Creating the sneaker of the future, with Tiffany Beers

Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Tiffany Beers, vice president of enterprise innovation at VF Corporation, about her work designing products for Nike, Tesla, Logitech and The North Face. Originally recorded on May 8, 2026.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

Ralph Ford 0:05

I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, Chancellor of Penn State Behrend, and you are listening to Behrend Talks. My guest today is Tiffany Beers, Vice President of Enterprise Innovation at VF Corporation. And VF Corporation is the parent company of iconic brands. A whole bunch of them. We'll talk about it. North Face Fans and Timberland. Welcome to the show, Tiffany.

Tiffany Beers 0:26

Hi, thanks. Thanks for having me.

Choosing Engineering At Penn State Behrend

Ralph Ford 0:28

Well, I'm gonna go run through your bio. I'll just note a few things. Today we're recording this episode on May 8th of 2026. Tiffany is a 2002 Behrend graduate, and you're back here on campus today. You're going to give the commencement address, and that's a big deal. We appreciate you being here. A little bit about your background. I'm going to run through it. I always like to do that. You graduated from Behrend Plastics Engineering Technology in 2002, so I guess people can start to do some math there. But uh you began your career at Newell Rubbermaid. I've been there, it's been a long time. I don't know if you were there when I visited, but I remember visiting a School of Engineering Director for sure. And uh but and you had a lot of impact there as a design engineer in less than a year. You saved the company two million dollars by optimizing a manufacturing process. You then spent more than a decade at Nike, joining in 2004 as a senior innovator in the Nike Innovation Kitchen, and you were a technical lead on some of the most advanced footwear ever made. If I get these right, the Air Yeasy, the Air Jordan 29, that's easy. The Nike Mag, which is the uh self-lacing back to the future shoe, and it's a commercial successor called the Hyper Adapt. Along the way, you've accumulated more than 40 patents, the majority of them related to auto lacing technology. In 2017, you went to Tesla, where you were a uh staff technical program manager at the Giga Factory in Reno. You then spent seven years at Logitech and uh head of audio engineering and gaming, and you didn't have any experience in audio engineering. And uh you've worked with uh people like Allison Felix, Olympic champion, helping her with uh her shoes and been in her 2025 documentary, She Runs the World, and uh more recently uh joined VF Corporation, as I said earlier, as vice president of Enterprise Innovation. We want to hear all about that. But before that, you were a Behrend student, you're on our School of Engineering board of visitors, and you are an alumni fellow, which is a big deal. I can always say this. One-tenth of one percent of Penn State alumni hold that designation, and we're real proud of you. So I've talked too much. Tell us a little bit about your origin story. How did you know how did you end up at uh Barrend? I think you grew up in Western PA. How did you end up in engineering and interested in that field?

Tiffany Beers 2:55

Yeah, so yeah, I grew up uh just south of here, about an hour, and um my brothers actually influenced me. One was in tool and die, and one was in process engineering for plastics. And so, like the area we grew up was kind of the tool and die capital world. So there was a lot of injection molding, a lot of plastics happening. And so really, I saw that there was 200% placement, and I figured I'm gonna work and I'm probably not gonna like it. I just assume that. So, like, let's go for something where I can make some money and um have a guaranteed job. And so that led me to engineering, which then led me to plastics, and I looked at a few other universities and I wanted to play volleyball. So I yeah, managed to make walk on the team here, and uh yeah, it was it was perfect.

Ralph Ford 3:44

Did your volleyball team win any championships while you were here?

Tiffany Beers 3:47

Anything no, I don't think so.

Ralph Ford 3:49

No, okay. I mean, we have some really successful teams. Actually, our women's volleyball team right now is just on fire. But they are yeah, doing really super, super well.

Tiffany Beers 3:58

Yep.

Ralph Ford 3:58

And uh any stories you want to tell about your time here when you were here at uh Barrett as a student?

Tiffany Beers 4:03

Well, now being back, I remember walking up the hill um and the effort that that was every day. So I don't envy the students these days.

Ralph Ford 4:13

We've got some places -- I've measured the grade, you know, on Jordan Road, you know, uh on on the maps. And so it's like almost 15% at some places.

Tiffany Beers 4:21

Oh, I bet.

Ralph Ford 4:22

So we always have, of course, the accessible places, but you gotta zigzag back and forth. But yeah, there are a few places on campus. Did you live on campus?

Tiffany Beers 4:29

I did. I lived in Almy Hall for my first year back in the old plastics lab, not the new, beautiful. It's amazing to see what's been done here uh and all the improvements. Uh, I'm kind of jealous, to be honest, of the students now.

Ralph Ford 4:41

So And then in Almy, was that uh because you were an honor student?

