1. June 2015
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Our People with Rick Girt
Our People…
with Rick Girt
Meet Rick, an artist turned Mechanical Engineer
who with perseverance married the girl of his
dreams, went on to have a wonderful family,
wields a gun, but not the kind you think, and
enjoys relaxing while puffing on one of his
favorite cigars.
Rick’s creativity, thirst for life, and desire for
continuous improvement makes him an
incredible addition to the Noise Solutions team.
Take a peek into this Designer’s life inside and
outside of Noise Solutions office!
NS: What’s your story? Tell us about
yourself. Where are you from, and how did
you get to where you are today?
Rick: I moved around quite a bit when I was
younger, but I consider my home town
Meadville, PA. It’s a small city located about
an hour north of the Sharon plant. I
graduated from High School there, as well
as Vocational School for Drafting and
Design. In the late 90’s, Computer Aided
Drafting wasn’t as available as it is now, so I
spent my first 2.5 years board drafting. As a
side note, my original intention was to go
into the graphic art program but I was
hoodwinked into joining the Drafting
program by a friend. I think this
circumstance, along with the tedious
development of hand drawing skill helped
me to develop a particular mindset, where I
view the creation of construction drawings
as an art form. I attempted to segue into an
engineering degree after high school but a
series of bad life decisions and “tough love”
from my parents gave way to a failed
college experience.

2. June 2015
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Our People with Rick Girt
Not deterred, I decided to really convince
the girl I loved to marry me while trying to
scratch out a living as a poor and destitute
bachelor. After numerous breakups and two
proposals, she finally acquiesced and we
went about the business of making a family.
Neither of us lost sight of continued
education though. In our 15 years of
marriage, we took turns going to school.
Both of us worked full time and raised our
two boys while taking full time classes.
During that time I had earned an Associate’s
Degree in Computer Aided Drafting &
Design as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in
Mechanical Engineering Technology.
Today we live in Sharpsville, PA which is
most conveniently located about 3 miles
from Noise Solutions. It is not my shortest
commute ever, but certainly a favorable
one.
NS: Do you have a favorite pastime or
hobby? What’s something people might be
surprised to learn about you?
Rick: I have too many hobbies. I often think
that if I settled on one hobby, I’d be pretty
impressive at it, but I just can’t pick one. In
the past I played guitar in, and managed a
band for about 6 years. During that time we
performed in 18 states on a 30 day self-
promoted tour, and had the pleasure of
sharing the stage with some notable bands.
Currently, I manage a paintball team that
travels to major events several times a year.
This I do with my elder son. We’ve played
events that number upwards of 2,500
participants during a 2 day long game. With
my younger son I play and collect Magic:
The Gathering cards. We go to a local
gaming shop several times a month to
compete. Additionally, I enjoy collecting
pipes & cigars, motorcycling, playing video
games, reading (mostly fantasy, fiction, and
horror). Some of my technical skills come in
handy on the side as I also assist a friend
who designs and builds tattoo machines.
My wife and I take dancing lessons and
maintain a very active social life. I’m fairly
certain that to anyone who knows me well,
there’s nothing I do that would be all that
surprising.

3. June 2015
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Our People with Rick Girt
NS: How long have you been working with
Noise Solutions? What attracted you to
Noise Solutions?
Rick: I’ve been employed at Noise Solutions
since May of last year, so a little over the
yearly mark. I started work part time as I
was still attending YSU. This past December
I graduated, at which point I started work
full time. At the time I was hired, I had been
laid off from my previous job due to budget
cutbacks. The position was referred to me
by a peer who had also been job searching
at the same time. It was just my luck that
this opportunity was so close to home, as all
the other options I had been looking at
were half an hour or more away. It was the
excitement of being a part of something
new and growing that drew me to the
position, something I hope will continue its
appeal for a long time.
NS: How has your role with the company
changed since you started? What’s your
current job title and what are some of your
responsibilities?
Rick: My current job title is Designer, and
my role has taken a natural progression of
becoming more and more familiar with the
product that we produce. When I started
working here, the tasks given to me were
only small parts of the drawing packages
that we produce. It didn’t take long to be
assigned entire jobs though, as the design
department continued to see an increase of
output with a decrease in available
personnel. Lately I have been handed more
and more Self Framing packages to produce
with guidance from Rod in order to gain
enough familiarity with it to take some of

