The 3,300-member Industrial Designers Society of America will be looking for an executive director for the second time in less than two years, as Frank Tyneski has announced plans to leave the post April 23.
Tyneski, an award-winning designer with more than 55 patents, left his post in San Diego as senior director of industrial designer and human factors at telecommunications equipment maker Kyocera Wireless Corp. to assume IDSA's top spot in October 2007. He moved east to work at the trade association's Dulles headquarters, but now plans to return to San Diego as vice president of design strategy and product development for Skinit Inc. Skinit manufactures customized and personalized products for consumer electronic devices.
IDSA President Eric Anderson, an associate professor of industrial design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said April 13 that the group most likely will appoint an interim head while searching for Tyneski's full-time replacement. A similar process took the better part of a year when IDSA hired Tyneski to replace its former longtime executive director, Kristina Goodrich, who stepped down at the end of 2006.
Anderson said Tyneski had helped to strengthen IDSA and increase its membership value. “These actions,” he noted, “include making and aligning meaningful collaborative opportunities with other organizations such as [the Product Development & Management Association], embracing sustainability as a key endorser of The Designers Accord, diversifying sponsorship through new sources of revenue, energizing young design professionals, and helping to shape a strategic guide.”
Another Tyneski project will take flight later this week, when IDSA opens its first museum exhibit of winning products from its annual International Design Excellence Awards competition. The Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, N.C., will unveil a collection of more than 100 product designs selected from last year's crop of winners.
The exhibition, titled “Winning IDEAs: Selected Designs 2008,” will open April 17 and remain on view through Oct. 25.