Robert Karnes Email & Phone Number

Lexington, Ma

ZKX is a new startup by the former president of KaZaK Composites, currently pursuing ventures in structural composites and terminal ballistics characterization. Details are available at http://zkxkz.com/

Avon, Massachusetts

Cuming Corporation (from 2012 a subsidiary of AFGlobal Corp. of Houston) was a $100M manufacturer of syntactic foam buoyancy and insulation materials for the offshore industry. Customers included Shell, Technip, HHI, DSME and SBM Offshore.At Cuming the focus was on process efficiency, hitting deadlines and first-time quality for what was essentially a high-volume commodity product. I was responsible for all aspects of product and mold tooling design, as well as for support of quality control, R&D, process plant, and sales. I had technical oversight of two to four engineers and several designers.I also was a member of the Cuming president’s Technical Commercial team since 2014, providing technology research, feasibility studies and risk analyses for business development. A letter of recommendation from the president is posted below.During my time we made comprehensive improvements in engineering standards and quality assurance, including ISO9001 qualification, to satisfy industry customers’ increasing demands for design documentation, validation by analysis and test, and more stringent QA measures. I also gained extensive experience in solid modeling and finite element analysis.The highlight for the years 2014-16 was building buoyancy for the groundbreaking disconnectable turret buoy and flexible umbilicals in Shell’s floating production platform Turritella, now installed at the Stones ultra-deepwater field in the Gulf of Mexico. Stones is the world’s deepest oil and gas project to date and was named one of Offshore Magazine’s Top 5 Projects for 2015. Details are posted below. Other noteworthy projects were Shell Mars B (Olympus platform) and Ursa, and spherical oceanographic buoys for Woods Hole and Scripps.The Avon facility ceased operations in early 2017 due to the severe cutbacks in the offshore industry following the collapse in the oil market.

Woburn, Ma

KaZaK was an $18M per annum idea factory and manufacturer of high-end structural composites and specialty products for the defense and aerospace markets, developed primarily through the Department of Defense SBIR, STTR and BAA programs. I was hired for my expertise in elastomeric materials for energy absorption and shock resistance, to augment the company’s main competence in pultruded structural composites and ballistic protection. I contributed many ideas for SBIR/STTR proposals and was principal investigator on several programs, bringing in over $3M in new business.KaZaK was the most technically interesting and challenging work of my career. Important projects:• For the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), I received a Phase II grant ($750k) for shock protection of fuze assemblies in hard-target penetrating weapons, on which I collaborated with KaZaK sponsor and technology partner Kaman Precision Products. In support of this I carried out extensive work in high-strain-rate (Kolsky bar) testing at the Brown University Mechanical Testing Facility under Kaman’s cooperative R&D agreement.• For the Navy, I received a Phase II grant for concept development of a vibration-damping Acoustic Vector Sensor mount for unmanned underwater vehicles.Other projects:• For Army, a novel concept for lightweight knee/elbow armor• For Navy, a Littoral Combat Ship mission module container with integrated composite armor• For AFRL, concepts and development of high specific stiffness materials for inertial guidance applications• Qualification of engineering documentation for ISO 9001 certification

Rockland, Ma

Globe was a long-established job shop with a unique range of capabilities, including conventional rubber molding and plastic injection molding. The company was a pioneer in closed-mold process for cast urethanes and leveraged this expertise to move into more highly engineered products, including acoustical materials for US Navy submarines. I was hired to support this effort. I assisted technical supervisors and conventional/CNC machinists and supervised two designers.During my time the most important project was design and production of composite package sorter system components for the US Postal Service, including resilient polyurethane carriages and track. I conceived, designed and produced a reinforced plastic drive chain with integral bearings to replace the existing steel chain. Developmental prototypes installed in several bulk mail handling facilities around the US demonstrated a 30% savings in operating and maintenance costs. The system was introduced as part of the USPS life extension program, with over $10M in business through September 2005. This and other projects are described below.Globe collaborated with the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership on improving quality and business processes, ultimately resulting in ISO 9001:2000 certification.

Groton, Ct

Starting in nuclear projects, I moved on to Naval Architecture where I was exposed to all the high level issues and tradeoffs involved in submarine design. Working with several of the company’s most eminent engineers, I carried out many interesting concept studies such as a high-recovery 'scoop' seawater inlet, and tests such as scale model determination of the hydrodynamic added mass of a propulsor design. At that time the first ship of the new Seawolf class (SSN21) was under construction and I became cognizant of hydrostatic and hydrodynamic effects of its novel molded low-observables (LO) hull treatment. The mechanical behavior of this material under submergence pressure affects ship hydrostatics and I showed that the ship’s variable ballast system was capable of handling the changes. This involved determining the pressure hull’s own displacement loss to greater accuracy than previously known, by integrating the results of a detailed analysis of its structural deformation. I also designed a transition feature to maintain fairness of the material at discontinuities. In this position I held a Top Secret clearance.Studies of the mechanical behavior of the LO material ultimately led to a position in the company’s Non-Metallic Materials Engineering Laboratory, where I bore principal technical responsibility and advised shipyard QA on meeting Navy specifications for mechanical properties and bond integrity of the molded LO hull treatment in Seawolf, and contributed to development of the treatment installation process. I also designed and produced bonded urethane fairings for external hull features. Other work included design of a sound-damping liner for the gas discharge system in USS Memphis (SSN691), which served as the Navy’s submarine R&D platform, and design of encapsulated antennas and outboard camera mounts for the Navy’s deep submersible NR-1.

Master Of Science - Ms, Mechanical Engineering

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Mechanical Engineering