Brennan J. Smith is President of Viking Fast Craft Solutions, LLC located in O’Fallon, Illinois. His company specializes in the development and management of high-speed vessel technology and designs. Mr. Smith has 25 years of experience in the design and construction of small and medium-size vessels.

Mr. Smith’s capabilities are demonstrated by a few of his projects:

1. •   As Project Engineer for the 82’ Aluminum MK V Special Operations Craft, Mr. Smith coordinated all design disciplines from proposal through development of production craft drawings. The unique customer requirements of this project necessitated innovative design solutions. Mr. Smith initiated efforts, which were successful in increasing the integration of systems for simplification of installation and operation. The MK V Test Article was designed, constructed, and delivered on schedule in six months to compete in trials against two other designs. The test article developed under Mr. Smith’s guidance was the only design in the competition to meet the weight limits in addition to the other US Special Operations Command performance objectives, and won the production contract for 26 vessels valued at more than $150 million.
   

1. • As a Product Manager for fast ferries Mr. Smith significantly increased the competitiveness of the company’s fast ferry products. This was accomplished through design modifications that significantly improved the performance of the fast ferry designs, improvements in the estimating process, material and subcontractor cost reductions and development of improved production processes. These efforts resulted in increased vessel performance and a cost reduction of more than 20%. Also, additional designs were licensed to increase the range of the fast ferry products.
   
   

2. • As Manager of a structural design department performing preliminary and detail design of a wide range of commercial and naval vessels, Mr. Smith led the growth of the department from 10 to 27 engineers, designers, and draftsmen. He reorganized the department and developed new processes to reduce design and drawing development time as well as improve quality. Under the leadership of Mr. Smith, the department developed structural detail designs for the largest and most complex ships built by the company at that time. This included a 380’ ocean going ro/ro passenger ferry, which required a finite element and detailed fatigue analysis of the entire hull.
   
   

3. • As a Naval Architect specializing in structural design, Mr. Smith has designed several significant aluminum vessels to include the design of the all-aluminum deckhouse of the SWATH passenger vessel Navetek I.
   
   

Mr. Smith is well known and respected in the marine industry. He co-authored a paper on using fast ferry technology for high-speed freight vessels. Mr. Smith is a licensed professional engineer and holds a Bachelor of Science in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the University of New Orleans as well as a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Southern Mississippi.