Design & Engineering Leadership
Tom Gardner
Director of New Product Development
Tom Gardner has been with MPE since February 2018. He is the Director of New Product Development, who guides the internal design team in producing world-class and innovative solutions for a variety of industries. He implements best practice design principles and modern design tools to drive success for his team.
His experience in the industry has helped MPE grow, bringing new design concepts and tools that ensure high quality products on a time and below budget to our customers. Tom values the synergy that MPE has created with the engineering team to deliver lifesaving solutions to the medical industry and proud of that team that can collaboratively and consistently deliver quality solutions to our satisfied customers even on the most challenging projects.
Paul Klock
Design Director
As design director, Paul Klock sets high standards for design excellence. He leads his team in employing a highly collaborative, user-centered design approach. His objective is to produce a positive and consistent user experience while maintaining the intended clinical use and product performance.
Paul has been with MPE (Formerly Mindflow Design) since 2016 and has more than 30 years of experience, much of it with a healthcare focus. His design leadership with talented teams over the years has lead to his receiving over 25 patents plus a variety of design awards including Business Week IDEA, CES innovation, IF Design and GOOD Design awards.
Paul holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from Rochester Institute of Technology where he served as an adjunct faculty member in the industrial design school at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Married with three children, he enjoys playing basketball and golf, and spending time with friends and family.
Rick Blanchard
Director of Project Management
As director of project management, Rick manages project teams consisting of industrial designers, user experience/user interface designers, mechanical engineers and human factors engineers. Rick thrives on ambiguity. He is most passionate about bringing definition to what may seem unclear and vague to others through a combination of critical and creative thinking.
Rick joined MPE (Formerly MPE (Formerly Mindflow Design) in 2020). Having arrived with 25-plus years in medical product design and a wealth of management experience in large corporate and small consulting environments, he values the contributions of all parties engaged in the product development process. This means seeking successful collaborations with executive management, sales/marketing, purchasing, quality assurance and logistics personnel as well as design team members.
Rick holds a bachelor of industrial design degree from Syracuse University.