Tiffany Beers 4:45

No, it was because on the volleyball team I s I uh I asked, you know, I'll play, but what can you do? And they said, Well, we can put you in Almy Hall. So I said, I'll take it.

Co-Ops That Turned Theory Real

Ralph Ford 4:56

Those are some of the more desirable places. Yeah, for sure. It's a nice, it's a real nice setting up there. So why don't you tell us about like uh you know your experience here? Did you have any internships, co-ops? How did that all work out?

Tiffany Beers 5:08

Yeah, I had I had everything. Um, so I interned in the plastics lab grinding plastic, just regrinding, running the regrinders over and over and over. Um, I think I did a couple other jobs, I can't remember exactly, but I also did co-ops. So my freshman year, after my freshman year, I did um intern, I think I interned, actually, it was intern versus co-op for eerie plastics. Oh wow, yeah. Yep, and they're they're gone now, which is still sad to me. But yeah, I interned there and I convinced them into hiring me full-time. And so I I went right from that internship into working for them full-time in their metrology lab. And I worked for them the next three years, my sophomore, junior, and senior year while I was going to school.

Ralph Ford 5:53

Wow. Made a huge difference, didn't it?

Tiffany Beers 5:55

Yeah. Yeah. Huge difference. I I was able to learn and apply and then ask other engineers like, what does this mean? I'm learning this, but I I don't get it. And they're like, well, in practice, this is what we're doing. It was so useful. I think I understood mold making and part design so much faster because of it.

Ralph Ford 6:10

Were you able to go on the international student trip?

Tiffany Beers 6:13

I wasn't. Mine was the year of 20 or 2001. 2001.

Ralph Ford 6:18

2001. So yeah, 9-11 interrupted.

Tiffany Beers 6:21

9-11. Yep.

Ralph Ford 6:22

Oh, yeah. And then it was it, we lost it for a few years during COVID as well. Of course, it's back and it's real strong, but that's a real keystone experience. So well.

Tiffany Beers 6:31

We did, I did join the packaging class though, my senior year, so that we could go because there was an international trip with that. So in the fall or in the spring the following year, we did go to Germany with Dr. Cook, which is a small group. But so I I got one international trip in.

Ralph Ford 6:45

Oh, that's great. Yeah, absolutely. And you learn a lot when you go to a country like that, especially if you've been in Western PA and you probably never I'd say a lot of kids they haven't gone out of their three county areas.

Tiffany Beers 6:56

So yeah, that was a my first international trip, and now I've had hundreds, hundreds of trips all over the world.

Ralph Ford 7:02

Now flying on the airplane, you're just like it's lockstep.

Tiffany Beers 7:06

Yeah. You've got it all down and time to watch movies and get some work done.

Rubbermaid Lessons And Landing Nike

Ralph Ford 7:10

Well, tell us a little bit about early career experiences, new older made, and I think we're all fascinated about how you ended up at Nike.

Tiffany Beers 7:19

Yeah. Yeah, so Rubbermaid was really interesting because I went with, I think it was five other of my classmates went to Rubbermaid, and Rubbermaid was hiring a lot of plastic students at the time. So there was 20 some of us there, all from Barent, all out of the plastics program. So it felt more like college, I would say, than work. Uh, but was also fascinating to see the business, you know, struggle and also do layoffs and learn about that process. And I guess after I was on originally product design team uh doing 3D modeling and working on their famous sound, right? If you remember the rubber-made containers, when you close them, they have to make that pop sound. And so I was literally some of them weren't making the sound anymore. So I was re-engineering them and redesigning the molds to make to bring the sound back.

Ralph Ford 8:07

Was that scientific or a little bit more trial and error to get the sound?

Tiffany Beers 8:11

Definitely trial and error. Definitely trial and error, not old mold. So um I was doing that and then I worked on their take-alongs. I did the 3D modeling for the take-along, which was their first disposable food container.

Ralph Ford 8:26

Okay.

Tiffany Beers 8:26

But people loved it because they would buy it and not throw it away and keep it for a really long time. Yeah. Because it really wasn't. Exactly. So they thought they were getting a deal.

Ralph Ford 8:37

And do they still make that nowadays?

Tiffany Beers 8:39

They do, I think. Yeah. I think they do. And then I worked on the closet team and I had just seen a lot of layoffs. And so I was like, you know, I this ship isn't doesn't feel like it's floating super well. So I said, if I could work anywhere in the world, where would I work? And um, so I applied to Burton Snowboards, uh, because you could bring your dog to work there, and also snowboarding, I was very interested in at the time. I applied to Oakley and I applied to Nike, and I actually got interviews back from all three and did initial calls with the recruiters, and then Nike, I went, I went further in an interviewing, and yeah, I just applied online. Everyone was always surprised that I didn't know anyone there, but I didn't got in the door that way.

