Who is Jonathan DeBow?
I am a creative and curious innovator who is always looking to learn something new. When I’m not working (passion projects or otherwise), I enjoy travelling with my beautiful wife and taking in different experiences and cultures across our world. I’m passionate about trying to simply complicated problems and sharing those findings with family and friends.
I am always striving to reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as I can. This is reflected both in my professional contributions at work but also at home. Having been exposed and experienced extreme waste, I feel that I need to do my part to try and cut down on our CO2 footprint.
Notable Projects:
CPX
One of my more recent projects is the CPX luminaire for commercial indoor applications. Here I was responsible for designing and launching a fixture that would be manufactured across 2 continents and in more than 4 different manufacturing locations. It has quickly grown to be the top grossing product across the industry and will remain a staple in the commercial indoor product offering for years to come.
EPANL
EPANL was Acuity Brands first edge lit luminaire that was fully luminous and manufactured in North America. What made this project unique was the exposure to the same technology deployed in a lot of TVs sold around the world. This project was very challenging from both a design and supply chain perspective with an end result of issuing of two patents. The two patents were for the innovation to our mechanical assembly as well as the optical components. After a successful launch and having learned so much on this project, I captured all of our lessons learned by co-developing a design guideline that was deployed company wide.
Muffler End Tables
This was a project of mine to try and find a way to reduce, reuse, and recycle the mufflers from my Ford Mustang GT. Being a relatively young man at the time, I didn’t have much from a furniture perspective. Having seen a engine block coffee table and even a crankshaft side table on Pinterest, I was confident I could create something unique for my own home. Make sure to check out my blog post for my process of developing this one of a kind end table.
Yamaha FX WaveRunner
This WaveRunner was considered the top offering of the luxury and performance sector for personal watercrafts (PWCs). On this project I was able to greatly reduce the number of fasteners for the hatch assembly from a manufacturing perspective and help deploy a design for the rear storage container that resulted in a fastener less appearance.
Yamaha EX WaveRunner
This was one of the first offerings by Yamaha in the entry level and cost restrictive category for personal watercrafts. Here I was able to innovate a new center console storage structure that resulted in a significant increase in storage capacity, a patent, and a significant cost savings on mechanical reverse mechanism. I was also able to capture a significant cost savings by innovating upon a rear boarding step that also improved the customer experience and perception of quality.