Who am I?

I am a Mechanical Engineer who has devoted the last 15 years of his career to improving reliability at various facilities as an internal consultant or member of a site management team. I have a passion for reliability improvement and like to help organizations succeed in improving their business through improved reliability. I am a Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional and have worked a variety of jobs in operational organizations as well as in engineering. My work history and experience are outlined below.

Experience and Work History

September 2009 - Present– Vice President, Asset Management, Peabody Energy, St. Louis, Missouri.

Leads the Peabody Energy corporate center of expertise in the area of Maintenance.  Responsible for developing, maintaining and improving maintenance body of knowledge, equipment standards, SAP PM, auditing and maintenance improvement initiatives.

October 2006 - September 2009– Vice President, Technology – HOVENSA LLC, St. Croix, USVI.

Member of the HOVENSA Leadership Team operating a 500,000 bbls/day highly complex Refinery in the Caribbean (joint venture of HESS and PDVSA). This facility generates all power on site (~200 MW). Responsible for setting business strategy and technical objectives jointly with the VP of Operations. Regularly report status of the business to the joint venture board of directors. Focused on strategic improvements by establishing critical work processes such as Management of Change, Maintenance Planning and Scheduling and Reliability Engineering. Establish and manage strategic relationships such as a technical service agreement with Shell Global Solutions. The Technology Department is responsible for over 200 professionals and wage-level employees in Process Engineering, Capital Projects, Information Technology, Process Control & Automation, Economics & Planning, Reliability & Facility Engineering, Fixed Equipment Inspection, and the Quality Control Laboratory. Responsible for managing a capital portfolio consisting of a small capital budget of approximately $60 million per year and large capital projects up to $600 million.

October 2004 – October 2006 – Technical Services Department Head, Chalmette Refining, LLC (ExxonMobil), Chalmette, LA.

Responsible for all Engineering and Inspection issues. Managed approximately 30 employees and 30 contractors. Provided leadership for Mechanical, Instrument, Electrical and Machinery Engineering plus the Fixed Equipment Inspection Group. Participated in the leadership team as the site Reliability Manager. Technical leader of the damage assessment and efforts to restore the refinery following Hurricane Katrina during 2005. Restored the facility to full operation within 60 days following the hurricane, reported to corporate leadership every two weeks, coordinated with ExxonMobil corporate logistics and emergency response team, FEMA and Entergy (utility company) to restore power to the facility while leading the restoration effort at the site.

August 2002 – October 2004 – Reliability and Maintenance Section Head, ExxonMobil – Central Engineering Office, Fairfax, VA.

Responsible for a department of two-dozen senior engineers providing reliability support to ExxonMobil’s 34 refineries worldwide. Specialty services included identifying and documenting company best practices, RAM (Reliability, Availability & Maintainability) analysis for large projects, statistical analysis, root cause analysis of large reliability events, and compilation of corporate equipment performance metrics, maintaining and updating reliability systems. Coordinated ExxonMobil programs and systems with similar functions in Upstream and Chemicals organization to maintain alignment in company reliability policies and approach.

July 1998 – August 2002 – Reliability Program Manager, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering (EMRE) Regional Engineering Office, Singapore.

Provided reliability leadership and engineering support to 10 refineries in Asia Pacific in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia and to Upstream in Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. Lead and facilitated the Turnaround network for Asia Pacific. Lead implementation of reliability systems across the 4 Mobil refineries in the region following the 2000 merger of Exxon and Mobil.

February 1996 – July 1998 – Sr. Reliability Engineer – Mobil Technology Company, Paulsboro, NJ.

Developed and implemented Mobil’s first reliability system. Learned, applied and trained others in reliability tools including: Root Cause Analysis, Statistical Analysis (Weibull) , Reliability-Availability-Maintainability (RAM) Modeling – (Jardine MAROS model), Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) and API Risk-Based Inspection (RBI).

June 1994 – February 1996 – Procurement Manager – Mobil Refinery, Torrance, CA.

Assigned as Procurement Manager to standardize and optimize the quality of maintenance contracts for the refinery. Managed a department of 6 buyers and contract specialists. Participated in corporate-wide re-engineering effort to improve global procurement.

April 1991 – June 1994 – Inspection Group Leader – Mobil Refinery, Torrance, CA.

Supervisor of the fixed equipment inspection and material group during implementation of Process Safety Management (OSHA 1910.119) efforts and during the implementation of many of the API tandards API 653, API 510, API 570.

April 1989 - April 1991 – Mechanical Engineer – Mobil Refinery, Torrance, CA.

Responsible among other things for the safe and reliable operation of a 12–drum delayed Coker, central waste gas compression, flares, tankage and offsites areas. Executed maintenance improvements as well as small capital projects. Planned and executed the south coker turnaround (6 drums inspect & repair, 3 heaters, cutting water piping replacement, tower re-tray).

August 1984 – April 1989 – US Navy Submarine Officer – USS Henry L Stimson SSBN 655.

Nuclear-trained officer on a submarine. Responsibility included providing both hands on operations, maintenance experience as well as supervision to personnel on board.

Education

<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering – Auburn University, Auburn, AL 1984

<!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->Masters of Business Administration - Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA 1994.