Ralph Ford 9:17

Yeah. Did you always have an interest in footwear and sneakers?

Tiffany Beers 9:20

Yes, I was a sports, I love sports growing up. It was my passion, still is, I would say. But yeah, I played sports, played volleyball, basketball, and softball. And so for me, Nike was like uh this was easy choice.

Ralph Ford 9:32

Yeah, easy choice for me, no question. Went out to Portland, Oregon. That first time out on the West Coast, basically, or a whole different culture there than than uh than Newell, which is why over in Ohio, I think.

Tiffany Beers 9:42

Yep, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was complete different. I was there by myself, didn't know anyone. I brought my dog with me and just started to work there, and it was incredible. You know, they do a great job with bringing employees on and inspiring them. And I mean, you see pro-athletes all the time, and it was just an amazing experience.

Life Inside The Innovation Kitchen

Ralph Ford 10:01

How would you describe the culture?

Tiffany Beers 10:03

The culture, I mean, it was very competitive. Like there were ex-athletes there, there were wannabe pro athletes there, so it was it was quite competitive, a lot of A-type personalities, so you had to kind of learn how to manage that. Um, and I was in the innovation kitchen with some all-star designers, and so it was about creativity. It was about who could be the most creative, who could figure out the solutions. And so I really enjoyed it. I worked for six designers, and my job was just to make their vision come true. So I had the easy part. I didn't have to come up with a vision, I just had to figure out how to make it. And to me, that was easier than coming up with it.

Ralph Ford 10:37

With the the design of the sneaker.

Tiffany Beers 10:39

Yeah, yeah.

Ralph Ford 10:40

And uh, so like they threw you right in then.

Tiffany Beers 10:43

Like, I I started at IHM, so designing airbags, so Nike Air. Oh, yeah. So there was a shoe called the Air Max Moto that had an air articulated bag, so a bag that could move with the shoe, and it was the first time this had ever been done. So I designed that airbag, and then I designed airbags for uh Jordan 21, I believe it was. And I did that for a year, then I applied for an innovation kitchen job, and all of my colleagues were like, they all applied for it too, because the kitchen just didn't hire that often. And at the time there was like 20, 26 people in there, and um, some of just most keystone designers and pattern makers and just really talented folks. And uh, so I applied, and the hiring manager said, You look great on paper. I want you to get this job. This is who you're gonna interview with. And I was quite a bit younger than a lot of people there, so I ended up getting the job. I was a 27th person in there.

Speaker 1 11:34

Wow.

Tiffany Beers 11:34

Uh, there was only a couple women, and then I was 15 years younger than anybody else there, and so I didn't know what I was doing. It was very difficult.

Ralph Ford 11:45

Did they treat you well, or was it like uh well, here's the new person, or was it like this is the engineer in the design kitchen? She just put engineers' things. I mean, I'm just curious how that went.

Building The Auto-Lacing Nike Mag

Tiffany Beers 11:54

Yeah, no, they my my boss at the time ended up being a guy that had been there forever, and so he's like, Okay, go talk to this designer, go talk to this designer, go talk to this designer. And I found one of them, and he had actually designed the dunk, or actually designed not the dunk, the Air Force One. And his name was Bruce Kilgore, and he he actually liked something about me, so he gave me a project and he started to help me a little bit, and then other people would help, but then a lot of them were just like kind of hands-off, like, let's see what she can do. You know, you kind of had to prove yourself. And so you just worked hard on projects, and then for whatever reason, uh, one of the big designers, Tinker Hatfield, said, Hey, let me show you a project. I had just had a one-on-one with him just to meet him. I didn't know who he was, and I didn't know sneaker culture at the time.

Ralph Ford 12:40

And so uh this famous guy, right?

Tiffany Beers 12:42

Yeah, here's this famous guy. I didn't even realize it. And uh he's like, This uh, these people want you to make this back to the future shoe, or they want us to make this back to the future shoe. Here's a petition. This was like a grassroots petition back in the day when you could make petitions online and have all these people sign him. And there was like 40,000 or 30,000 people that want us to make that shoe. And he's like, You think you can make this? And I was like, Of course, why not? That's what I said, why not? I'm like, Well, you made it before, you know, it was in a movie. Like, of course it was real. So I got that project, and uh I go back to my boss and I said, Hey, Tinker asked if I could do this, and he says, You never say no to Tinker, so it's your project. You better figure that one out. You know, like it was like uh it got intense after that. So I then I went to archives and found the shoe, and I was like, Oh, so this was fake. The whole auto lacing thing was all fake.

Ralph Ford 13:34

It's all fake, yeah. All of it was made in movies.

