Eron Flory | Toastmasters for Engineers, and FIRST Robotics
Send us Fan Mail Eron Flory has built a career around turning difficult engineering problems into real products—and, increasingly, around helping other engineers learn how to do the same. His background crosses custom automation, robotics, manufacturing equipment, medical-device R&D, process development, and engineering leadership. Before recently stepping away from full-time engineering, he spent more than six years at Medtronic working on steerable delivery systems for transcatheter mitral and tricuspid heart valve replacement while also mentoring and recruiting engineers and developing knowledge-sharing programs. His career before Medtronic included leadership roles at Merit Medical, Osseon, Direct Flow Medical, and Production Robotics. Across those organizations, Eron worked on everything from transcatheter heart valves and vertebral compression fracture devices to automated manufacturing equipment, test systems, Nitinol devices, and manufacturing process development. That breadth has given him an interesting perspective on the value of engineers bringing knowledge from one industry into another rather than spending an entire career inside a single technical silo. Eron's path into engineering was also highly hands-on. Before earning his mechanical engineering degree, he worked as an automotive technician and raced motorcycles, eventually becoming a national champion. He later earned a master's degree in robotics from the University of Texas at Austin. Today he still coaches high-performance drivers and has even worked with autonomous-vehicle engineers to help them understand vehicle dynamics and how skilled human drivers respond near the limits of a vehicle. Mentorship has become an especially important part of Eron's work. He teaches engineering at Santa Rosa Junior College, mentors its Baja SAE program, and has spent several seasons coaching students through FIRST Robotics. He has described FIRST as an environment where students can learn not only engineering, but also collaboration, communication, leadership, and decision-making under real deadlines—sometimes developing those abilities remarkably early in their careers. Now, through teaching, mentoring, and his consulting work with Eron Engineering , he's putting decades of engineering experience toward helping both companies and younger technical professionals succeed. His consulting work continues to draw on his experience in medical devices, automation, manufacturing, and solving unusual engineering problems. LINKS: Eron Flory LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eron-flory-480a431/ Eron Engineering Website: https://eronengineering.com/services (Guest note: I am creating a website for my consulting, and you are welcome to use any photos you want from that site; product photos are under the "Services" link. These are not Eron Engineering products; these are examples of things that I designed and built) Subscribe to the show to get notified so you don't miss new episodes every Friday. The Being An Engineer podcast is brought to you by Pipeline Design & Engineering. Pipeline partners with medical & other device engineering teams who need turnkey equipment like cycle test machines, custom test fixtures, automation equipment, assembly jigs, inspection stations and more. You can find us at www.teampipeline.us Watch the show on YouTube : www.youtube.com/@TeamPipelineus
