Leadership Team

Taylor Saul is Managing Partner at Applied CAx. His primary focus is on PLM development & implementation with our Teamcenter customers. Taylor has worked with multiple Aerospace and Defense companies to align Teamcenter with their program needs. He has also worked with Tier-1 international automotive suppliers as well as international engineer-to-order manufacturers.

In addition to Teamcenter, Taylor has participated in and led multiple onsite audits of manufacturing processes to improve workflows, best practices, standardization, and modern use of NX.

A native Portlander, in his free time he enjoys surfing, skiing and mountain biking.

You can reach him at (503) 318-0875.
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Chris Cripps is a Senior Account Executive and Partner at Applied CAx. His primary focus is on design, manufacturing, and simulation solutions. Chris has a background in mechanical and electrical design as well as manufacturing, simulation, aerospace, automotive, quality assurance, and virtual reality solutions.

Prior to joining the Applied team as a partner, Chris worked as a Partner Sales Executive for Siemens DISW, a Simulation Sales Executive at Autodesk, and Business Development Manager for ESI Group. With his broad breath of experience in the industry and various software tools and solutions, Chris is an innovative problem-solver. Our customers can rely on Chris to bring a unique perspective, knowledgeable support and value to the conversation.

You can reach him at (949) 636-7351.
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George Laird, Phd, PE, is Founder and Partner at Applied CAx. Dr. Laird is the author of over 40 publications on wear, fracture mechanics, and finite element analysis, and the “Abrasion-Resistant Cast Iron Handbook.”

Dr. Laird has 16+ years of industrial LS-DYNA / Femap / CFD experience, with his doctorate in engineering mechanics (fracture and fatigue). His scientific research focused on structure property relationships for composite materials, ceramics and ferrous/non-ferrous materials.

Other FEA specialization include: seismic analysis of large vessels per ASCE 4-98 and ASME Section VIII, Div. 2 requirements, turbine burst containment, drop-test analysis, composite analysis (stress and thermal) and transient-dynamic stress analysis, elastic-plastic analysis of plastics, elastomers, and foam materials and general analysis of a wide range of consumer, automotive, aviation and medical products. His expertise in LS-DYNA has led to several publications and his short course “LS-DYNA Analysis for Structural Mechanics” is given every year. Case studies on LS-DYNA, FEA, and CFD service can be found at PredictiveEngineering.com.

Since the acquisition of CD-adapco by Siemens PLM Software in early 2016, Dr. Laird has added STAR-CCM to his arsenal of CFD tools.

His team of engineers at Predictive Engineering bring together expertise on materials, mechanics, and a deep understanding of structures whether under fluid or thermal loading (CFD consulting services) or due to impact or crash (LS-DYNA consulting services) or general FEA for vibration, seismic or stress (FEA consulting services) to help their clients build better structures.

He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Jamie Griffis is PLM Director and Partner at Applied CAx. A seasoned Teamcenter Architect with a history of working in the mechanical and industrial engineering and aerospace industry, her speciality is Teamcenter implementations and upgrades, data migrations, and CAD Integrations (mainly SolidEdge but also SolidWorks). She is deeply familiar with infrastructure architecture for new Teamcenter implementations and CAD integrations. She was CAD manager for 8+ years implementing and managing 2D/3D CAD and Teamcenter in multiple international sites and migrating all legacy engineering data to a Teamcenter database.

In addition, she has implemented upgrades and updates of Teamcenter, Solid Edge, and AutoCAD Mechanical while providing user support and troubleshooting, writing procedures, establishing workflows, as well as process and conventions for design, drafting, and data management. She oversaw the training of engineering, document control, project management, and production control departments on Teamcenter and Solid Edge; control of standard part creation and documentation; and control of CAD operation manuals and documentation.