Tiffany Beers 13:38

Yep, the only thing it had was lights, and I didn't know it had lights. So I was like, oh man, it has lights. And I thought, oh, that's gonna be so much harder than auto lacing.

Ralph Ford 13:45

No, the lights are the easy product. I gotta tell you, as an electrical engineer, little LEDs and some batteries, it shouldn't be too bad.

Tiffany Beers 13:51

So yeah, exactly. I now I call after that I was asked to put lights and electronic things into all kinds of products, surfboards, skateboards, just everything. And so now I just call lights like the gateway drug for electronics and wearables because everyone wants to put lights in, but that's easy. That really is easy.

Ralph Ford 14:08

Yeah, it's but the hard part is I mean, you you built a shoe with all sorts of mechanical actuators, and you know, I'm sure you went through like 32 prototypes. What'd the first prototype look like?

Tiffany Beers 14:20

Oh, hundreds of prototypes. The first prototype, I would call it a platform Nike Mag. It was very tall, midsole, because the smallest motor we could find was little choo-choo train motors, and so we had to just roll with kind of the smallest one that we could find. And so we built it to that, and you uh had to plug it into the wall. Uh so to demo the shoe, I have to have someone close enough to an electrical outlet, plug it in, and then I could press buttons and let it lace for them. But it wasn't comfortable, it wasn't pretty, and it didn't look like the original shoe. So they were like, okay, that's good. Like we really need it to look like the original shoe. So I'd start over again.

Ralph Ford 15:03

And how you know what was the the goal? They wanted you to make it, but just to make it or to sell it, or was this just a passion project for Nike? What was the idea?

Tiffany Beers 15:12

Yeah, I I can't remember what the original idea was for it. It was it was like, see if we can make it. And we always we always kind of had in mind, or at least I did, was that there are definitely people that can't tie their shoes. So if we can figure this out, this could actually, you know, help a chunk of the population. And then you think of um maybe older people that can't bend down, pregnant women that can't reach their feet. Like there's so many needs for stuff like that. And sure, you could just put on, you know, a shoe that you don't have to tie, anyways, but this is way cooler, right? To have it automatically laced.

Ralph Ford 15:43

So you you ultimately got there, right? You built you built a shoe that does it. Does it still sell?

Tiffany Beers 15:48

Um, no, no, no, no. It's on um, so the first shoe was the lights only version, and uh you can still find some of those out there on eBay and on some of the auction sites, and then the auto lace one we launched later, and those are still you can find some. Hopefully, people are charging them. Yeah, if anyone's listening that has one and you haven't charged it, you need to charge. Like a little USB charger? No, not USB. This is a little plug, more like an audio plug for a headset, right?

Ralph Ford 16:16

Like it's a totally different yeah, it's probably a little more rugged, too, to have that in there.

Tiffany Beers 16:20

Yeah, probably at the end of the day, yeah.

Ralph Ford 16:22

So, you know, you just made me think that we've actually had some senior projects here that I can recall where people were trying to solve this problem, particularly for elderly people who can't lace their shoes, and they came up with all different creative solutions. I don't know if we ever connected those with you, but a little bit of a non-sequitur on that one, but it's still a problem that people face. You know, we all take for granted that we bend over and tie our shoes, and it's never not everyone can do that.

Speaker 1 16:44

Yep.

Ralph Ford 16:45

But you really were, you know, you're an engineer, but this is a whole different creative space. You become, I think, really interested and known for innovation and creativity. And would you say like this was the formative place? Was it a lot different than what you learned in school?

Tiffany Beers 17:02

Yeah, because I was learn I was working mostly with designers. Um, and they, you know, industrial designers, architects. And so the way they thought and their process was just very different. Like in engineering school, there's there's always like uh logical thinking. I would say here there wasn't so much logical thinking, it was just a different way of thinking, and and it was all about just try it. Logically, it doesn't make sense that it would work, but there was a lot of just try it. And so just build it, and you'd see, oh, it does work. Or this part worked, or this. And I would say that in the creative with the designers was a lot more of trial and error, fast trial and error, and a lot more of trying really wild things, right? To see how far you could push the limits of the materials and things, which in engineering was more like here's a problem, the consumer can't do this, solve it. So it's a different kind of creativity. This was more like, let's try to make the shoe float, or let's try to like, you know, we're really out there in terms of creativity.

Ralph Ford 18:06

People who wanted them, like basketball players come in and say, I want this type of shoe, or was it were they trying to meet a performance spec, or they just said, I just want to create this shoe?

