When you fire up a burner on your range to make spaghetti for supper or your Saturday morning pancakes, the creative genius of Paul Cadima is behind helping you prepare amazing meals. Paul appreciates the freedom he has at GE Appliances to chase ideas and take big swings. He’s not only received 70 patents for his work on our groundbreaking cooking products, like an integrated griddle on your cooktop, he’s invented unique features that save owners time.

He considers himself a person driven by the greater good and has a curiosity for solving problems - like designing electric coils that are hot enough to perform kitchen tasks, but safe enough to meet the latest safety regulations. At the end of the day, he believes that GE Appliances makes products that help people, and that’s what continues to keep him motivated.

As the first female Chief Engineer of GE Appliances, Kyran Hoff is motivated to make the best products in the market every day in order to help owners better manage their tasks in the kitchen so they can spend more time with the people they love. Kyran is an engineer who holds seven patents and has helped to develop products and features our owners love, like GE Appliances’ first dishwasher sanitization cycle and an industry-first dishwasher with 102 jets, not to mention a jet designed specifically to clean bottles.

From the concept and development phase to seeing a product roll off the assembly line and into an owner’s home, Kyran loves being a part of the process. As an avid cook, she's particularly excited about the collaboration between the cooking and SmartHome Solutions teams. She believes that innovative features like guided cooking have the ability to bring out the inner home chef in everyone.

Watch here: Kyran shares how GE Profile is innovating for the future at KBIS 2021.

Our smart home solutions put the power of appliances into the hands of our owners. From guided cooking to washers and dryers with built-in WiFi, Jeff Drake is driven to create new products that keep you connected and save you time and money.

His work in integrating smart home technology with traditional appliances has led to new innovations like the award-winning Kitchen Hub. The Kitchen Hub harnesses the power of connected appliances into a home command center that can track family calendars, look up recipes and even video chat grandma for cooking advice.

Jeff’s interest in engineering started at a young age when he watched his father, an electrical control mechanic, tinker on projects at home. It prompted him to take a co-op position at GE Appliances and eventually a full-time role that has generated 43 patents and counting for the company. Jeff believes that you should be bold with your choices and appreciates that at GE Appliances, he has the freedom to bring big, new ideas to the table.

Once only available in restaurants, our Opal Nugget ice maker developed at FirstBuild, now allows our owners to produce perfectly crunchable nugget ice in the comfort of their own homes. Engineer Sam DuPlessis helped develop and bring the Opal to market, and in 2020 he played an integral role in GE Appliances’ re-entry into the small appliances marketplace.

Working with his team, Sam’s been able to combine innovation with an attention to detail that sets a new standard for the small appliances category. His work includes a “Gold Cup” certified coffee maker with style, and a “not-your-grandma’s” toaster oven with air-fry technology. Over the last 24 years of his career, Sam has gained a reputation for providing owners with new features that surprise, delight and deliver on superior experiences.

He contributes his success to being curious about how things work and being driven to make new ideas successful and useful for our owners. While seeing an idea come to life is rewarding, he points to seeing owners happy with their products as his greatest reward.

When you pick up a coffee pot and feel the weight and texture of the appliance in your hand, take note of your refrigerator’s seemingly “made-for-you” configuration or admire the attention to detail on your new toaster oven with air-fry technology, know that the creative mind of Lauren Platts is behind these functional and beautiful products.

Lauren is building on her experience and expertise as a designer in her role as product manager. From designing, to marketing and sales, Lauren's influence in the full lifecycle of our small appliances inspires her to make conscious and intentional choices that reflect the diverse needs and tastes of our owners.

Lauren believes that innovation is about questioning why things are the way they are now and asking yourself how you can make them better moving forward. She loves GE Appliances’ culture of open-mindedness, inclusivity and teamwork.

When you pop your next bag of microwave popcorn or boil water over a gas burner, you’ll have Derrick Little and his team to thank for how efficiently the appliances work. Derrick believes that the best innovation is born out of diversity in thought and teamwork. He lives by the idea that “we either win together or we do not win at all.” It’s this mindset that has led him to collaborate on more than 10 patents in the cooking technology space with his fellow GE Appliances engineers.

He loves leading the launch of new appliance products and seeing friends and family enjoy them in their homes. It’s the constant challenge of solving problems and the opportunity to learn something new that’s kept him passionate over the course of his nearly 30-year career with GE Appliances.