Kevin Ayers is now industry manager of manufacturing and 3D printing with SME

Apr 11, 2014 13:35 GMT  ·  By

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers isn't specifically focused on 3D printing technology, but it does have a sub-division that specializes in this domain. It is that division that former FBI agent Kevin Ayers will be leading from now on.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is mostly known, publicly and fictionally, as an organization that investigates and spies on people.

In real life, however, its operations are far broader, more varied, than some might think. For instance, the FBI has a manufacturing lab.

That lab is where Kevin Ayers spent 30 years of his life working. But he also was a member, at times volunteer, of SME’s Rapid Technologies & Additive Manufacturing Community.

In his tenure there, he contributed to SME’s RAPID 3D printing summit. Now, he has become the industry manager of the additive manufacturing and 3D printing division of SME (the Society of Manufacturing Engineers).

Basically, he will now manage and develop all of SME's 3D printing-related activities, in addition to serving on the Governance Board of America Makes.

America Makes is the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute of the United States of America, in case you were wondering.

Since Ayers worked with DARPA on additive manufacturing for years, and even got the FBI to use the technique all the way back in 1993, he's a logical choice. His double position at America Makes and SME will help proliferate the breakthroughs that the FBI has been hoarding all these years.