Meet Kevin Eldridge

About

Kevin Eldridge founded Product Compliance Simplified to help your company solve quality & compliance problems by applying the 16+ years of experience solving these types of problems from the inside. He breaks complex regulatory and quality requirements into practical, actionable strategies so you can ship products that are compliant and reliable.

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He started at TÜV Rheinland as a product and functional safety engineer, running product evaluations, factory audits and functional safety analyses (IEC 61508). He then led compliance for more than 20 LED lighting products at Philips Color Kinetics. After that he spent over a decade at Yamaha Guitar Group, home of Line 6 and Ampeg, rising from Senior Compliance Engineer to Director of Quality & Compliance.

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At Yamaha Guitar Group, Kevin built compliance into product development from day one. Each product got a compliance plan at the concept stage, design and construction reviews, pre-compliance testing, managed lab and certification work, and a final check of markings, packaging and manuals before anything shipped. He also ran the quality system and corrective-action program. He built and led a quality and compliance organization of 10+ people across the US and China: a compliance engineer, four quality leads and a QA test team in California, and a QC manager, three supplier quality engineers and a team of source inspectors overseeing factories in China.  Towards the end of his tenure at YGG,  he guided products through newer requirements such as the EU's cybersecurity standard for connected devices (EN 18031) and PFAS restrictions.

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Today he works with companies on a project basis or as their fractional quality and compliance lead, providing senior oversight without the cost of a full-time hire.

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By working with Kevin, you work with someone who has sat on both sides of the test lab, knows what leads to failures and blocked shipments, and can explain it all in plain English.

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Experience

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Product Compliance Simplified — Founder & Principal Consultant

2026 – Present

• Fractional quality and compliance leadership for hardware companies: certification strategy, supplier quality, CAPA and recall readiness, part-time or on retainer

• Full project support from concept to certification: compliance plans, design reviews, pre-compliance testing, and lab and certification-body management

• Compliance and quality reviews: technical files, declarations of conformity, test reports, labels and manuals, audit preparation, and supplier gap checks with prioritized fixes

• Training for engineering and product teams on global requirements and quality basics

• Writing a plain-English guide to product safety (coming soon)

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Yamaha Guitar Group (Line 6, Ampeg) — Calabasas, CA

Director of Quality & Compliance · Nov 2022 – Dec 2025

Sr. Manager of Quality & Compliance · May 2017 – Nov 2022

Sr. Compliance Engineer · Jan 2015 – May 2017

• Owned product compliance for all products, achieving international approvals across global markets

• Set requirements at concept through a compliance plan for every product; ran construction reviews against the applicable safety standards and drove fixes with design teams

• Managed certification projects with third-party labs and certification bodies (Intertek and others), negotiating cost and schedule

• Managed the technical file for each product (CB, NRTL, FCC and EU reports, DoCs) and the shipping controls that kept products from reaching markets before approval

• Led the first EU cybersecurity compliance effort (EN 18031 under the Radio Equipment Directive), including risk assessment and penetration testing

• Designed and ran the quality management system and CAPA process; resolved field issues and customer complaints

• Led a 10+ person quality and compliance team across the US and China: compliance engineer, quality leads, QA testers, QC manager, supplier quality engineers (SQEs) and source inspectors

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Philips Color Kinetics — Burlington, MA

Lead Compliance Engineer · Feb 2011 – May 2014

• Managed compliance for 20+ LED lighting products, including LED drivers and luminaires, to UL, IEC, CISPR and FCC requirements

• Embedded compliance requirements into designs with engineering teams for smooth approvals

• Trained and mentored interns in compliance and quality procedures

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TÜV Rheinland of North America — Boxborough, MA

Product & Functional Safety Engineer · Oct 2008 – Feb 2011

• Performed product safety evaluations, including on-site testing and factory audits

• Conducted functional safety analyses to IEC 61508, including FMEA and SIL calculations

• Maintained on-site lab quality systems to internal and accreditation requirements and managed annual calibration

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Standards & Regulations

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Multimedia Equipment / AV / ITE:

UL/CSA/IEC/EN 62368-1 (audio/video and IT equipment); CB Scheme; NRTL listings (cULus, cETLus);  UL/CSA/IEC/EN 60950-1 (legacy); UL/CSA/IEC/EN 60065 (legacy)

FCC Part 15; CISPR 32 / EN 55032; EN 55035; IEC/EN 61000-3-2 and -3-3; IEC/EN 61000-4 series

Wireless:

FCC, EU Radio Equipment Directive (RED) / R&TTE Directive; Japan Radio Law

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Functional Safety / Industrial: 

IEC 61508, UL 508

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Lighting:

UL 1598 (luminaires); UL 8750 (LED equipment); UL 1310 (Class 2 power units); IEC/EN 60598 (luminaires); IEC/EN 61347 (LED control gear); CISPR 15 / EN 55015 (lighting EMC)

ENERGY STAR / Title 24

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Cybersecurity:

EN 18031 (RED cybersecurity)

Chemical & Environmental:

EU RoHS; REACH (SVHC); WEEE; China RoHS; California Prop 65; TSCA (Title VI formaldehyde; PIP (3:1)); PFAS restrictions

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Power supplies & energy:

DOE Level VI efficiency; external power supply safety and EMC requirements

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Market access:

CE, UKCA, PSE (Japan), RCM (Australia/NZ) and other international approvals; EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR); Apple MFi; USB-IF

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Education

B.S. Electrical Engineering · Northeastern University, Boston, MA · 2008

Semester abroad at Technical University of Denmark (DTU), 2006

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Skills

• Certification planning and global market access

• Design and construction reviews, pre-compliance testing, lab and certification-body management

• Technical files, declarations of conformity, labeling and manuals

• Quality management systems, CAPA, risk analysis (FMEA)

• Project management, team leadership and mentoring

• Tools: JIRA, Confluence, Omnify/Arena, TestRail/Testmo, Tableau, SAP, Microsoft Office Suite

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