Delta Faucet Co.
Indiana State Chapter

Certain habits develop at a young age. While AJ Tentler admits he wasn’t a very creative child, he does recall the enthusiasm with which he would “constantly plan out and rearrange my bedroom furniture to make it more efficient/spacious, so that I could do things like play basketball on a mini hoop or build forts.” Today, efficiency — along with a healthy dash of creativity — is at the heart of AJ’s career as an industrial designer at Indianapolis-based Delta Faucet Company, which he joined in March 2021 with an Industrial and Product Design degree from Purdue University. “The most appealing quality of my job is the fact that people use our products in the kitchen and bath multiple times a day, so you have a significant impact on their life — whether or not they ever think twice about it.”

“The most appealing quality of my job is the fact that people use our products in the kitchen and bath multiple times a day, so you have a significant impact on their life—whether or not they ever think twice about it.”

AJ’s affinity for design was evident while he worked as a co-op student for nearly two years, putting his education on partial hold to create with the Delta industrial design team. During that time, he was awarded 60+ design patents and three of his designs went to market. “My most memorable project was a faucet that I designed during my co-op,” he says. “I spent countless hours fine-tuning and tweaking a design, asking other team members for advice and feedback, and I’m glad that I never gave up on it because seeing it in person on shelves was totally worth it.”

Raised in rural Indiana, AJ considers himself a country boy at heart. “My design preference has always been farmhouse,” he says, “but I have definitely been more drawn to modern farmhouse/Scandinavian farmhouse as of late.” 

When he’s not drawing, 3D modeling or prototyping, AJ pursues hobbies (photography, guitar, fishing and hiking) to satisfy his “curious” nature. He is currently obsessed with collecting LEGO sets, which he says were a really great creative outlet during the pandemic. He has also been married for a little over three years to his high-school sweetheart, Meagan. “She is a kindergarten teacher, which is great because she knows how to handle me and all my childlike antics,” he says. Travel is definitely in his future, as is another activity that piques his curiosity: “Skydiving would be pretty cool, too, although I am terribly afraid of heights.”