Applications Engineer

The Applications Engineering team serves to provide technical sales support to Seakeeper customers, primarily our OEM and Dealer partners. Technical support ranges from preparing Seakeeper Performance Predictions and Sea Trial Reports, to reviewing all aspects of Seakeeper installation arrangements.

Prior to joining Seakeeper, I worked for Resolve Fire and Salvage as a Naval Architect and Project Manager. At Resolve, I worked on technical and commercial proposals for marine salvage and emergency response projects that ranged from oil spill response, marine firefighting, and wreck removal. I also worked I the field on various salvage projects, most notably the Nathan E. Stewart ATB sinking in British Columbia and extensive hurricane recovery work in Florida and the Caribbean following Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.

I started at Seakeeper in April 2018.

Since I have started at Seakeeper we have launched the Seakeeper 2, Seakeeper 18, and Seakeeper 1 products, all of which have helped to introduce Seakeeper to new market segments.

The most interesting and challenging project I have worked on in my time with Seakeeper was the development of the Small Boat Sizing Guide, which simplifies the sizing process for small boats up to 38 ft. LOA (length overall). This project required testing various boats with the Seakeeper 1, Seakeeper 2, and Seakeeper 3 models across a range of sea conditions, analyzing the roll reduction performance, and comparing the results to a database of boats in this size range to create a sizing method that used a boats LOA and BOA (beam overall) to provide a suggested Seakeeper configuration. Ultimately, we developed a tool for small boats that can be used by the Sales Team and Seakeeper customers to quickly evaluate which Seakeeper is right for their boat and provides relevant sea trial results for comparison.

In addition to my work on the Small Boat Sizing Guide, I am most proud of the work done to create an updated web based Seakeeper Sizing Program, which is used to create Performance Prediction (PP) Reports. The Sizing Program was previously a VBA (Excel) program that required us to manually enter all vessel characteristics and create custom PDFs for each report, which was a very time-consuming process. The updated program provides a user interface for the Sales team and our Dealer and OEM partners where they can input the Sizing Form details and directly access their published PP Reports.

I’d say it’s a toss-up between the people and the product. It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to work for a company that offers an unbelievable product that is designed, manufactured, sold, and serviced by great people.

As an Applications Engineer, I work with all different Seakeeper customers, from end-users to boat builders and naval architects. Adjusting to each situation to ensure we provide the best service and support to our customers is an interesting and challenging aspect of this role.

Seakeeper is a very unique and technical product, so my advice is to dedicate time to developing a strong knowledge of the Seakeeper models and ask a lot of questions!

Pete Nolan has had a significant impact on my time at Seakeeper. Pete’s enthusiasm about Seakeeper is contagious and he is always a pleasure to work with on the water (“woodah”). Being from south Jersey, I also appreciate his Jersey accent.

I’m a New York Jets fan, so it’s been a tough season so far.