Tesla Detour And Creator Ethics

Tiffany Beers 18:14

Most of the time it was the design, like the athletes, we would definitely hear from them, and and but it would with them, it was more it depended on their level of skill, I would say, in footwear design. So what kind of knowledge they had about footwares. Most of the time they're explaining their challenges and performing, and then the designers are coming up with solutions to solve that. But then sometimes you'd have interesting people come in, like artists we'd work with, and they'd be like, Well, let's try, let's try and make like the shoe out of a car airbag. You know, let's try some of the, let's use the material that NASA's using in Mars on the Land Rover balloons. And then we did that with uh an artist, and and so it kind of depended. It was all over the place, but usually the designers were hearing the athletes and then seeing the trends in the world going on and being like, oh, let's try this. Uh and they never had one idea, it was always 20. And one or two of them were like super wild.

Ralph Ford 19:12

And then uh while you were there, that's where you started to get some notoriety as well. I think you ended up in was it Wired Magazine? I can't quite remember, but I know that you had some interviews and things where this actually really elevated your career in a way that you wouldn't expect for an engineer.

Tiffany Beers 19:27

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was in Wired Magazine, they did a full like almost 20 page, 10, 20 pages in the magazine about the shoe, the auto-lacing in the shoe and the hyperdappt. And then also the New York Times did an article on me, just specifically on myself and my journey and stuff. And it was super interesting. My big challenge with it was they I felt like they all pitched me as a designer because to the outside world, designer engineer, you're all you're designing product, they don't really know the difference. And so I felt like the designers were gonna be mad at me because it looked like in those articles I was a designer, and I never wanted them to feel like I treasured, I respected what they did. It was so challenging. I couldn't do what they did, and so I didn't want to be ever perceived as a designer. But after those articles, I was getting a lot of Did you get some flack from your your your workmates? Or they were No, they didn't never really said anything, but I was I always addressed it head on.

Ralph Ford 20:27

And you you're you're a self-described sneakerhead. Is that what you call yourself? Or is that the right word, or am I wrong on that? What's a sneaker head?

Tiffany Beers 20:36

A sneakerhead is somebody that's really into sneakers and collects sneakers. I don't think I'm a sneakerhead. I never really did, but I have a lot of sneakers and I know a lot about sneakers, and I've worked with some of the most legendary designers, and so to the outside world, they probably qualify me as one, but I don't think of myself as one.

Ralph Ford 20:55

They were like really obsessive, probably online all the time buying them. And do you wear anything other than sneakers?

Tiffany Beers 21:01

I have a pair of penny loafers now that I love, but no, not really.

Ralph Ford 21:05

You're lucky, actually. Just good to wear sneakers all the time. Good for you. And then you went to Logitech and and Tesla, and uh, you want to step us through that a little bit? I know you spent a lot more time at Logitech.

Tiffany Beers 21:16

Yeah, yeah, I was I was only at Tesla for a brief time. It was fascinating. It was during their big kind of growth of the Giga Factory One and the Model 3 ramp and stuff, and that was a fascinating experience, but at the end of the day, it wasn't the right fit for me. Uh I was also fly commuting for the first time, so I'd fly from Portland to Reno every week, and that was harder than I thought it would be. And so it was just not a sustainable situation at all. So yeah, so I left Tesla and I started a sneaker review channel because my time at Nike never really wore other brands or paid attention to them. And so I was like, YouTube was just starting to come up at that time. So this is 2018, I think. Uh 2019. And um, so I started reviewing sneakers and it took off, and GQ picked it up, and so I had Tons of views pretty quickly, and so I could have kept doing that for a long time. But I learned about it, I learned about video making, and I was doing it all myself. Everything top to bottom was fascinating. But again, it was you know, once you do something so many times, it doesn't, it's not as fun anymore. Yeah, um, and so it kind of lost its own.

Ralph Ford 22:23

You're trying to monetize views there, that's the way it worked, of course.

Tiffany Beers 22:26

Yeah, and I yeah, and I was monetizing and I was getting offers to promote people's product, and I I did one and I hated it. Like being paid to talk about someone's product, I don't like it. And so I would only buy the product myself and I would only talk about the products that I had something to say. And so that whole side of actually generating enough revenue from sponsors, I didn't, I just felt slimy with it. I didn't want to do it.

Ralph Ford 22:48

I gotta tell you, I listen to a lot of podcasts. It's funny to me, and I joke with our production team here, Joe, all the time that I want to do the gold bond, you know, like commercial in the middle, just take a moment and say, brought to you by whatever it may be, because that's kind of old school, you know, whatever foot powder or whatever they're selling, and then they go back to it. But uh, it is necessary and it doesn't mean that it's bad, it's just a different way of approaching things. So yeah.

Tiffany Beers 23:12

Yeah, just doing ads would be one thing, but actually them giving me the product and paying me to talk about it was just a it was too uncomfortable.

