Tracy Hazzard is an Inc. Columnist and the Product Strategist for Hazz Design.
She has co-designed and developed 250+ consumer products! She works with design-leading brands like Martha Stewart Living and Herman Miller and retailers like Costco and Target. She holds over 37 utility and design patents.
For 25 years, Tracy has been pushing businesses to rethink their product lines as a strategy to design in success and increase revenues. A proponent of intentional innovation as a competitive advantage and asset-builder, Tracy is the co-inventor of 37 patents with her husband and partner Tom. Tracy is also co-host of the top-ranked podcast, WTFFF?! – the starting point for all things 3D printing.
Nora Toure: Tracy, could you let us know about your background and what brought you into 3D printing in the first place?
Tracy Hazzard: I have a Textile Design degree from Rhode Island School of Design but very quickly moved into what was considered Industrial or Product Design. For me, it felt wholly unsatisfying to only get to participate in a small part of the design process, a fabric or finish. Since college, I have partnered on and off for projects with my Industrial Designer husband, Tom Hazzard. I found it so rewarding because it balanced my research and strategic vision approach with his more technical and intuitive engineering approach. Eventually, we started doing it full-time and are now known as Hazz Design Consulting. Over the years, we used 3D Printing to produce prototypes, but until 2014 we did not take the leap to bring a machine into our design process and work environment.
Read the rest at Women in 3D Printing
