OUR TEAM
Current Team
Loren Crotty:
Fabricator and Electician 2021 -2023
Project Manager 2023 - Present
What began as a quick “hey come check out this project for an afternoon and let me know what we're looking at” A simple electrical safety modification that was noticed, quickly turned into a full overhaul and redesign of the electrical, mechanical, casters, suspension, a most every system that was in place from the first team. He attributes these systems failures to A) time and money pressure felt by the first team B) No time for systems testing and improvement C) No Burners on the first team who had real experience with how robust the moving parts would have to be to withstand the elements and repeated wear and tear. D) the second team just plugged in more an more components, upgrading and eventually the original electrical design was over burdened and needed to be upgraded. Additional project contribution includes robotics design and implementation, which currently controls that head motions. In 2023 Marilyn Ines Rodriguez, deemed that she was no longer needed by the project and handed day to day management of the project and it's evolving schdule over to Loren Crotty who has subsequently managed and coordinated all aspects of the cuttlefish repairs, improvemnts, events managements, including booking, insurance, HR, itinerary, logistics etc from 2023 to present time, and leads a group of independent contraced specialists who travel with the cuttlefish to paid and volunteer events all over the state as needed.
Bill Kennedy:
Duties: Inflatable design and project troubleshooting for various build issues outside of the inflatable including dual hitch reinforcement design, CAD models for various components and administrative duties.
Bill was contracted to sew a skin that had been designed and cut by Stan Clark. Bill was unable to make the existing design work with the moving parts and other design complications already put in place by the first team, so he scrapped the original deign entirely and went back to the drawing board starting from scratch, eventually designing a new fully custom skin for this inflatable creature.
Bill Kennedy: www.Inflatabill.com Custom 3D inflatable artist with 25+ years experience spent 18 months working on this prototype and design to match a custom art a car, eventually settling on 5 separate balloons, working closely with friend and shop tenant, Brian Willison, coordinating lighting integration into the skin design.
Brian Willison:
Chief Lighting Designer and Project Development Leader 2021-2022.
Brians primary focus was to be on implementing lighting that had been built and designed already by the first team. After working on a system of 5volt lighting that had failed to initialize, and was relatively complicated in its custom design, brian also opted to throw in the towl and scrap the original team's work. He chose a much more off the shelf approach to the whole lighting design, and ended up with 12V lighting which eliminated a host of problems with voltage loss and power distribution. Hee also worked extensively with Bill prototyping the inflatable skin, and integrating the lighting into the design to achieve the desired look and diffusion. He also oversaw the design, build, programming, and install of the lighting system. He gets all the credit for this portion of the car. Brian was also instrumental in the systems integration, sourcing the void stereo that is part of the iconic look of the cuttlefish to this day, as well as doing many hours of research and getting what seems to be the first even hemispherical LED eyeballs that are a huge standout on this project. Multiple project supervision and systems integration including integration of complete lighting control via ipad and sound control via onboard wifi. He worked as the day to day development and prototyping leader until his exit from the project in August 2022.
Skyler Brand:
Fabrication, prototyping and design 2022-2023
Skyler came from ten years working as a race car mechanic, most recently coming off of a several year stint with the world renound and prestigious Penske Formula 1 race team. Competing in events all across the US and Europe, in a fast paced, high stakes race environment, Skyler proved adaptible and useful on this project, ending up as the mechanical go to man for all things motors, sprockets and moving parts, over his year on the team. He excelled in keeping all of the vehicle side of our operation tip top, as well as assisting in fabrication and prototyping on a variety of projects including tackling the cams motor drive issue which had gone through two or 3 renditions before his attention to the project. This project served him well as he resettled in his home town and contemplated his next career move, which ultimately landed him at Kindred Motors, operating from Vallejo California, where he now serves as the Technical Manager, overseeing prototyping of their EV line of high end restoration Vehicles
Ariel Herman:
Licensed Contractor -Fabricator, ancillary projects specialist 2023-2024
Ariel is a licensed contractor (re.construction@sonic.net) and primarily attended events on the road with the cuttlefish, adding technical expertise and troubleshooting any problems that arose on site, as well as assistance fabricating in the shop.
Joel Franceschi: Jack of all trades – 2024-present: Fabricator, woodworker. Architecture/design student,
Joel has assisted in a variety of tasks including troubleshooting, woodworking, systems integration, rebuilding the gear motor assemblies as well as logistics, event support, and on site support.
Joel Franceschi:
Jack of all trades – 2024-present:
Fabricator, woodworker. Architecture/design student,
Joel has assisted in a variety of tasks including troubleshooting, woodworking, systems integration, rebuilding the gear motor assemblies as well as logistics, event support, and on site support.
Patrick Malone:
15 years experience as an Events Promoter, Accomplished musician, music producer and DJ -Malarkey /Mayday . Patrick is our main booking agent, lining up acts on our Art Cars and at our in house produced events. Also instrumental in event coorfination + production for our non profit events 2024-2025. Additional on site and logistics crew.
John Ian Buell:
DJ, music producer and Sound engineer:
Ian is one of our two house DJ's who holds it down on the console putting out an eclectic blend of sounds from trip hop, trap, dub, drum & bass, dub step & down-tempo. Aside from playing tunes, he is an important part of our events crew, holding down on the road with assembly and take down of our vehicles, site work, and vehicle maintenance, as well as putting in hours working at the shop on various projects in between events.
Mat McQuaid:
Musician, Sound technician, Sound engineer.
Mat is an instrumental part of our on site events crew, keeping an eye and ear on our sound gear and controlling the mix for our various artists who who host onboard. Additional onsite vehicle setup and cuttlefish maintenance.
Antonio Collodi:
Rex:
Fabrication, Welding
Assisted with early team 2 fixes on the double hitch assembly, cam angle bracket reinforcement, assorted welding a fabricating.
TEAM 1:
Marilyn Ines Rodrigues:
Project manager, creative inspiration, concept artist 2018-2022
Duties: assembled the first team and sculpted concept art that led to the original fabric design and served as the basis for the first rendition of the Mutant Vehicle. Oversaw engineers and fabricators through the first rendition of the project. Eventually parted with the first team and hired and supervised the second team for a time, bringing a functional finished project to The Desert, it's intended debut event in 2022.
Greg Aims:
Project development leader 2018-2022
prototyping, heavy vehicle modification, retrofit of drive platform and conceptual design. Original Electrical system design and integration.
Dustin Eaton:
Engineering with focus of the design of the rotating Cam Systems
Stan Clark:
Astrobotanicals.com – Prototyping and design for original conceptual inflatable skin, Commencing the collapse of the first team of fabricators and engineers on this project due to internal conflict, Marilyn, the project manager was left with a partially completed art car but no team to get all of the issues worked out. Following a 2021 phone call from Marilyn to Bill Kennedy, bill agreed to check it out and see if he could take what was described as a “working art car” and along with his shop mate (a lighting designer) they would take on the project and get the inflatable skin made, and the lights working. This proved to be a significant overstatement, and the project had a number of systems that would work on the warehouse floor for some simple testing, but in no way were built to survive the elements that awaited them in the desert. Bill and Brian had about 20 years of desert experience between them and knew that more robust systems were needed and began to takle some of the “not in their wheelhouse of expertise” projects before they could even get to what they had been hired to do. Spending a few months figuring out an already breaking dual hitch assembly and hiring a welder to fabricate some brackets and supports, adding linkages and hitch points to shore up the overburdened tow vehicle.