Leading Logitech Audio Without An Audio Degree

Ralph Ford 23:20

Yeah, something you you didn't necessarily even use, right? So exactly gets a little bit uh yeah, you have to have you have to have a conscience there. Yeah, so let's talk about Logitech. Like, what are you you you ended up uh in audio design? You're not an audio designer.

Tiffany Beers 23:34

No, no, no. My only degree is in plastics engineering. Um, yeah, so they they I started talking to the folks from Logitech, and they were just fascinating, you know, like what they were doing, they had a human performance group at the time called Liminal, where they were really looking at kind of that next phase of where humans control devices. And that was really fascinating because we had also been in motorsports, right? My husband had amateur racing, and I was kind of his crew chief. And so seeing directly how a human controls a piece of equipment at the level of racing for me was really interesting. And Logitech was doing that with computers, and so that was like super interesting to me. So when they came to me with audio engineering, I was like, like full transparency. I don't know what this is, I don't even know what it means, but I have ears, I've played games. If you're willing to try, I'll do my best.

Ralph Ford 24:28

Well, that's just it. We tell our students as we know, like you have to learn new things, and don't uh pigeonhole you're into I'm just this type of engineer. You can do that maybe for your whole life, but uh there's so much more opportunity out there.

Tiffany Beers 24:40

Yeah. And they they I didn't realize this at the time, but they didn't hire me for my engineering knowledge or skill or degree. They hired me because of how I looked at problems and how I solved problems, and just had this level of creativity that they hadn't seen and kind of view on the world where I still believe almost anything is possible. I I actually believe anything's possible. Um, I say almost just because I don't want to be questioned on it, but um yeah, so they they said, hey, there's this job, and I I was transparent with them, and they're like, Okay, you got it. Like, let's go.

Ralph Ford 25:14

And I was like, You led a team that was around the world, right? It was a virtual team, was it?

Tiffany Beers 25:18

Or was it no at the time it was all on site in California? So there was Astro Gaming and Logitech G, and there were software engineers, firmware engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, acoustics engineers. And so I was learning the only one I was close to was mechanical. And from my previous iteration of electronics and shoes, I knew a little bit about EE work. I knew a little bit about firmware, but not to the level to lead that team. So I just figured out who the experts were. I learned from them, I asked them to teach me, and uh I really built a strong team there because I wasn't the expert. I'm like, okay, we're all gonna make this decision together. What do you think? And I I'll go around the table a lot and say, okay, out of 100%, where do you think we're at with this decision? Like, how what do you think it is? And they'd be like, okay, I'm at 50%, I'm at 20%, I'm at, and so if the average was low, then we have more work to do. If the average is high, okay, let's make the decision and go. And so I use the team a lot to help me make decisions until I learned enough about it.

Ralph Ford 26:18

Can you say what cool product that team developed that's out there in the world right now?

Tiffany Beers 26:22

Yeah, so the um the Pro, the Logitech G Pro headset, there's the second iteration of it is out now. And we did the first wired iteration, then the first wireless, and now the second wireless. And for a gaming headset, it's really exceptional product. It's got good mic bandwidth, it's got really good sound, and then it's comfortable. We changed a lot in comfort and gaming headsets uh while I was there.

unknown 26:46

Wow.

Ralph Ford 26:47

And it's so it's the gamer industry knows it well. All the gamers out there know this one well. Yeah. And you you mentioned Olivier's uh racing. We're gonna talk about the racing as well. So you're a racing crew manager, but does any of the gaming connect over to racing simulation and the like as well?

Tiffany Beers 27:04

100%. So I always tell this story. So we like to race nationally when we can. And so he was um, he actually qualified to race the national championship in Specy 46, which is a specific BMW car, at Sonoma. And we'd never been to Sonoma, it was before we moved to California. So he learned it by looking at Google Maps to understand the basically hopefully the the track hadn't been repaid, but he used Google Maps to look at the surface of the track and understand the curves and radius because we would get to the race and it would be the first experience we'd have there. Then he used simulation to learn the track. Learn the track before he got there. Yep, exactly.

Speaker 1 27:39

Oh perfect.

Tiffany Beers 27:40

And so that's just been yeah, we use sim all the time. He uses sim all the time. Still races every week, every track that's available that we're gonna race on.

Ralph Ford 27:49

Do you ever race?

Tiffany Beers 27:50

I I do, I do. It's very fun.

Ralph Ford 27:52

It's fun. Do you ever feel nervous or you've ever had any harrowing uh experiences?

