We help students, engineers and machinists gain real-world skills to make a huge impact in their career.

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Our company is Pareto Learning – and we aim to change the status quo of technical education. For far too long, there has been a large disconnect between what technical employees are taught and what they actually will apply on the job. We aim to close this gap by focusing on the important skills that employees need in order to perform the actual work in their careers.

Our team consists of engineers and machinists who have learned how to be successful through years of experience. We realized there are only a few skills that differentiate a successful professional from an entry-level associate who is struggling to get by. It is our goal to emphasize these skills to help our students reach their highest potential in their careers.

The Pareto Principle states that we apply 20% of our knowledge 80% of the time in our work.  We focus on this principle to make sure that the concepts we teach are the ones you will need to apply most often. We don’t waste your time with concepts you’ll never use just to sound impressive. We’ll help you gain the real skills that will get you hired, promoted and ensure that you excel in your dream engineering position.

We make important concepts easy to understand, and allow you to apply them in your work.

We launched our GD&T Basics program in 2015 to break down an incredibly complex topic that is too often misunderstood. Over the past few years, thousands of professionals and students have used our GD&T program to improve their career prospects and increase their ability to work with engineering drawings. We break down complex concepts, provide resources to retain the information, and then show how the topics are directly applied in the real world.

We love what we do – and want to make sure all engineers, students, machinists, and technicians gain confidence in their ability to apply this knowledge.

See for yourself how we go beyond theory and explain the benefits of understanding engineering concepts.  www.gdandtbasics.com

Don’t take our word for it – See what our students have to say about our current program GD&T Basics:

“I am a MET student and this is WAY better than my book. Clean, functional, and with good explanations! You all rock! Thanks for a great resource! ” 
Christopher W. – Mechanical Engineering Student

Recently, I passed the ASME GDTP Senior level exam. I got amazing help from your training course! Your lessons are great & So easy to understand!When I studied the ASME standard, it is just text, and text only… I only realized the true concept of each GD&T concept from your course. Thank you very much!”
– Juwon Lim – Mechanical Designer

“I am taking the class as, I am an undergrad in Mechanical Engineering as well as an Engineer at an investment casting facility. I have seen GD&T coming in on a lot of drawings and figured I should learn more about it. The class has been helping me a lot and making my overall understanding of drawings much better! Just yesterday I was doing some measurements on the CMM for a new part and had already found my new knowledge coming in handy, when figuring out how to do my alignment.”
– Garrett N – CMM Operator and ME Student

“I had taken a GD&T course in college, but had either forgotten most of it, or never understood it in the first place. The GD&T Basics Course did a great job of teaching me the principles of GD&T, and more importantly, the purpose. The course was paced very well, spending enough time on each topic to provide a firm understanding before moving on, and the example problems really bridged the gap between theory and application. I highly recommend this fantastic course!”
– Robert M – Mechanical Engineer

Great information done in a manner that anyone can understand.
– Dave P – Engineering Professor

Our team has years of experience applying the concepts we teach.

Tom Geiss
Tom Geiss
Founder and Program Developer 
Tom has worked as a Design and Applications Engineer in the field of Automotive Engineering with companies like BMW Manufacturing and ZF Transmissions over the last 10 years. He finds it incredibly rewarding to contribute to the design and production of a vehicle that he eventually sees out on the road.

Tom graduated from Clarkson University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and holds a Senior-Level GD&T Certification from the ASME. Throughout his entire career, he has focused on studying Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing, Design For Manufacturing, and Tolerance Calculations to see how they can be better applied in the automotive and mechanical fields.

He learned that even at the most advanced level of engineering, basic fundamentals such as the ability to read engineering drawings, and communicate technical information were often missing for a majority of engineers. There was a big disconnect between what he was applying in his day-to-day work, and the theory he learned in school and on-the-job training.  This prompted him to found Pareto Learning and its first product, GD&T Basics. Tom’s primary goal is to teach the most important technical concepts and show how to apply this knowledge in practical, real-world situations.

Matt Blouir
Matt Blouir
Lead Instructional Designer
Matt is currently a Senior External Geometry Designer with Michelin & works at the North American Research and Development Center.  He designs concept, development, and production tirelines using parametric CAD models in CATIA.  Also, Matt is an expert at performing design and manufacturing risk management.  Despite participating in a daily balancing act, Matt loves working for one of the top tire companies in the world and seeing his products hit the road.

Matt holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Clemson University and has over 8 years of engineering experience in both manufacturing and design capacities. In his spare time, Matt enjoys spending time with his girlfriend and two Siberian huskies.  He also is a prominent outdoorsman and photographer.

Matt believes that technical skills will make you a good engineer. However, he has seen that having practical engineering knowledge and nontechnical/soft skills will make you an unstoppable engineer!  He thoroughly enjoys helping and teaching others and can’t wait to see what the next generation of engineers will accomplish.

Brandon John
Brandon John
Content and CAD Manager
Brandon has over 20 years of experience in design, machining, CNC programming and manufacturing. He is currently a Design Engineer with Wabtec Corporation and designs and develops power transfer equipment for commuter trains and industrial applications.  He is the resident expert with SolidWorks, Inventor, GibbsCAM, Geomagic DesignX and Polyworks.

Brandon holds a degree in Engineering and graduated with honors from Tulsa Community College.  He has spent most of his career taking a product from concept to production. He is an expert at teaching others how to turn ideas into a functional 3D models with all supporting drawings, fixture design, gauge design, and inspection reports.

In his spare time, Brandon enjoys spending time with his wife and three children.  He also is an avid whitewater kayaker and outdoor enthusiast.

Matthew Derr
Matt Derr
Senior GD&T Expert and Instructor
Matt is currently a Principal Mechanical Design Engineer with Orbital ATK. He has had a lifelong interest in engineering and aircraft that led him to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering in 2003 from Arizona State University. That same year, he began work at Orbital ATK designing, integrating, testing and launching sub-orbital rockets as target vehicles for the U.S. military.

He returned to ASU and received a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering in 2008. In his spare time, he enjoys woodworking, auto repair, running and spending time with his wife and two young boys.

Matt holds a Senior Level Certification from the ASME as a Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing Professional. This is the highest level of expertise one can obtain for GD&T knowledge.

He truly enjoys bringing his years of experience and expertise to the material in this course. He is passionate about passing on his knowledge to others, so they too can benefit in their careers.