David Rathburn Email & Phone Number

Oxford Ma

Facilities expert on gas & steam turbine design and requirements. Responsible for component validation for new and existing OEM parts and assemblies. This included: Weld qualification, Heat Treatment qualification, Dimensional qualification, Air Flow qualification, Method Procedures, and Statistical Analysis of inspection data. Designed a new flow bench plenum, to handle lager parts. Designed component modifications for producibility.

Responsible for day-to-day operations, and for all company civil, mechanical, instrumentation, & electrical: conceptual designs, final designs, & implementation of designs.Expert witness hired to consult with US Justice Department regarding power plant energy uses & efficiencies. Testified under videotaped deposition why the defendant’s reports to the EPA were fraudulent & their data & mathematical models not possible within the laws of physics, used statistical data & calculation deviations to prove the impossibility.Expert witness hired by the following companies to inspect & consult on their problem or situation; PT Badak Indonesia, Calpine Morris, Copene Brazil, FLOUR Constructors International, GE contractual services, Didrikson Associates, International Paper, Collins Engineering, BMPI contracted by PEMEX Mexico, Noble Energy USA & Ecuador, GE Harris, IMC Kalium Canada, Douglas G. Peterson & Associates, WoodGroup GTS Peru LNGDoha West Kuwait power plant expansionCalculated & negotiated costs for a 210 MW turnkey power plant, with the Kuwait government, awarded $186.4 MM turnkey & $31.6 MM maintenance contractCreated the plant concept, layout, & final designRedesigned GE LM6000 gas turbine generator sets from direct drive 60 Hz to gear driven 50 HzAs Samawah Iraq turnkey power plant & substation expansion Responsible for the only successful gas turbine installed in southern Iraq during the 2004/2005 time periodSpent one year in Iraq supervising the projectCalculated & negotiated costs for a 40 MW turnkey power plant awarded $24 MM contractInspected, tested & purchased a Frame 6B turbine in AustraliaCreated; plant concept, layout, foundation drawings, piping designs & solid model using SolidWorks & COSMOS finite element analysisTrained 135 Iraqis in western construction methodsTaught 62 days of formal classroom training to 12 Iraqi engineers in gas turbine theory & operationManaged 1-year plant warrantee addressing all daily operation issues

GE Fitchburg MAResponsible for the day-to-day operations of the Production Engineering & Drafting department and the supervision and management of the engineers, coops, and draftsman assigned to my department along with our production schedules. Responsible for the reporting, disposition, and corrective action for all engineering, drafting, and production caused manufacturing losses, i.e. defects, technical specifications interpretation correction and support, technical factory engineering support, vendor engineering support, and pre-commercial operation and installation support. Advanced Product Quality Planning and Failure Modes Effects Analysis were integral to this position. The responsibility for defect dispositioning and correcting all manufacturing, design, drafting and vendor errors to the turbine product line included root cause analysis. This analysis was done using the 5-Whys method for initial and simple defects and the TapRoot investigation method and Fishbone Charts for complex defects. As warranted Lean Manufacturing methods and 6-Sigma methods were used in analyzing the defects found. I used Minitab as the statistical analysis program. This dispositioning responsibility included assigning responsibility to the correct department for these losses. This was followed by the responsibility to assign the costs of the loss and or repair, in time and material, as an actual dollar loss to the facility, and report this to the plant manager during a weekly staff meeting along with any corrective actions necessary. Also responsible for the Technical Library, maintaining, correcting and indexing all GE Fitchburg’s Engineering Technical Specification.

Initiated and completed a Lean 6-Sigma project that changed GE special hardware (nuts, bolts, washers, pins, etc.) specified with special GE material and or drawings to industry standard material and drawings. The industry standard hardware, material, and quality is equivalent and in some cases exceeded the GE special hardware specification at a fraction of the cost. Savings averaged $7,300 per unit saving our department an average of $365,000 per year from the implementation point forward. This project was going to be applied to other GE facilities based on the success of this Lean 6-Sigma project.Initiated and completed a 6-Sigma project that simplify the variety of hardware (nuts, bolts, washers, pins, etc.) used in the product line. This entailed looking at the application of each hardware item and determining if a standard size could be used and if we could consolidate the variety of hardware sizes to a few sizes of standard size and length. This allowed workers to carry fewer wrenches (less tool box trips) and allowed bulk purchase of standard industry hardware as implemented with the previously stated project. It also eliminated production time lost due to damage or loss of the one special (i.e. odd size) part, as there was now always a spare.

GE Fitchburg MA Responsible for technical dispositions of all design and manufacturing issues associated with the sale of GE’s Navy product line to Dresser-Rand.

