Employee Spotlight: Matt Cameron
{I love being surrounded by top performers. Working with people who just “get it” makes things so much easier and leaves more time for us to laugh.} ~Matt Cameron
INTRODUCTION
MATT CAMERON, VP OF ENGINEERING AT SIGMADESIGN
As a Mechanical Engineer and through my work at SIGMADESIGN, I’ve had the opportunity to engage with hundreds of clients on thousands of projects. That diversity of work is what attracted me to SIGMADESIGN in the first place and it remains to be one of the most interesting aspects of my job.
As I’ve moved from Engineer to Manager to my current position as the VP of Engineering, the focus has always been to help clients succeed by doing good work. Currently, I am focused on our team of highly capable Engineers. We’re working together and constantly evolving with the goal of exceeding our clients’ expectations.
I enjoy the challenges of building a world class engineering team able to tackle the wide variety of projects that represent our portfolio of work. It is really satisfying to meet new potential SIGMADESIGN employees, get them on board, see them flourish, and become successful within our organization. This has had a positive impact on our company and our clients. I take a great amount of pride in helping employees develop throughout their careers as they advance in our rapidly growing company.
ABOUT
What was your youth like?
MATT CAMERON ENJOYING THE OREGON COAST
I was born in Hillsboro, Oregon. Just after I was born, my family moved to Italy, because my dad was an Optometrist in the Army. We spent 3 years living in Vicenza on a U.S. Army base. Back in the states, I spent much of my childhood in the small North Idaho town of Sandpoint; this is where I attended high school. Most of my free time was spent outdoors – skiing at the local resort in the winter, windsurfing on the lake in the summer or hiking in the mountains with friends. These activities fostered a deep love of the outdoors, which is still a big part of my life today. I’ve also come to appreciate the small town lifestyle, where everyone knows and watches out for one another.
How do you think you became interested in Mechanical Engineering?
My parents didn’t have a direct effect on me going into Engineering since my mom was a journalist/writer and my dad was an eye doctor. But there is definitely a link to my career in that my mom proved to be a natural leader in her career and my dad, with his science education always encouraged me to question my observations. As a kid, I always had an affinity for airplanes. I built a lot of flying airplane models – balsa gliders, rubber band powered, and then radio-controlled slope gliders.
Additionally, I think I’ve always had a strong sense of what is logical – I innately understand what makes the most sense for an application. If things didn’t make sense to me, I would try to figure it out. I’ve always enjoyed problem solving, so cumulatively these things lead me to a career in Engineering.
What did you study?
MATT CAMERON AND HIS SON AT THE OREGON COAST
It wasn’t a straight line for me from high school into engineering school. Because of my love of the outdoors and sports, I ended up in Hood River. I was windsurfing competitively and working in the windsurfing industry building boards and running a small sailboard factory. I gained a strong understanding of composite construction and that experience cemented my desire to go back to school for an Engineering degree. Also while in Hood River, I worked as a general contractor and built several custom homes. I learned many building techniques and how to be a general contractor at a young age. My combination of experience and study of Mechanical Engineering
at Portland State University gives me a comprehensive background that I leverage every day at SIGMADESIGN in many different ways.
WORKING AT SIGMADESIGN
How did you find SIGMADESIGN?
There wasn’t a connection, I just called SIGMADESIGN in response to an ad. Back then the ad was in the newspaper. Reflecting on this, it’s sort of odd since most career placements are the result of a connection. I met Bill and John, the founders, when I came in for the interview. Bill asked me all kinds of engineering questions, then Bill asked me about sailing and John and I talked about flying. I started at SIGMADESIGN within a couple of days. I was the 6th employee hired, but when I started there were only 4 of us – John, Bill, Kim and myself. SIGMADESIGN felt like a good fit for me with the variety of project types, and it has proven to be a good fit and a place that has allowed me to grow professionally.
What do you enjoy most about your profession?
As an Engineer, I enjoy solving problems either by simplifying a design or by doing the analysis to understand how the interaction or system works then fine-tuning a solution. That’s the fun part. It’s a puzzle to solve and you can apply a whole set of engineering tools to solve it.
Part of the DNA of Engineers is that problem-solving is what motivates them. Curiosity gets them into deep trouble, and then they have to figure out how to get out of it. That’s called engineering.
What do you enjoy most about working at SIGMADESIGN?
At this stage, as the VP of Engineering, I enjoy engaging the people that we work with. I enjoy engaging my peers to: help them through difficult situations; help them in their career; or to help build a team for a fast-growing project.
What type of project work would you enjoy doing more of?
MATT AND JAY TUCKER, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER AT SIGMADESIGN, ON A WORK-RELATED TRIP TO SRI LANKA
I enjoy big, product development projects. These require assembling a large, multi-disciplinary team to tackle all facets of the project. The nature of product development is such that it sometimes plays out like a soap opera as things don’t always go smoothly. There are times of sorrow and times of celebration, and sometimes you just have to put your head down and do what you think is right, knowing that it will work out in the end. Regardless of project size, a lot of what we do at SIGMADESIGN, requires invention and that is where good Engineers shine.
What are your favorite projects or project types?
Anything that challenges all engineering disciplines from the stand point of its complexity. Complex projects often combine interactions between electro-mechanical and software engineering in ways that are very challenging. Those are the project types that most engineers are motivated to work on.
TEAMWORK AND VALUES
Do the core values influence your work?
Yes. I think they are a foundation for the way that we think about everything. If work situations get fuzzy, the core values help you align to simple concepts that serve as a guide as to how behave in a particular situation. Integrity is a given, but being adaptable is tremendously valuable for what we do.
What do you value at work?
I love being surrounded by top performers. Working with people who just “get it” makes things so much easier and leaves more time for us to laugh. 
And I love cracking jokes. There are some really funny people on my team and it is great to be able to talk technically one minute and then immediately switch to laugh-out-loud joking the next.
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning a bit more about me and my work at SIGMADESIGN.
If you’re interested in IoT, read my Blog Post about how IoT is impacting manufacturing, government, and logistics.
