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Linda Campbell
Thomas Griffith, owner of Griffith CAD Service LLC in Tecumseh, works on a CAD project.
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TECUMSEH, Mich.
As far back as grade school, Thomas Griffith knew he wanted to go into architecture when he grew up. By middle school, he was enjoying the task of drawing houses in two-point perspective for class.
Griffith was able to put his drafting talents to good use when he went to work for a Toledo-based firm and for Tecumseh Products. But when Tecumseh Products laid him off from his associate engineer job two years ago, he decided to take his 20-plus years’ experience and go into business for himself.
He first operated Griffith CAD Service from his home, but “I found that people are hesitant to just call a phone number. ... I had a couple of customers, but not enough,” he said. And so, on Jan. 23 he opened an office in the Tecumseh West office building at 1204 W. Chicago Blvd., Suite F, in Tecumseh.
Griffith can provide customers with a wide range of computer-aided design services. He can produce residential designs for people looking to build new homes or to do remodeling or additions.
Business services include 2D redraws of old pencil drawings; 3D computer modeling of parts, assembly and layout drawings; instruction sheets for customer assembly; and drawings for a company catalog. Eventually, he wants to expand to include things like 3D printing.
Griffith designed parts and other items both for Tecumseh Products and for a Toledo company through which he was “farmed out” to companies including Libbey Glass and Sun Oil.
“There are all sorts of parts I can design for companies,” he said. “It all depends on what business they’re in.”
As far as residential design is concerned, customers can bring him their “wish list” for what they want included in the space they’re building and discuss with him issues like how they want to use that space. He will then create the design and can work with the builder, who might have suggestions of his or her own on such things as cost-effective ways to achieve the desired outcome.
Estimates are provided free of charge.
Griffith, a native of Monroe who now lives in Tecumseh, holds associate degrees in architectural technology and in drafting and design technology from Monroe Community College. He is planning to at some point complete the bachelor’s degree in computer-aided design he began at Eastern Michigan University.
Doing the type of design work that he’s done for more than two decades takes a certain way of looking at the world.
“You have to be able to see the part or home in 3D,” he said.
But while that skill has been part of the job all along, the actual technology used to do the work has changed greatly over time. Drafting tables and “hand-drawing (a design) with a pencil and a T-square and triangles” have gone the way of the dinosaur, replaced by computer programs that allow their user to not only create the design for, say, a part, but also to do things like seeing if the part will work in real life as it should. And “there are so many CAD software types it’s mind-boggling,” Griffith said. “Each one allows you to do different things.”
Griffith CAD Service’s hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday or on Saturday by appointment. The office can be reached at 423-9206.
This article was written based on information provided by the business.
Lenawee in Business is a feature of The Daily Telegram business page for new businesses and businesses celebrating a major anniversary. If you have a story for a Lenawee in Business, call assistant news editor Sue Van Fleet at 265-5111, ext. 259, or email sue@lenconnect.com.