Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Neber.
Matthew, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
From an early age, I was always fascinated with how things work, particularly the physical world and the mechanics of, well, everything. Somewhere around the age of seven I was introduced to car engines and became absolutely consumed with all things mechanical. Conveniently for my appetite was my father’s boat building profession, which was always rife with problems that needed solving. To this day, seawater pumps through my veins, and no matter how far I get pulled away at times mother ocean always finds a way to pull me back into her arms.
As one of the founding members of the robotics team at my high school, we competed and ranked nationally every year. College undergrad in Silicon Valley brought me to the stars as I worked with the Air Force Research Lab and NASA on satellite design and architecture. Then switching over to renewable energy tech when entering grad school introduced me to another class of problems that could be solved and with even more profound benefits for society. All the while, simply being immersed in the technology epicenter of the world brought an entirely new dimension into my life that was filled with zeros and ones.
Entering the workforce as an M. Sc. of Mechanical Engineering should have been a new adventure in prosperity and knowledge, but the boating industry inherently does not mix well with technology. Problem = Opportunity. My favorite of all equations. So that’s the current mission. After five years of work in the boat manufacturing business, I was finally able to create the opportunity to break away and develop my own products. All the experience with marine, aerospace, energy, and technology is culminating into a set of products that will hopefully become household items after they are proven on the high seas.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nothing worth doing is easy. How we solve problems is at the heart of what makes us unique. Everything we do comes with its own set of challenges. How we overcome them distinguishes us. When a customer comes in and asks me to make the impossible possible, it barely phases me anymore — the more challenging, the better. One crucial aspect of what we do is getting clients to get on the right page.
More often than not, a customer will come in with an idea or a product to engineer and we have to take them back to square one, determine real root causes, come up with a better solution and then get the clients to agree to move forward in a slightly different direction than they had originally anticipated. It’s challenging since nobody has an ugly baby, but in the end, the real value in what we do isn’t just helping clients bring their ideas to life, but optimizing for their success as well.
Of course, there were a few cases where a client asked for, in some form, a perpetual motion device. We appreciate the entertainment. Never a dull moment.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about R Engineering – what should we know?
The business is set up to offer both products and services. We are a complete product development firm that also offers low volume production runs. I personally handle the mechanical drawings myself and oversee our clients’ projects as a whole with final say in what happens on the electronics and software aspects of the product. That’s one half of the business.
The other half of what we do is developing our own line of products. I can’t say too much about project Coconut, that’s the codename we gave our product line. What I can say is that this is a technology that a couple of us have been developing quietly over the past few years. We were ahead of our time at the inception of the idea, and all of the assumptions we made about the trajectory of its supporting technologies were spot on.
As we gear up for the product launch, we find ourselves immersed in a world where similar technologies from companies like Google and Amazon are gaining traction and changing the landscape of our everyday lives. This sets a beautiful stage for what we are bringing to life.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The way that I attack a problem. Sometimes it’s quick, a well-thought plan with swift execution. More often, it’s like chopping down a really big tree.
We scan, we look at it, we tap it with our finger, we walk a few circles around it, we walk away for a minute, we scratch our heads, we talk, we ask each other: how are we going to chop down this really big tree? And then we get to work.
Come up with the plan, execute the plan, adjust if needed, but always succeed. The will to succeed is most important. Looking at a problem and saying to yourself: under no circumstances will I let this defeat me.
Contact Info:
- Address: 429 Lenox Ave Miami Beach FL 33139
- Website: www.rengtech.com
- Phone: 305 608 9596
- Email: mneber@rengtech.com
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