Paul Hatch is a British industrial designer and is the founder / CEO of TEAMS Design USA, a global product design consultancy. Since 1998, Hatch has been successfully establishing TEAMS Design USA as a local consultancy with a global outlook. TEAMS Design USA has become a valuable consistent team member for companies such as Robert Bosch GmbH, Newell Brands, Siemens, Hitachi, A.T._Kearney, Intel, Honeywell, FCA and Bissell. Together with management consultant Kearney, Hatch also co-founded PERlab, a division of Kearney meshing analytical processes with design strategy to create a set of unique Design-To-Value practices.
History
Hatch graduated in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in industrial design from Northumbria University. He went to work for TEAMS Design GmbH in Esslingen in 1994. In 1998 he was tasked with opening Teams Design's first satellite office in Chicago, Illinois. Since its conception, TEAMS Design USA believes that it has quietly strived to deliver innovative design based on user experience, ergonomics, with a strong basis in manufacturing under Hatch's leadership. He is regularly invited to lecture at various universities and organizations both locally and internationally. Hatch served his local design colleagues as the Industrial Designers Society of America Midwest District Vice-President from 2004–2006. During that time period, he organized three district conferences for IDSA. Hatch was the elected conference chair for the 2013 IDSA International Conference in Chicago called "Breaking the Rules". In April 2009, Hatch was the third design professional ever to be awarded the IDSA Midwest Honors for Outstanding Achievement. Hatch is also regularly invited to lecture students at colleges and universities across the US. Hatch recently finished up serving as the IDSA Director of Conference Experience and sat on the Board of Directors. Hatch is the co-founder of the non-profit organization "Design House" whose mission is to revitalize local manufacture through design". Together with Pam Daniels and Susan Page Estes he created a process in which idea generation at public "Design Jam" events would help diversify the portfolios of selected local manufacturers, with the goal to bolster their longevity. This method differed from traditional design idea generation in that it started with the specialisms and constraints of the selected manufacturers, rather than starting with an idea and then finding a manufacturer. The latter option often leads to outsourcing offshore manufacturing, which was the issue this method addressed. The initial Design Jams were hosted in Hatch's hometown of Chicago but then spread to other cities seeking restabilization of the local industries, including San Francisco, Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. In 2015 Hatch and Estes were invited to the White House by Penny Pritzker and the Barack Obama administration as part of discussions on how to revitalize local manufacture. Hatch is also the founder of "Fight Club", an open public debate event that took place in darkened warehouses, where two experts would debate within a chalk circle, surrounded by the standing audience. Like the namesake movie Fight Club, there were "no rules" to the debate and the audience could interject at any time. This provided for an intense, open debate of a range of subjects such as the death penalty, censorship, the legalization of marijuana, and human cloning. One "fight" got featured on ABC, which led to shooting a pilot for a television series. The New York Times called the non-holds barred event a "Designer Slugfest". In 2018 Hatch was one of two people inducted into the IDSA Academy of Fellows, the IDSA's Designer Hall of Fame that includes designers such as Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, Bill Moggridge, Niels Diffrient, and Jay Doblin.
Personal life
Hatch currently resides in Chicago, Illinois with his wife Jacqueline and his two sons. He met his wife while working in Germany. Hatch is involved in various community volunteer projects and still contributes to the IDSA and the local design community.
