GM Designers Provide Road Map to Auto-Design Careers

At the end of February, five GM designers visited DAAP to steer area students in the right direction when it comes to pursuing design careers in the automotive industry.

To get on track as a designer in the transportation industry requires a lot of drive.

Cameron Clay and Matt Zoller
Cameron Clay, left, a sophomore from Greenfield McClain High School in Greenfield, Ohio, speaks with DAAP student Matt Zoller who recently co-opped at GM and who also appeared in The Discovery Channel series called "FutureCars."
That's the message about 200 area middle-school, high-school and college design students recently heard from General Motors, Inc., designers and from and industrial design students in the University of Cincinnati's top-ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Visitors came to DAAP from as far away as Louisville, Ky., for the evening session with GM designers and with UC students who have already interned with GM.

Seventh-grader Brett Powers, a student at Bethany School in Glendale, said he came because "I'm really good at drawing cars, and I want to have a future with cars." After hearing the designers speak about their own individuals roads to GM's design studios, Powers added, "After tonight, I'm going to sketch more. I'm going to sketch from different perspectives and do shading. Right now, I've draw cars only from the side-view perspective, but I'm going to do other perspectives, like the front end too."

The one thing he worried about though: "I get in trouble if I sketch in class."

If so, then Powers is in good company because many current students in UC's internationally ranked School of Design had that same problem when in elementary school. For instance, two UC students who recently had cooperative-education quarters (paid internships) at GM - Mark Chrapla and Matt Zoller - had the same experience when they were younger. Said Chrapla, "I began drawing at an early age, and even got in trouble when my third-grade teacher sent a note home to my mother saying, 'Mark was drawing in class when he should have been taking notes.'"

That drawing in class had paid off well since Chrapla and Zoller were both just featured in The Discovery Channel's special called "FutureCars."

A.J. Freeman and Christopher Webb
Fourteen-year-old A.J. Freeman, left, traveled to the "Success by Design" session from Louisville in order to show his portfolio to GM designers. Here, he shows his portfolio to GM designer Christopher Webb.
Zoller and another fellow student Shawn Ormsby (another DAAP student who co-opped at GM) provided insight to those attending the recent "Success by Design" career information session. Zoller joked that success in the extremely competitive world of auto design only requires "blood, sweat and tears." More seriously, he encouraged students to "work hard and study hard."

Ormsby discussed the benefits of UC's nationally renowned cooperative-education program (ranked in the nation's top ten by U.S. News & World Report). He explained, "UC has co-op. That means I'll have worked professionally six different times before I graduate. I have six jobs on my resume."

Both Ormsby and Zoller have been offered full-time position by GM once they graduate. And when they join GM, they'll be working alongside other designers (from GM) who also participated in the "Success by Design" event. They were

  • Maggie Eko, digital sculptor
  • Sheryl Garrett, manager, Global Creative Resources
  • Brian Neu, sculptor
  • Stuart Shuster, educational relations consultant
  • Christopher Webb, creative designer, Color and Trim
Stu Shuster and Matt Zoller
Stu Shuster, left, of GM speaks with UC student Matt Zoller during the "Success by Design" session.
These GM designers represent the many varied educational backgrounds to be found within auto design studios. For instance, Neu and Eko were both fine arts students. Webb studied fashion and textiles, and Shuster is an industrial design graduate from UC.

Neu explained that he was actually planning a career in furniture design until he attended a career-information session like the one just held at DAAP. He stated, "I went to a seminar like this one. Afterward, I said, 'I'm going to Detroit to sculpt cars.'" Neu added that it's a decision he's never regretted. "For me, work is like having play time eight to 10 hours a day. This job is the epicenter of every car lover's dreams."

Eko agreed, "I like my job. I can be creative every day, all day... . There's nothing like seeing what you worked on driving behind you on the road."

DAAP was selected for this visit by GM's designers because the college houses one of the nation's five programs devoted solely to auto design that are also the competitive players in preparing the next generation of car designers.