Tiffany Beers 27:57

Um actually I only sim race. I've only sim raced. I've not raced in real life. I was actually going to try last year uh before changing jobs, and then I ended up getting tennis elbow from pickleball. Uh and uh turns out with tennis elbow, it's very hard to drive, actually, because these cars aren't um It's not easy to drive. It's athletic. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Ralph Ford 28:18

So let's talk a little bit about your connection with Allison Felix, the Olympian.

Tiffany Beers 28:22

Yeah. Yeah, so um she actually in 2019, so it was just after the pandemic had kind of started, I got a message on Instagram from her Instagram account saying, I'm working on a new project. I'd love to chat with you. And I thought I said to my husband, she's gonna make shoes.

Ralph Ford 28:39

She's going to make shoes.

Tiffany Beers 28:40

And um, and so I talked to her and her brother Wes, who actually had written to me. And uh, yeah, they wanted to make shoes. She she wanted to see if it was possible. And so maybe they talked to the wrong person because I think, you know, like I said, anything's possible. So I was like, yeah, we could make it. It's gonna take this, this, this. And I thought it would have been harder to make shoes, but we went from that in July to having shoes for sale, I think the following June. And we just started calling up factories. I thought it would be hard to get into a factory, but it wasn't. It was it was quite easy, actually. Yeah, so the target audience for that shoe was women, um, specific women who kind of it was kind of an everyday shoe for them. So they could go for a run in it, so you could do three miles. You could wear it every day casually, and then also wear it with your performance, like so. You could performance run in it, but then also wear it for casual every day.

Ralph Ford 29:31

And so it was pretty um a versatile shoe you can travel with and wear to work, a little bit. I don't know, All Birds was probably really growing at that time. I mean, I've they've got a different trajectory right now, but those sort of that idea of a comfort kind of performance shoe was coming out, was big at that time, I think.

Tiffany Beers 29:47

Yeah, exactly. And there wasn't anything specific to women, and at the time we had me, the designer was a woman, Natalie, and then Allison. So it was like one of the first ones that was created all by women for women, and so it was a bit of a different pitch at that time.

Ralph Ford 30:01

And I mean, in your career, obviously, I mean, you're you're an engineer, we know it's a male-dominated field. So, I mean, how have you navigated that? Any advice I'd like to hear towards young women who are thinking about engineering and science, and what do you tell them?

Tiffany Beers 30:15

Yeah, if I simplify it, I would just say ignore it, right? Because I grew up with brothers, so for me, I never noticed. I I was used to being even majority of my cousins are male. So I was used to being around males. I played little league baseball, you know, I played senior league baseball until they told me to play softball. So for me, I never really noticed, and it wasn't really that big of a deal. Now looking back, I can see times where it's like weird and and notice things, but honestly, I don't I don't think it should be that, especially now. 20 years ago, it was definitely a factor. I just kind of looked past it, ignored it. It didn't really impact me day to day. But today is even less of an issue. There's literally no difference between, I mean, if you if you need an engineer to act like a robot, then there's a difference. But like when you're engineering projects, it's not all about the engineering, it's about communication, it's about all these other skills that just a single good engineer of any gender can be good at. It doesn't, it literally doesn't matter.

Ralph Ford 31:17

So I guess great advice, great approach. Yeah. Yeah. We still do spend a lot of time working with young kids all across the board, convincing them that science and engineering are great fields for them. And you know, we do a lot here, and you you've been a great supporter of that, so we appreciate it.

Innovation At VF Brands And AI Mindset

Speaker 1 31:32

Yeah.

Ralph Ford 31:33

And uh VF brand, so this last year you started a new job. It's like a whole different thing. This is uh this is sounds like a pretty big career change.

Tiffany Beers 31:41

Yeah, it's it's interesting. It's a totally different role, but back to a familiar place of sport and footwear and apparel. And so I'm super stoked about it. It's super exciting, you know, leading innovation, figuring out innovation for all these brands, coming up with unique things, and then working with the the some of the vendors I used to work with and some of the engineers and and teams that I used to work with previously. The world is um, I went out of footwear, but they all stayed, it feels like. And so coming back to work with them again's been super fun.

Ralph Ford 32:12

Wow. And just to put a little meat on it, the brands are like uh, you know, North Face, which and Timberland and some others. And can you tell a little bit about like what sort of products? What do you mean by innovation in this space?

Tiffany Beers 32:23

Yeah. Well, the North Face is the easiest to understand, right? Those people are climbing mountains, right? They are alpinists, they are in more of a survival situation sometimes, right? And they're in very cold weather. So for them, warmth is very important, you know, gear that can last in those cold temperatures on those mountains. Then you look at vans, they have skateboarders, snowboarders, uh, surfers. Then you look at Timberlin. Actually, they don't have performance sport, but they do have the ProLine, which is the everyday workers that are in factories, they're in manufacturing plants, right? You know, if you've been on your feet all day, those boots matter, those shoes matter. And so they're innovating over there for them. Then you have the PAX brands of um East Pac and Jan Sport and Kipling. And so every kid has a backpack, right? These days. Um almost every doll, too, probably. I would say.

