Kelly Howie Sweeney Email & Phone Number

Longmont, CO, US

Broomfield, CO

Louisville, Colorado

Manage customer jobs from initial design, to production and final quality check prior to shipment. Created company wide quality review system for analyzing process and analytical data. Manage operations schedule. Lead one junior engineer in data analysis.

Golden, Colorado

Managed installation of new tape caster in R&D. Responsible for start-up and qualification of tape caster and ceramic tape.

Longmont, CO

• R&D process engineer for a $5M pilot plant biomass gasification unit. Responsible engineer for 24/7 daily operation and 16 operators. Oversaw experiments, data analysis, process control, process deviations, equipment.
• Successful first time start-up of unique biomass reforming process converting tree pulp feedstock to syngas (hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide).
• Unit operated at high temperature and high pressure conditions (1500 F, 60 psi) with semi-continuous flow of solids and gases.
• Gasification process controlled using LABVIEW.
• Successfully overcome numerous equipment failures and process modifications.
• Optimized process variables which resulted in continuous stable operation after 4 months of operation.

Billerica, MA

• M&P engineer developing innovative materials, designing new process methods and evaluating application performance. Experienced in nanomaterials, fumed metal oxides (e.g. silica) and specialty carbon black research..
• Lead projects, prepare test plans, execute experiments and evaluate results.
• Process engineer for developing new conductive additive, LITX 300, for lithium ion battery applications. Responsible for carbon black properties and process development at pilot and commercial scale units. Executed.
• Process engineer for developing new conductive carbon black grade, Vulcan XCmax, for super conductive plastics. Involved in the development of the product and the process. Executed trials at pilot plant and commercial.
• Hands on experience with compounding mixers, high shear dispersers, gas reactors, liquid reactors, fluidized beds, pelletizers, dryers, automated packing, main unit filters, spray dryers, furnaces and incinerators.
• Performed material characterization of carbon black and silica such as particle size, porosity, surface area, aggregate size, surface chemistry, impurities and bulk properties.

Brigham City, UT

• Designed insulation and adhesives used in the booster separation motors for the NASA space shuttle program. Led engineering, operations and quality team in the design and development of a new adhesive and manufacturing.
• Managed product and process documentations such as design requirements, specifications, drawings, process instructions and safety factors.
• Created test plans, test reports and test instructions for validating adhesive formulations and raw material lots.
• Oversaw manufacturing process for applying adhesive to rocket motor and optimized process using lean manufacturing techniques.
• Evaluated production data using six sigma principles. Analyzed process control and developed process improvements. Prepared FMEA and RCA for critical defects which results in reduced variability and enhanced quality.
• Followed aerospace ISO9001 quality standards with comprehensive documentation, change control, quality control, validation and audits required for NASA manned space flight.

Investigated the effects of urban pollution on local visibility through air parcel transport. Generated back trajectories using HYSPLIT 4.6. Statistically correlated aerosol compound concentrations with similar air trajectories using MATLAB for data filtration/manipulation and SAS for statistical clustering.