About

Experience beats curiosity, but having both makes things all the more easy. My name is Tom McNair, 41 years of age, happily married for a decade and a half to my wonderful and very understanding wife, Edith. I am blessed with three daughters, with a grandson on the way. I am a mechanical engineer and have been one at heart since I could learn to pick up the tools in my father’s workshop.

I was born in Cambridge but moved to Exeter after I married my wife in the summer of 1994. From there, I was hired on by several companies. In some of the jobs I’ve had, I held a managerial position that involved handling numerous talents and personalities in varied projects around the country. Most of the work I did, however, involved getting down and dirty with my hands.

Though I enjoyed my stay in each and every one of the companies I did work for, none of them seemed to be the right place for me. The combination of job hopping and soul searching unfortunately led to a very volatile financial situation.

After years of the same pattern of jumping from one engineering job to the next, I decided to move back to my hometown with my family in tow. Gathering all that I have learned, I founded and still run my own company that specializes in small-time and local construction projects in Cambridge.

The company I run is called MLS Engineering, but I still do the nitty gritty of things. Despite having a relatively large workforce, I’ve never been suited for a position where I sit around all the day and make phone calls. You can still find me in the workshop, sleeves rolled up and sweating like the rest of the guys, or at construction sites, hard hat firmly on my head.

In this blog, I’ll be taking that selfsame approach, discussing the projects I did in the past years, projects I am currently working on, and – most importantly – projects I plan to do moving forward. I will also write about topics and aspects on engineering that every mechanical engineer and engineering hobbyists will find useful in their professional and everyday lives.

Having experienced following my passion and building my company from the ground up, I understand how important peer support is for budding engineers. That, and the simple fact that I am an extremely opinionated gentleman, led to the creation of this blog.

From building the simplest of mechanisms to getting a job in the field of engineering, this blog will be the manifestation of almost twenty years of dedication to the science and art of engineering.

When I am not giving out pearls of advice (whether through this blog or in person), I find joy in listening to the music of Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and – more recently – the classical works of Bach and Mozart. I blame my pianist daughter for the last two. I also do charity work at our local (and still unnamed) veterinary clinic and as of the turn of the New Year, become the owner of two rescue dogs: Max and Pearl.