Ralph Ford 33:12

We've got like five each.

Tiffany Beers 33:14

Yeah, so they better be comfortable, right? So innovation there is all about element protection and comfort. And then who did I leave out? Vans, Timberlin. Smart wool and icebreaker, which are primarily wool-based brands. Actually, really impressive uh materials. I've just gotten used to using some of their products and um what they can do with wool. I always think of wool as scratchy, yeah. Like the scratchy, not these, not at all. Like it's it's really impressive. And so the performance of the natural fiber is uh is pretty impressive.

Ralph Ford 33:43

And they do they mix it with other materials as well and create blends that are you know performance-based and the like?

Tiffany Beers 33:49

Yep, in some cases, and in some cases they're pure wool, the highest percentage of wool, the facility.

Ralph Ford 33:55

Pretty avid hiker myself. I I I wear wool socks. Middle of the summer, people don't realize that actually it'll keep your feet cool and it's a whole lot better when the dirt and the grunge gets inside your shoe.

Tiffany Beers 34:06

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. It's like I don't know how we've missed that over time that we didn't learn that before.

Ralph Ford 34:12

Yeah, and you know, every pay the extra cost for it. It's well worth it.

Tiffany Beers 34:17

Yep.

Ralph Ford 34:18

So, what's your message for our students tonight at commencement?

Tiffany Beers 34:22

Oh, I don't know if I want to let out the surprise.

Ralph Ford 34:24

You know, we won't hear this until later. It's okay. You just give a little bit of just a little preview, don't tell us the whole thing.

Tiffany Beers 34:31

Yeah, my message tonight for the the graduates is really, you know, we're in a dynamic world. It's much more dynamic. The how things were in the past is very different now. But the thing that hasn't changed is this maker's mindset. Like you gotta start somewhere, you gotta try things, you gotta learn fast and keep building. And that's what I've done in my career every single time, every big challenge. And so we're gonna outline a few challenges tonight and and how I applied that approach, but that's that's where we are, and with AI, it'll it'll apply even more. And so the other part of it is there's a lot of fear on AI, I think. And um, there's nothing to fear there, I don't believe, because I've worked on the inside of technology, I've helped develop technology, and technology has never been able to tell us why. Like they there's always a human that has to make reason for why we're doing something, and I don't think that's gonna change.

Ralph Ford 35:25

I don't think so either. I I think there is a lot of fear, and I mean you've had some you and I've had a lot of discussions about this over the last year, and I just you know what's your advice to everybody? Uh in and uh does every student need to be AI ready?

Tiffany Beers 35:40

I think your life will be easier if you are, because all those silly repetitive tasks that you don't like to do, AI can do that for you. And it'll just save you time to do what you want to do, spend more time with family, experiment, run your 3D printer, you know. So I think it's worth absolutely learning it. I think it's critical to understand it and know how you can use it to do the mundane stuff that you don't actually want to do.

Ralph Ford 36:01

When you're hiring people, what do you look for?

Tiffany Beers 36:04

I look for willingness to go after AI, and I look more about mindset than I actually do skill. I can teach you skill, I can teach you engineering, I can teach you things. But it's about that mindset to be hungry and go after things and try. Start somewhere, try and keep building.

Ralph Ford 36:19

How do you measure mindset in the interview process?

Tiffany Beers 36:22

Uh, you can tell by the way they respond to questions, you can tell just kind of how they're handling actually the interview. The interview it alone is you gotta try. And you can be all prepared in the world, but if you let your nerves take over, that doesn't work either. And so you can tell by certain questions that you ask and just kind of the demeanor of how people are.

What We Hire For And Closing

Ralph Ford 36:40

Well, we're coming to the end of the interview. I give you the last word. Anything you'd like to add?

Tiffany Beers 36:45

I just want to thank Behrend. I mean, such a great foundation you guys gave me, and I'm so happy to give back and help. And I'm honored to be again a fellow this year and now commencement speaker. So I never could have imagined, ever.

Ralph Ford 36:58

Well, we're honored to have you here, and uh, I think it's gonna be a real special evening, and we appreciate your time. And uh so it goes both ways, and you always have a home here at Penn State Behrend .

Tiffany Beers 37:09

Awesome, thank you.

Ralph Ford 37:10

All right, my guest today has been Tiffany Beers, a 2002 graduate of Penn State Behrend for plastics engineering technology. I'm Dr. Ralph Ford, you have been listening to Behrend Talks.