Connect with Terry

Terry founded M3 Design in 1996.  As President and CEO, he has grown the company to be one of the largest product design firms headquartered in the Southwest with world-wide notoriety. Terry is a strong believer in bringing diverse perspectives to the table when solving a problem and the team of designers, engineers, and strategists he’s brought together certainly deliver superior business value to M3’s clients.

Terry’s passion for design flourished while working on the client side in the Silicon Valley in the late ‘70s and early ‘80’s, which made an impression that impacted his career from that point forward. Terry was on a design team that created the first desktop printer (a major feat in the late 70’s) for Data Products and quickly became known as the go-to liaison between corporate engineering and outside industrial design consultants.  His ability to free-hand sketch in 3D, and his Aeronautical design training served him well in this role because Terry knew how to draft his designs by hand—prior to the use of CAD.  From aircraft skins to plastic products, he could translate complex shapes to aid in taking a creative approach with forms and help insure industrial design concepts could successfully translate to high-volume manufacturing methods. During this time, Terry worked on other notable projects including one of the first commercially available desktop computers for the Italian company Olivetti, the first laser disk storage device for Xerox, and the first consumer digital language translator for one of the founders of Atari.  Another milestone came a few years later in Dallas, TX when he designed the Horizon NXT IV Infusion pump for Kendall McGaw (now B-Braun), which was the industry standard for over a decade.  Years after completing the design, Terry sat in a hospital room where his own father was connected to that very device.

These experiences, working on the client side of hiring design firms, working as a member of R&D teams and doing consulting on the side showed Terry how much he enjoyed the creative process of product design. He had a vision to create a product design firm that had an equal balance of powerhouse designers and creative engineers who could successfully feed each other’s creativity, work well across disciplines and produce innovative, feasible solutions to the product design challenges so many organizations face.

When the time was right Terry launched M3 Design with his best friend Dave Howard and a University of Texas intern, Derek Hobbs. With a steady flow of work, M3 went from 3 employees to hovering 50 in a few short years.  M3 Design has on-going relationships with the majority of their client base (many customers with whom they have worked with for over 10 years).  The M3 team has had the pleasure of creating innovative products for market leaders such as Stryker, Emerson, NetApp, and Pfizer to name a few.

Terry’s hard-working roots come from Kansas where he grew up.  His father was a farmer, a mechanic for the state, and  dabbled in carving, sculpting and cartooning. Terry’s mother was the manager of the linen service at the local hospital and was one of the best cooks within at least 3 counties.  Terry grew up helping on his family’s farm, learned how to work on cars, and developed a passion for woodworking.  In 1974 he acquired an Aeronautical Design degree from Cowley County Community College in Arkansas City, Kansas, and worked part time at NCR in Wichita, KS where he created engineering drawings for an innovative desktop dot-matrix printer. NCR killed that particular project, but it was this team of folks who moved to the Silicon Valley to create a similar product for Data Products, and Terry, the “kid” as they called him, was invited to come along. The rest is history.

Connect with Gray

Gray is M3 Design’s CTO and fountain of useful advice and knowledge of EVERYTHING from engineering, technology trends and forecasting, business strategy, and all aspects of product development. Gray believes in being open minded when it comes to innovative solutions to problems, and tackling R&D and product development efforts in a way that can successfully feed into an overarching business objective. Gray has had a leadership role at M3 Design for over a decade, and has been the point person for some of M3’s largest accounts such as Emerson. He has also been the fulcrum that has helped some of M3’s late-stage technology start-ups become full-fledged businesses. Prior to joining M3, Gray led engineering, program, quality and design teams at such companies as Ford Motor, Texas Instruments, Compaq and Xyterra Computing as they created and delivered advanced products as diverse as fault-tolerant super computers, automated vehicle test systems and generations of personal computing devices.

Gray is a frequent contributor to the M3 Design’s blog, as well as publications such as MD&DI and has spoken at such events as South by Southwest and the Central Texas Digital Convergence Initiative. Gray’s colleagues appreciate his advice and guidance on pretty much everything (most of the time), his entertaining stories collected throughout his career (including being personally fired by Michael Dell in the late-1980s), Gray’s New York no BS attitude, and above all—his unwavering ethics. Gray holds a BSEE from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and an MBA from the University of Houston. In his spare time, Gray enjoys low-tech hobbies such as creating pottery and building character by watching N.Y. Mets baseball.

Connect with John

John is M3’s Director of Engineering and COO. He joined the M3 team in 2008, bringing with him extensive experience translating surgeons’ needs into successful orthopedic products. John has a stellar knack for selecting and prioritizing the details necessary to build towards the overarching strategic goals of M3 Design and their customer base. John is known for his incredible work ethic and passion for delivering products that are both functional and easy to use. He believes the first and last impression a product makes must be phenomenal, and he constantly pushes the team to consider every aspect of the product they are designing to make sure that happens. During his tenure at M3, John has led ongoing programs for strategic clients such as Stryker, DJO Surgical, Rockwell Collins, and Argon Medical.

Prior to joining the M3 team, John worked at Amedica and Sulzer Orthopedics leading R&D teams and development projects for Spine, Hip, and Knee implants and instrumentation. John has a Biomedical Engineering degree from Northwestern University and holds multiple patents. He has presented at national and regional conferences and written on various product development topics. When not working John is also known for having a good time and playing a practical joke or two on his colleagues. John makes sure the culture at M3 remains light-hearted and fun. In his spare time, John regularly competes in (and wins) BBQ competitions. His colleagues are grateful for the left overs he is kind enough to bring into the office.

Connect with Nathan

Nathan is the Director of M3’s design team. Nathan pushes himself and his team to promote design solutions for EVERY element of a user’s workflow and experience. With this philosophy, M3’s design team has tackled everything from groundbreaking surgical solutions, to IoT ecosystems, to designing entire environments that deliver phenomenal user experiences while under Nathan’s leadership. Prior to joining M3 Design, Nathan had a leadership position at Boston-based product development firm, Altitude. During his tenure there, Nathan opened their first satellite office in Los Angeles, where he forged strong relationships with key accounts on the West Coast. A native of the UK, Nathan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Industrial and Furniture Design from Nottingham Trent University. On the rare occasion when Nathan isn’t working, he enjoys doing “lad things” and drinking beer.