 

Don received his first patent for a lightweight, low-cost, zipperless compression/expansion system he invented to improve usability and reliability in high-end luggage.  It is still in use today globally.  Since then, he has continued to apply just-right solutions to his clients’ projects, inventing them they don’t yet exist.

 

Ask him about: spending 40 hours painting a single miniature model; jumping motorcycles through fire; and that time he rode a bicycle across the top of Pittsburgh’s Smithfield Street Bridge.

Marissa Chapman

Sr. User Interface Designer

Don Lee

Sr. Design Engineer

With expertise in new product development, entrepreneurship, mechanism design, and autonomous vehicles, Don loves solving intractable problems. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with teams around the world to develop innovative systems – and then rolled up his sleeves and fabricated them.  

 

Once after inventing a durable, lightweight closing mechanism for a power-folding baby stroller, he traveled to China to help factory workers set up its implementation.  On another project, his team conceptualized a new torsionally rigid fuselage on the Confederate B91 Wraith, taking an avant-garde, hand-crafted motorcycle to a new level of performance and innovation.  From strollers to luxury motorcycles to “robot-training-robots”, Don’s projects pair a “never say die” urgency with kindness and attention to detail. 

 

Ask him about: his experiences climbing mountains in the Himalayas and judging Olympic-level equestrian events.

Vito D'Eramo

Executive Assistant - Head of Security

Hunter of badgers, distinguished gentleman, and all around good boy, Vito keeps the entire operation together.  Pound-for-pound, the most enthusiastic member of the team and certainly the loudest voice.  He ardently protects our door from uninvited solicitors (but unfortunately treats the UPS and FedEx delivery people with about the same attitude).  His management style is one of being heard and not seen, but he will make the occasional video call appearance on days when he’s feeling extra needy.

 

 

Ask him about: sleeping from 8:15am to noon; sleeping from 12:30pm to 3:30pm; where the best spots are to sleep and catch the sunrays coming through the window.