This article will be the first in a two part series which will be published the following week. The first edition of this series will deal with Tim Swift’s journey through college and his various jobs while the second will deal with life-long lessons and advice. 

Life is a series of stepping stones; first from one school to the next, then from one job to the next. Through each of these experiences people hope to learn and accomplish something. Mechanical engineer Tim Swift has done just that. Seeking to be the best, rather than settling for less, his insatiable desire to invent and make the world a better place has led to the invention of several noteworthy products.

Tim Swift is currently the business owner of Otherlab Orthotics. He has attained numerous patents, and currently lives in the San Francisco area. However how did he come to find such accomplishments, and what was the key to his success?

Swift grew up in Fresno and attended Buchanan High School as a freshman. However, finding the environment ill suited to his needs, he later decided to venture into the private sect.

“I went to Buchanan my freshman year of high school,” Swift said. “I then transferred in my sophomore year to FCS because Buchanan just didn’t seem to suit me. The best thing about Fresno Christian was that I got to do everything. At Buchanan I was really only able to do one extracurricular activity. At Fresno Christian I was in leadership, publications, academic decathlon, baseball, basketball, and then a host of little other things in between. In each of those I served as a central role and that just wasn’t possible in a public school setting. Going to Fresno Christian really allowed me to focus on the things I wanted to do.”

After FCS, Swift attended college where he graduated from in 2006 from Fresno State with a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering.

“I went to Fresno State right out of high school,” Swift said. “I spent four years there, graduated, then I took a year off where I worked full time to allow my wife to graduate from Fresno State. When I went to Fresno State, I was in the Smittcamp Family Honors College. They paid for my school, and I got to stay with my family for a little longer. It worked out great. There aren’t very many A-track Engineers coming out of Fresno State who also worked a part time job alongside a full schedule of school.”

My job is to do the impossible. This task has led to a number of really cool accomplishments of mine. I have 20-25 patents at this point and have covered a lot of really cool technology. I was a lead inventor of Ekso while at Ekso Bionics which was recognized as a top invention of 2010 (Time, Yahoo, Wired). This device has gone on to being the most commercially successful exoskeleton in the world today and has around 140 units in use across the US and Europe. –Tim Swift

Between Swift’s sophomore and junior year of undergraduate studies, he married his wife in 2004. In the time since then, they have had two children, a four and six year old boy. After taking a year off after graduating from Fresno State, Swift worked for a year to provide for his wife, and then left to graduate studies at UC Berkeley where he received his PhD in controls in 2011.

“When I went into grad school, I knew what I wanted to do,” Swift said. “So I went to a couple of professors at Berkeley who would help me out with robotics, and their response was rather interesting. I went to one of them and expressed how I really wanted to spend the rest of my life pursuing this path; however, he felt strongly that because I went to Fresno State I couldn’t hack it if I went to a school like CAL. He phrased it, ‘I’m teaching a class this semester, you can come join in and see if you can hang with the big boys.’ I had learned to trust myself from a young age, and I decided to try it out. I went to the class and ended up rising to the occasion, and ended up doing the best in the entire class.”

What people see as near impossible, others see as the only road which can be traversed. We as the human race often view difficulties, and expect nothing but long days and sorrows. However they are often sprinkled with accomplishments.

“My job is to do the impossible,” Swift said. “This task has led to a number of really cool accomplishments of mine. I have 20-25 patents at this point and have covered a lot of really cool technology. I was a lead inventor of Ekso while at Ekso Bionics which was recognized as a top invention of 2010 (Time, Yahoo, Wired). This device has gone on to being the most commercially successful exoskeleton in the world today and has around 140 units in use across the US and Europe.”

Looking back upon what Swift has accomplished since leaving Ekso Bionics, one comes across a hefty list. Swift has founded his own company, built the most efficient pneumatic compressor and the highest performing pneumatic valve in the world.  He has built the most efficient hydraulic pump, and in his current job, they just finished a project where they built the first exoskeleton ever capable of making people run faster and it’s also the first exoskeleton capable of reducing the energy our body requires to run.”

“We are only starting though,” Swift said. “The things we are building now have the potential to one day make exoskeletons that are a few thousand dollars so you could just go to the store and buy a device that will make you run 25% faster.”

This article will be followed up with another installment which will focus upon life long lessons to learn at a young age.

This writer can be reached via Twitter @J0sh_Carter and via email.

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