About PMD / James Cuevas
James Cuevas, Owner and Principal Engineer, obtained a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1997, and has been designing mechanical devices / products / systems on a daily basis ever since.
Since going into full time consulting as PMD in 2005, James has worked on many projects for various industries, dealing with all types of challenging design problems. James has always had a razor-sharp focus on mechanical design engineering throughout his career, and has found that working in various industries at the same time has proven to be an asset. "All Design, All The Time..." has been James' mantra for more than two decades. Whether designing a complex precision machine, or a simple industrial-design inspired plastic box to hold a circuit board, James truly enjoys all aspects of the design process.
Every engineering / design project is interesting and comes with its own set of challenges. Often times the significance of a project is not apparent even while the project is in process. A design / product may last a year. It may last for 20 years. For this reason, every design project is treated “as if James’ life depended on it”. Every project is important and treated with the same level of attention to detail.
A few career highlights so far include:
Designing a motor used to steer the first stage rocket for a very well known private space / rocket company.
(James learned this was the application of the motor 15+ years after the fact - such is the case for much of the work in Aerospace / Defense)
Designing the mechanics for an Infrared Camera used by a national space agency to take pictures of a Solar Eclipse.
Designing the drive mechanics for major portions of several surgical robotics systems.
Designing the mechanics for an actuator for what was / is believed to be the most accurate disc drive testing machine at the time of the design. (This required extremely precise mechanical design / measurement methods)
James considers himself a practical engineer, with one foot in the theoretical world, and one foot in the practical world. It is his belief that a good design comes together as quickly and economically as possible with a good understanding of both the theoretical and the practical. In addition to James, PMD is able to draw on the talents of other engineers / designers from various disciplines (such as Software, Electrical Engineering, etc.) as projects require.
Prior to PMD, James Cuevas spent the first few years of his career as a mechanical design engineer in the fields of medical robotics, including InTouch Health (pioneer of the field of Medical Remote Presence, later acquired by Teledoc Health in 2020) and Computer Motion (pioneer of Robotic Surgery, later acquired by Intuitive Surgical in 2003). James also designed precision actuators for the data storage (disc drive) industry at Axsys Technologies / Teletrac, and designed high power density brushless DC motors and generators for various aerospace, defense, and medical applications at Aveox, Inc.
James has been using SolidWorks on a daily basis as a primary mechanical design tool for 25 years.