About
Summary
I’m a Marine Engineer & Certified Project Management Professional with 13-years' in shipbuilding, autonomous vessels and offshore wind development. I'm a proven leader at the interface between the technical & program sides of specialty maritime projects. Building on top of a strong technical background, I am experienced developing procedures, project controls, and reporting in multi-discipline, multi-national teams. Especially R&D-focused, throughout my career I have adapted processes as companies matured, technologies advanced, and brand-new industries developed. I get the most job satisfaction facilitating how teams organize and developing the tools needed to plan, execute, & track, setting ourselves up for success.
points of Pride
I’m proud to have contributed in the early days of U.S. offshore wind performing vessel operations engineering for the construction of Block Island Wind Farm (the first OSW farm in the U.S.), as well as several loading and feeder studies. I managed floating wind technology development at Principle Power (the worldwide lead in floating wind), and most recently served as Senior Development Manager for CIP/Vineyard Offshore's first U.S. floating wind project, California North Floating. I'm also proud to have managed hull and machinery design and construction for the Navy's history-making Overlord USV prototypes, a first-of-its-kind autonomous vessel project.
Background
My early work as the Mechanical Engineering Team Lead at MiNO Marine prepared me to manage multidisciplinary projects while accruing engineering experience. My time there included auxiliary mechanical and propulsion system design work on battery-hybrid tugs and ferries, liquid natural gas (LNG) carriers, and exhaust scrubber systems (SCR). Later, I joined Leidos Gibbs & Cox, a premier naval engineering firm and critical partner to the US Navy. My stand-out success there quickly led to a promotion to Program Manager in the Engineering Group. I was selected to be the primary interface with our new Unmanned Systems division, a start-up within the company, and went to work on a historic project developing the first unmanned surface vessel (USVs) prototypes that would inform the Navy fleet’s future direction.
While the work was rewarding, I grew tremendously during that time and sought to break into the similarly nascent offshore wind industry, which was exploding in the U.S. at the time. In my role as a Senior Project Manager at Principle Power, I managed a core of international, multi-discipline, senior level engineers working to maintain PPI's global lead in floating wind technology. We completed two publicly funded innovation grants, a publicly funded pilot project, and won three rounds of a Department of Energy R&D prize totaling over ~$8MUSD, with the goals of maturing our technology readiness level (TRL) in new deep-water environments, digital-twin health monitoring, and mass-scale serialized production of floating wind turbines (FOWTs). These projects included strategic partnerships with government funders, universities, national labs, private industry, regulatory bodies, and established renewable energy developers.
As those projects ended, a natural next step was joining Vineyard Offshore as Senior Development Manager, leading a floating offshore wind project that was among the first of five on the U.S. West Coast. Unfortunately, my time at VO was cut short due to recent turmoil in the industry. I have happily found myself back in the naval shipbuilding world, supporting PMS 406 at Naval Sea Systems Command through Booz Allen Hamilton. There I’m implementing management processes in anticipation of contract awards for the next-generation of Navy USVs, building upon the program I was involved with before.
Some key takeaways from the above journey are that my experience cuts across various paradigms: featuring companies both large and small, from established players to start-ups (and even start-ups within established players). It includes my early technical background moving into extensive project management, ranges from new construction to conversion, and from R&D/prototyping to serialized production of assets. This has prepared me to drive excellence and profitability across a portfolio of programs of all kinds.
Education
I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Tennessee Technological University in 2013 including electives in Aerodynamics, Vibrations, and Alternative Fuels. I completed my Master's Degree in Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering at University of New Orleans in 2017, including classes in Project Management, Design of Fixed Platforms, Maritime Law, Systems Engineering and Human Factors. My thesis presented a feasibility study of the use of jetting technology from jack-up rigs to achieve cost-savings during offshore WTG monopile decommissioning.
In addition, I completed the University of Massachusetts Offshore Wind Professional Certificate in 2023, which provides 9 credit hours in technology, development, finance, permitting, stakeholder engagement, supply chain, logistics, law, and policy.
