Brian Smith, P.E. Email & Phone Number

Sacramento, Ca, Us

Led technical exploration for Innovation pillar of R&D for the nation’s leading almond products manufacturerProposed, led, and executed on many process trials to assess novel technologies as part of innovation-to-commercialization pipelineResearched and performed trials with almond proteins to perform both low moisture extrusion (LME) to make almond-based snacks and high moisture extrusion to make meat substitutesChaired cross-functional team to make formulation and process improvement to dry roasted and powder coated almonds, reducing ingredient use by more than 5% and improving GMP of plant environmentServed on committee for $40mm capital expansion of non-dairy line – benchmarked current processes to replicate and standardize quality across all manufacturing lines

Westchester, Illinois, Us

Led technical and operational aspects of High Fructose Sugar Refinery with annual production of over 500 million pounds of commercial product per yearDetailed Management and Troubleshooting of Chemical Unit Operations: -Gas Turbine Generators with Heat Recovery Steam Generators (HRSG)-Process Water Cross-Flow Cooling Towers -Ion Exchange Units (Demineralizing, Deashing, and Polishing)-Activated Carbon Filtration for Pressure-Leaf Filtration-Multiple Effect Falling Film Evaporators-Simulated Moving Bed (SMB) Chromatographic Fractionation-Enzymatic Conversions (Alpha Amylase, Glucoamylase, and Glucose Isomerase)-Rotary Vacuum Filtration (RVF)-Reverse Osmosis (RO) for Boiler MakeupExpanded HFCS 55 production channel by 20% through identifying and eliminating evaporation bottleneck through steam piping and valve reconfigurationInitiated Strategy to reduce costs of Glucose Isomerization enzyme by monitoring and reducing decay rates, reducing yearly costs by over 5% (approximately $100,000)Directly designed production aid trial for Powdered Activated Carbon by analyzing Isomthermic Data using the Freundlich Adsorption Model – led to a switch in Carbon Supply that reduced costs about 10% and improved system performanceLed a process trial and modeling of Glucoamylase Saccharification Enzyme, reducing chemical usage by 27%