Automakers look everywhere for design talent these days

DETROIT -- You have not heard of Jason Mosery, a clay modeler at Ford.

And, depending on how his career evolves and what projects he’s chosen to work on, it may be years before you do again. Many people who work in design at automakers do great work but are never visible to the public. People like Jerry Malinowski, who you will hear more about a little later.

We are visiting with Mosery today because he represents a win for a Detroit auto industry struggling to attract top talent. Other industries in other tech and design hubs -- electronics, gaming, etc. -- are siphoning off the skilled creative types that traditionally came to Detroit. Two of the toughest automotive jobs to fill in Detroit today are engineers and designers.

Detroit’s gritty national image, combined with startups in California, such as Tesla, and companies dabbling in cars, such as Google and Apple, have made it even more difficult for automakers to fill skilled jobs here.

None of that mattered to Mosery.

He dreamed of being a car designer since he was 5 years old, and he was determined to make it happen.

Mosery had a bit of luck, some help, a mentor and good timing. But it was more a combination of hard work, determination and social media savvy that landed him his job at Ford fresh out of school earlier this year.

Road to Detroit

After trying mechanical engineering and graphic arts, Mosery dropped out of school in 2005 and was working full time at a bank in Monroe, La. One day, he told a customer what he really wanted to do with his life: Design cars.

“I showed a customer on my phone some cars that I had drawn,” Mosery recalled. “She told me: ‘They have what you want at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.’ I emailed Jerry Malinowski and asked him if I could sit in on classes and to see what they did,” he said.

Fifty years ago, Malinowski was one of the original members of the Ford Mustang design team. He helped create the Mustang’s distinctive red, white and blue galloping horse logo in his 1961-64 stint at Ford. Today, Malinowski, 76, is the industrial design coordinator at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and a professor there.

Though he played a key role in the creation of one of the original Mustang’s most iconic design elements, somehow, Malinowski’s name has been left out of most of the histories of Ford’s most famous sports car. Many die-hard Mustang fans have never heard of him.

Mosery enrolled at UL but says he was advised by some faculty to not focus only on the auto industry.

“Your degree is in general industrial design,” his teachers told him. “You can do anything with it. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

“It was solid advice because this is such a hard industry to get into. But since I was about 5 years old, I always had this desire to create, and I was fascinated by cars,” Mosery told me. “It was really hard for me as a kid to focus, but cars caught my attention. I would pretend I had assignments, and I would try to design different cars. I had it in my mind from the get-go that this is what I wanted to do.”

Mosery’s first couple years in school were tough. “I didn’t think I would make it past the first semester. I did it because of fear. I was afraid of what was going to happen if I didn’t make it,” Mosery said. But by the third year, he was cruising.

Mosery’s determination caught Malinowski’s attention. “I saw a passion in Jason that I probably have never seen in any student,” he told me. “Jason worked and worked and worked,” said Malinowski, adding that Mosery won the school’s Design Merit award. “He left here one of the most developed students.”

Now 29, Mosery graduated in May with a degree in industrial design, one of 12 in his class. He is the only one of his classmates working in the auto industry. Some went to work for toy companies, clothing makers and boat manufacturers.

But before Mosery left school, he started reaching out via Facebook and other outlets to designers, engineers, auto writers and auto industry executives for advice and counsel on landing a job in Detroit.

Expectation meets reality

Mosery packed his clothes and Sophie Gertrude, his miniature dachshund, in his car and drove to Detroit in May for the start of a three-month internship. He aced it. And in August, he was made a permanent contractor. Next step: being hired directly by Ford. He is one of about 140 clay modelers working at Ford’s Product Development Center in Dearborn, in the same building Malinowski worked 50 years ago.

Mosery says his education gave him the proper training to get started in his career. But he knows he has a lot to learn. “I was expecting to come here and have to be on top of everything. But it really is a nurturing environment where I am being taught. It’s like: ‘We are going to shape you and help you become a better modeler or designer or whatever field you are going go into,’’’ he said.

Mosery is an example of how Ford and other automakers are looking for design talent all over, not just at the usual schools such as Detroit’s College for Creative Studies or Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.

“Talent can come from anywhere, and we hire employees for digital and clay sculpting positions with degrees ranging from industrial design and transportation design to architecture and fine art, especially ceramics and sculpture,” said Sheryl Garrett, global creative resource manager for General Motors Design.

Mosery says Michigan in general and Detroit in particular are surprising. But not in the way you are thinking.

“It is better than I expected. Everyone thinks it is decrepit and falling apart. But I think it is going through a revival, a rebirth. I could have worked in California. But there is something about Detroit. I felt like people were always rooting against it. To me, I always kind of connected to that. It’s kind of cool to live in a city that is going through such an important time. There’s no where to go but up.”

Mosery has been working on clay models and interiors and exteriors. His job now from 4 p.m. to midnight is to convert digital drawings into clay models using computer numerical control machines.

He doesn’t know if he will ever design cars. But at this juncture in his career, he isn’t concerned about becoming the next Ralph Gilles or Bryan Nesbitt. He is thrilled to be working here now. And he won’t mind if no one outside the industry knows his name.

“I didn’t expect five years ago that I would be here. Being where I am at today, I am extremely happy and thankful,” Mosery said. “But if I grow, if I become a designer in five years, that’s even better.”

Mosery, Malinowski’s first student in 15 years at UL to land a job in the auto industry, has made his former teacher quite proud.

“Jason will evolve into a designer at some point,” says Malinowski. “This guy is going places.”