Acworth, Georgia, United States
PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY: Mechanical Engineering leader with extensive experience spanning mechanical design, thermal-fluid and combustion systems, computational modeling, and capital project delivery in roles with progressive responsibility across multiple plant and expansion projects. Brings demonstrated technical leadership, team management, collaborative, and large-project scope experience with a strong record of successes, including ~$270M expansion work and worldwide carbon black reactor designs.
Mechanical Engineering leadership for one of the flagship businesses of the leading Indian multi-national conglomerate. Birla Carbon provides innovative, sustainable carbon blacks that enhance the high performance of products for mechanical rubber goods, inks, and coatings. • Developed complete reactor design scopes for one brownfield and two greenfield expansion projects totaling ~$270M, covering shell, refractory, hot air line, spray, valve, fitting, nozzle, and fabricated item needs, and led a team through startup support. • Managed an overseas team through the detail design and erection phases, with responsibility for EPC document reviews, RFQs, technical bid evaluations, refractory and equipment inspections, and erection issue support. • Conducted annual performance reviews and provided goal alignment coaching and mentoring, and addressed discipline issues, while reporting weekly group work progress up. • Utilized SolidWorks 3D software extensively for plant equipment designs, reducing errors and drawing time during the expansion projects.
Company-wide materials and refractory engineering leadership. Continued process improvement and plant support. Engineering standards development. • Provided key material expertise to the plants, supporting their annual maintenance and project planning needs, by 1D thermal profiling, failure studies, material specifications and loading analyses, and refractory bill of materials generation. • Utilized Ansys Fluent and Ansys Mechanical to diagnose refractory hot-air-line damage, boiler superheater failures, process flow imbalances, dryer combustor damage, and thermal expansion overloads. • Developed an external recirculation system for a large oil tank, including the piping, pump, heater, and P&ID, that enabled use of higher-value feedstock oil, and the plant replicated the design on a second tank after confirming outstanding results. • Produced the first company-wide standard for process isolation blinds for circular and rectangular ducts ensuring personnel safety during use. • Led efforts to utilize camera systems for the reactors and developed a pulsed camera-port purge system for installation on reactors, which the company is implementing. • Designed an improved process vessel that will increase up time over prior designs and offers better powder level measurement for brown and green-field units.
Reactor and process improvement development. Special projects. Plant support. • Developed high-temperature combusting reactor designs installed at plants worldwide, improving thermal performance capability, reactor yield, and profitability with an estimated annual value of tens of millions of dollars. • Created centerline spray and swirl burner technologies, resulting in further improved yield and profitability, which are installed worldwide. • Fully scoped, designed, and managed the installation of a production-scale $700K fuel-cell catalyst synthesis facility scaled up from laboratory scale — delivered on time and under budget. • Characterized damaging unsteady pulsations in a low calorific value gas incinerator and designed a vibration reducing improvement that was installed, having long and successful operation.
Audited the energy and materials usage of a broad range of industries with a team of graduate and undergraduate students, and provided actionable cost saving recommendations. Authored five technical reports describing the processes and potential savings, and identified over 30 opportunities during surveys of 20 facilities.
Manufacturing engineer intern working on production and maintenance related projects. • Designed a bridge crane hoist system to safely manage forklift battery changes after identifying critical overloading and access constraints in the prior system — company installed the design. • Co-designed a large printer cassette storage and retrieval system to reduce press downtime.