About

I’m Russell Borton — a mechanical project engineer in Anderson, South Carolina. For twenty-plus years I’ve worked the seam between hands-on fabrication and large-scale industrial engineering: custom cabinetry and one-off machine builds on one end, multi-million-dollar capital projects and plant-wide automation on the other.

Right now I lead project engineering at Michelin — line installations, technical integrations, and CapEx deployment across several U.S. sites. Before that came manufacturing and process engineering at Electrolux, Apex Tool Group, and Harsco Rail, and earlier still, running my own custom woodworking shop and teaching CNC and CAD as an adjunct instructor.

Dawn Integrations is where my own projects live — the time-clock apps, home-lab servers, embedded hardware, and machine-control work I build outside the day job. This blog is the log for those builds.

What I worked with

• Design & CAD — SolidWorks, Creo, AutoCAD, VCarve, GD&T
• CNC — multi-axis programming in Mastercam, Esprit, and VCarve; up to 7-axis
• Automation & controls — ABB and Kuka robotics, Allen-Bradley PLCs, Ignition SCADA, Power Apps and HMIs
• Systems & code — Linux servers, Raspberry Pi and ESP32 clusters, custom apps, plenty of VBA and Python
• Project delivery — CapEx management, Oracle budget tracking, SOW drafting, Lean and Six Sigma

Where I’ve been

• 2022–now

  Project Mechanical Engineer / Project Affairs Leader

  Michelin

• 2020–2022

  Manufacturing Engineer

  Electrolux

• 2018–2020

  Sr. Process Engineer

  Apex Tool Group

• 2015–2018

  Manufacturing Engineer / CNC Programmer II

  Harsco Rail

• 2013–2015

  Adjunct Instructor · Design Engineer · Trainer

  Tri-County Technical College · E&I Engineering · Ready SC

• 2011–2014

  QC Manager / CNC Programmer

  Hytech Machining

• 2001–2011

  Owner / Manager

  Borton Custom Woodworking