Tim Kuehnlenz
Tim Kuehnlenz is the Head of Engineering Operations at Gratz Pilates, where he leads the engineering work behind the manufacture and refinement of Classical Pilates apparatus. He brings twenty-five years of custom manufacturing experience and a family history in the trade to a role that sits at the intersection of craft, engineering, and the practitioner's experience on the equipment.
Manufacturing runs in Tim's family, several generations were tool and die makers in New York City. He carries that lineage into his own work.
Before joining Gratz Pilates, Tim worked with some of the top design firms in custom manufacturing on projects globally from large-scale public art installations to custom furniture pieces for private clients. He started on the shop floor with his hands: machinist, welder-fabricator, finisher. Over time he moved into guiding clients through the sales process, supporting design and CAD modeling, and coordinating with production and last-mile installation teams. That progression gave him a rare view of a project from raw stock through the moment the finished piece stands in a public plaza or private home.
Tim also brings a non-traditional academic background to engineering, a BFA in Sculpture. He credits that training with a problem-solving approach that considers the full arc of execution: not only the hard math of engineering, but whether the finished result is right for the Pilates practitioner's experience on the apparatus.
As Head of Engineering Operations, Tim leads engineering projects and collaborates with product, manufacturing, and quality assurance throughout development and production. His responsibilities span design for manufacturing, resolving technical challenges, improving manufacturing processes, and supporting both new product development and refinements to the existing apparatus line. Across all of it, his focus is a high level of quality and consistency in every piece that leaves the shop.
"There is a deep overlap between all the departments here. It's not one team doing one thing and another team doing something else in isolation engineering, production, quality, sales, and logistics all work in sync to deliver each apparatus. That collaboration across the whole company is what makes the work meaningful."
"Most people know Gratz as the original Pilates equipment manufacturer, but the company originally founded as Treitel-Gratz has a long history in Art Deco and Mid-Century Modern furniture that predates our work in Pilates. Gratz fabricated iconic pieces for Knoll and Laverne, and for designers like Isamu Noguchi and Mies van der Rohe including the first American-made Barcelona chairs, ottomans, and day beds, along with the Tugendhat and Brno chairs."
"The Reformer. It is such a foundational piece, and while it appears simple, there is quite a lot of craft that goes into delivering it with consistency. The frame is a uni-body design a fully welded, one-piece assembly which takes considerable effort to build true and distortion-free. This approach is uncommon in the industry because of the added difficulty and complexity, but it's what makes our Reformer what it is."