A full time member of the mechanical design profession since 1988, Charley Leonard’s well-rounded background brings added value and performance to any team he serves. These days, one of his favorite assignments is helping individuals and companies break away from the 2D world, as he was so eager to do. Having extensively used many of the 3d methods from Autodesk; 3d wire frame, AME, Mechanical Desktop, - all of which served him well - he’s glad to have moved on to SolidWorks, of which he has been a big fan since it’s inception in 1995, and which he now specializes in.

His design knowledge comes from having worked closely with a vast array of talented engineers and others, who willingly shared their knowledge and experience. As a result, Charley has himself become a sought-after design professional.

Among the many products of which Charley has been involved in the development, are a sleek high powered hand-held adjustable-focus searchlight, a multi-axis printed circuit board x-ray inspection system, as well as several custom fixtures for the various circuit boards it handled; environmental handlers for testing memory and logic chips; acid preprocessors for use in wafer fabrication; and custom control panels for ships and oil-drilling rigs.

Says Charley, "When I first entered the job market, I had taken drafting in high school and college, as well as AutoCAD and basic computer technology courses, but I was very ‘green’.  I had worked for my dad when I was sixteen, digitizing circuit board designs from hand layout into these huge Telesis CAD systems, which were state-of-the-art at the time. I didn’t really know what I was doing back then, design-wise, but it was good experience. This start-up company [Four-pi Systems; then in San Diego, California] had a couple of great mechanical engineers who were just getting into CAD. They hired me because I knew AutoCAD and they needed drafting help - a lot of it. I taught them CAD, they taught me mechanical design. It was a pretty good trade. I still have some of them as clients to this day."

Charley was later chartered by one of those engineers, Brian Ganz - founder of Robodesign, Inc. to teach an accelerated course in the use of CAD to a group of engineers at Athens Corporation (Now IPEC).

Representation and clarity are often a very important part of the design process. As is the case with many of the more effective designers, Charley has extensive mechanical drafting experience and expertise. He has become well known in the Southern California area for his fast, accurate, and easy-to-read assembly and detail work. Having served as drafting coordinator, and on CAD standard implementation teams, he is fluent in industry drafting standards, particularly ASME Y14.5M-1994, but is willing to work to any set of standards your project requires.

Whether in building solid models, designing products, drafting, or a combination of all three aspects, Charley is looking forward to working with you.