Hispanic Enterprise - February/March 2008 - (Page 14)

BRIEFCASE TRENDSETTER By Conrad Dahlson avid Rojas has been drawing since childhood. His mother is an architect, and he’s been at it since he could barely see over her work table. Cars always fueled his interest. Besides drawing them, he loved taking them apart. His boyhood passion led him to what many car enthusiasts would consider a dream job. But it took training to get there. Rojas attended The Art Institute of Philadelphia, where he earned an associate’s degree in industrial design and technology. After graduating, he went to work as a designer and sculptor for RJ Studios, a subsidiary of Mattel, the toy company. But after two years there, he still had cars on his mind, so he headed to the birthplace fof the automobile, Detroit.There, he attended the College for Creative Studies, graduating with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in transportation design.While in school, Rojas served internships with Daihatsu Motor Company in Osaka, Japan, 14 D DRIVING FORCE Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, and the Converse shoe company. All paved the way for his next challenge. When he graduated in 2005, Rojas joined GM Design as a creative designer in the HUMMER studio. His ﬁrst assignment: design a small, more efﬁcient HUMMER. He was one of three designers on the project, and they were given free range with no rules or restrictions. The other two designers, Min Young Kang and Rob- While most boys enjoy playing with cars, David Rojas’ love of drawing them eventually drove him to help design GM’s latest toy, the HUMMER HX. ert Jablonski, had been his classmates at the College for Creative Studies. While many cars on the road are designed with baby boomers in mind, the HUMMER update was to be geared toward Generation Y. Rojas, 31, took the wheel in designing the vehicle’s exterior. “I went about the project as something I would buy,” he explains. And that meant ﬂexibility and personalization in the design. “For me, more options, that’s HISPANIC ENTERPRISE February/March 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Hispanic Enterprise - February/March 2008

Hispanic Enterprise - February/March 2008 Contents Briefcase: BIZBUZZ: Business Briefs Briefcase: Trendsetters Briefcase: BIZTECH: Virtually Meeting BizLife: Travel: Madrid's New Attraction Q & A: Mi Case es su Casa Hispanic Commerce: The Agenda Cover Story: The Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity Technology: Hispanic Web 2.0 Success & Motivation: Sweetening the Deal Politics & Government: The Rescue Generation Managing: The Method Franchising: The Hispanic Face of Franchising Chamber Focus: It's Showtime Movers & Shakers: Open for Business Finance & Investing: Getting Your 401(K) on Target

Hispanic Enterprise - February/March 2008

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