MAE Seminar- Pioneering Success: Lessons Learned from an Engineer Turned Entrepreneur

Alexander K. Deyhim holds a Masters in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and an MBA from Cornell University, where he currently serves as Associate Director of the MSE MEng Program.

In 1995, Alex Deyhim founded Advanced Design Consulting USA (ADC) in Lansing, NY and for 25+ years served as CEO/President. In this role, he managed highly complex projects for academic and industry clients as well as major government labs. In additional to securing contracts with private customers around the globe, Mr. Deyhim wrote proposals and won funding from major labs and government agencies including NASA, ORNL, NIST, NSF, NOAA, BNL, ANL, DOD, NAVY, Air Force, Army, DARPA, DOT and similar organizations in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Abstract:  In this raw, and heart-wrenching true story, Alex Deyhim shares his experiences starting a technical engineering company with no money, no rich dad or uncle, having a wife and two young children, a family member with a major illness and, to top it all off, being a graduate student. Mr. Deyhim reveals the ups and downs of nearly three decades of personal experience, detailing his own journey through the rollercoaster of business ownership.

This is a journey from engineer to small local business owner to multi-million-dollar corporation leader within the cutting-edge field of technical and scientific engineering. With complete honesty, Mr. Deyhim reflects upon the value of errors and setbacks as motivating tools of personal growth and a launchpad for improving one’s situation and circumstances. His story unveils how he found inner strength while overcoming daily work crises, managing employee conflict, addressing corporate theft, and overcoming adversity to turn a back-of-the-envelope idea into the successful company that he sold to AVS of Spain in 2019.