Conveyors (PDF)

Patrick McGuire has been in the material handling industry for more than twenty years. He has a BS degree in computer integrated manufacturing systems and a professional engineering license for industrial engineering. He started with a very small conveyor manufacturer in upstate New York, J & S Conveyors, where he was the engineering manager. They designed and built a wide variety of conveyors, and manufactured tabletop chain conveyors, flat belt conveyors, heavy unit load conveyors, and troughed belt conveyors. After J & S, he went to work for Rapistan, the world's largest manufacturer of material handling systems, specializing in unit handling, primarily distribution systems. Rapistan has since been bought by Siemens AG. McGuire was involved with the office that also specialized in building in-process manufacturing systems, such as one-of-a-kind conveyors and systems for giants Corning, Kodak, Xerox, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. He worked as a senior systems engineer and a project manager.

After ten years of custom product and system design, he took a position with the products group, where he worked on such things as the high-speed divert for airport baggage after which becoming the product manager for the heavy unit load product line. In that position McGuire led a group of engineers in designing, documenting, and selling a full line of pallet handling conveyors. He has since worked as the director of product engineering for American Ironhorse Motorcycles, and the director of manufacturing and technology for Transnorm System, a specialty conveyor manufacturer. Following Transnorm he was the manager of engineering services and director of manufacturing for Glidepath. As a member of CEMA, he co-authored or edited several chapters of the new CEMA Application Guide for Unit Handling Conveyors.

Since leaving Glidepath he was director of engineering at Orteq, a company specializing in heavy equipment for the oil and gas industry. From there he