GE Fitchburg MA, concurrent to Design and Production engineering positions.Lead Engineer for hardware cost reduction / producibility projects, design reviews.Instrumental in the ISO9000 certification of the GE Fitchburg facility through specification consolidation.

GE Fitchburg MA Responsible for the mechanical and thermodynamic design, and the schedule for steam turbine contracts assigned to me. Interfaced with customers on contract, design, and test issues as required. Designed 16 steam turbines with significant cost saving for a variety of GE customers including Shell Oil, Mobil, Destec, Monsanto, Hess Oil, Glatfelter, Mangalore, Zurn, Scott, Fluor... Saved GE $200,000 by careful review of a customer specification and determined that a different high pressure casing design and material could be used fulfilling contract requirements.Removed a turbine stage from seven different units and still designed the turbine to exceed contract requirements. Each stage was worth $40,000 for a savings of $280,000.Saved $50,000 on two contracts by replacing the elliptical bearing designs with tilting pad bearing designs. This change was then applied to all future designs of this type, hundreds of units for millions of dollars in future savings.

GE Fitchburg MA, concurrent to engineering positions. Taught basic PC operations, DOS, IBM COPICS, Interleaf word processing and Technical Writing, ProEngineering 3D modeling, MS Word, MS Excel, and MathCAD. Proficient with computer hardware and software including but not limited to: MS Office including MS Project, MS Visio, MS Access, MathCAD, SolidWorks, COSMOS, Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator, PageMaker, Dreamweaver, HomeSite, AutoCAD, & Primavera Contract Manager.Microsoft Beta tester for their IMSL mathematical & statistical libraries of FORTRAN subroutines, I specifically tested the compatibility of these PC subroutines version results against the DEC, & Honeywell IMSL subroutines version results. This allowed me to investigate differences in results due to precision (8, 16, 32, and 64-bit) of compiled code between the computer systems, determining what programs could be easily converted to the PC and which could not. GE management award for Computer Integration. This was an engineering methods improvement where we converted the individual engineers from DEC terminals to IBM PC. The PC’s through software had the functionality of the terminal and allow each engineer to run MathCAD and do their own word processing onto standard forms I created. This integration allowing the elimination of a dedicated typing pool. Additionally I converted some mainframe programs in to PC FORTRAN or MathCAD providing more available computer time on the mainframe. ELFUN Society appreciation award for my volunteer work in setting up school computer training centers using GE surplus computers supplemented by ELFUN Society grants.

GE Fitchburg MA Responsible for design and analysis of turbine and compressor components.

GE Fitchburg MA Responsible for mechanical and electrical assembly of commercial and navy steam turbines generator sets and compressors trains.

GE Fitchburg MA Responsible for machining of precision components for turbines and compressors.

GE Schenectady NYInstructor in the apprentice machine shop.Detail Draftsman at GE’s Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory working on reactor assembly drawings, Department of Defense secret clearance.Design Draftsman working on jig and fixture designs.Machinist manufacturing turbine and electric motor / generator components.Methods Specialist for Large Motor and Generator, responsible for centrifugal and static bearing casting and machining, component machining, lamination stacking, and commutator assembly.GE suggestion award for Use of Spring Washers When Heat Cycling Motor Rotors. This was a methods improvement to the large motor and generator production line. This procedure was to heat a tightened motor/ generator, rotor or stator, lamination stack so it compressed. The entire item was heated to 600 degrees in garage sized ovens for 6-hours then the doors open and the item cooled for 2-hours to between 200-300 degrees. Then this original method required 2 workers putting on fireproof suits, helmets, and boots to enter a baking oven at 200-300 degrees to torque down motor/ generator, rotor or stator, to compress the lamination stack and measure the compression achieved. This 8-hour procedure had to be repeated 10-12 times to compress typical lamination stacks to the design requirement. The new method used my procedure that calculated compressed stacks of spring washers that exceeded the compression length of the lamination stack. This allowed constant pressure on the lamination stacks without retorquing allowing the compression procedure to be completed in 8-12 hours saving on average 3+ days of production, energy, and the safety bonus of not having a worker enter the hot oven. This procedure was implemented on all future motor and generator production.

Working foreman in charge of second shift machine shop for a medium size, plastic injection factory. Plant manufactured refrigerator components to FDA standards.

Aas, Management Engineering

Dean's List 1982,1983, & 1984 Was able to succeed in surpassing the programming capabilities (results) of the school Prime mainframe.

Small Arms Processes Technology / Manufacturing / Machining

New York State Regents High School Diploma