Christopher Currin, IDSA
Industrial Designer | Hyster Yale Group
Vice Chair (East), IDSA Charlotte Chapter | 2020-2021
Christopher Currin is an industrial designer with more than a dozen years of manufacturing quality experience in various industries.
He began as an Army brat, graduating from high school in 1996. He attended East Carolina University for two years, where he planned to major in furniture design. However, his long-term love affair for all things automotive eventually got the better of him, and he transferred to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI. There, he concentrated on product design, and had a summer internship with Fountain Powerboats in Washington, NC.
After he earned his BFA, he lived at home for a year while working for a sign shop, making and installing signs. Then he moved back to Greenville, NC, where he landed a job with Grady White Boats—not as a designer, but as a Quality Technician, responsible for vendor part quality and writing production work instructions. He worked there until 2008.
About a year later, Currin accepted another Quality Technician position with an injection molding company in Washington, NC. His years of experience and some additional training made him a Quality Engineer, responsible for delivering product quality to customers like B/S/H, Whirlpool, and Electrolux.
In 2013, he was hired by Hyster Yale Group, a forklift manufacturer, as a Quality Engineer for electric warehouse products. After three years as QE, the company decided they needed an industrial designer to unify the look of the various products coming out of the product development center, and Currin was the perfect candidate. Now, he leads the development of the global design language system for Hyster and Yale forklifts.
In 2019, Currin joined IDSA, submitted for an IDEA award, and attended the International Design Conference in Chicago, IL.
Currin is married, a father of two boys (both active in scouting) and has two dogs (a valley bulldog and a pit bull). He is still passionate about all things automotive, as well as watches, pocket knives, car camping, dogs, etc.