4. June 2015
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Our People with Rick Girt
the load off of Rod and Tetyana. What I’d
like to accomplish is to make our software
do more of the work for us, therefore
reducing design time and costs. This also
has the added benefit of storing our design
standards within the software. Whether
we’re dealing with part numbers,
descriptions, size limitations, assembly
procedures, and so on, the software we use
is capable of storing this information with
the end goal of automating a lot of what
takes up our time. Eliminating and reducing
the amount of redundant information we
produce, along with the latent information
we’re required to remember is paramount
to becoming quicker and more accurate
with our departments output.
Unfortunately this requires a ton of front
end work though, that we seldom have
time to do.
NS: Were there any past experiences
(either outside of Noise Solutions, or inside
the company) that influenced your desire
to take on this role?
Rick: Almost all of my previous experience
and past education has lead me to excel in a
role such as this. In college I learned quickly
how to identify the strengths and
weaknesses of my classmates and use those
to our mutual advantage when completing
assignments. I’ve worked for companies
where I was the sole designer as well as one
of many. In each of these roles I was able to
bring to the table process improvements
and training to the benefit of my employers
and co-workers. Sometimes, I have even
been lucky enough to have my suggestions
well received! In my previous position, I
worked with a team of design engineers to
develop a template using the iLogic Feature
in Inventor to automate the design of
complex shipping containers. Once you
entered in the length, width, height, and
specified the quantity and types of options,
the software would generate the models
and drawings for these containers
automatically. Even after my employment
had ended there, I helped train my former
coworkers to do something similar within
AutoCAD. Before that I was the sole
designer for a pressurized vessel company
under the tutelage of their engineer. It was
in this role that I learned the importance of
developing a working rapport with the shop
personnel in order to learn how to design
with ease of manufacturing in mind.
Previous to that I worked on a team of 12
designers to produce construction drawings
for cell tower site improvements and
construction. Many of these coworkers had

5. June 2015
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Our People with Rick Girt
an understanding of the software we used
as it existed 10 years previous, with no
experience using advanced and improved
features. I helped them develop a block
library of entities we used frequently that
was shared across all stations so that
everyone was on the same page as we
produced drawings in order to maintain a
homogeneous look. And since I suspect that
anyone still reading this portion will be
thoroughly bored by now, I’ll refrain from
summarizing the rest of my work
experience.
NS: What would you say your biggest
strength is in your job—what do you feel
you do really well and could be a good
mentor for others with?
Rick: Given the small amount of time I’ve
been with the company, I feel like my
biggest strength is my willingness to admit
mistakes and inexperience with certain
aspects of the job. Additionally, my desire
to improve upon and correct my own
practices and procedures will make me
more valuable to the team as time goes on.
Nothing is more of a wet blanket than
dealing with people who manage to find
any reason to absolve themselves of fault.
Besides, it seems like it would be too
exhausting to be constantly “correct”, while
looking for the errors in others. I prefer to
learn from my mistakes and move on. I
have to give a lot of credit to the rest of the
engineering department for their teaching
and patience as I acclimate to this role.
Many aspects of its procedures and
practices are unique to this company. While
I have learned a lot from them, I believe
that a fresh perspective is often times a
valuable tool in improving upon something
that may be stale or stagnant procedure.
NS: Do you have any noteworthy
accomplishments within Noise Solutions or
in your personal life?

6. June 2015
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Our People with Rick Girt
Rick: Immediately what comes to mind is
improving how we publish drawings. When
I started, a drawing package was composed
of dozens of PDF files, one file for each
page. Can you imagine writing a report and
having one file per each page of the report?
This was mostly because the option to
publish a multipage PDF of a drawing set
was buried in the software’s options. Not
very intuitive! With this small change we
were able to clean up our NSM files and
shave precious minutes off of publishing the
drawing packages, not to mention the error
introduced when performing tedious tasks.
While this seems like such a minor change
that couldn’t be possibly considered as
noteworthy, it’s little tweaks like this that
add up over time and contribute to the
overall efficiency of the department. I like
to say that the truest form of efficiency
looks like laziness. Why do something twice
when you only have to do something once?
Find the common denominators and
arrange for them replicate themselves.
In my personal life I’ve very proud of how
far I’ve come in the past four years. I’ve
finished my engineering degree, made
drastic health improvements, a strong and
healthy relationship with my wife and two
boys. I am quite literally a different person
than I used to be. It’s a constant drive to
improve and reduce that keeps me going.
NS: What’s the best advice you ever
received in business, in life or both? What
advice would you be apt to offer up to
someone?
Rick: I have a small number of maxims that I
generally try to live my life by, but I’m afraid
that none of them would be quite work
appropriate. So I’ll submit something that I
read recently that really stuck with me.
Louis C.K. said that “The only time you look

7. June 2015
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Our People with Rick Girt
in your neighbor's bowl is to make sure that
they have enough. You don't look in your
neighbor's bowl to see if you have as much
as them.” Admittedly, sometimes this is
really tough to do as I think we are all guilty
from time to time of measuring our own
successes by the success of others. This
poor practice often transforms into a
mindset of self-importance, a quality that I
have come to despise in others. Once you
come to regard yourself as more valuable
than others, you cease to benefit from the
knowledge and experience of the people
around you, thus crippling yourself. This
also has the added detriment of being a
drag to hang around with.