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SignalNFPA 770
Chair of NFPA 770, Standard on Hybrid (Water and Inert Gas) Fire-Extinguishing Systems.
EXECUTIVE PROFILE
Rob Plonski, P.E.
Vice President of Engineering
Senior executive, Professional Engineer, entrepreneur, and technical safety leader with nearly two decades of experience evaluating complex business, technical, regulatory, and operational decisions across DOE/NNSA, nuclear and high-hazard facilities, international engineering, and private-sector environments.
19 Capital ProjectsNNSA line-item projects across six Nuclear Security Enterprise sites
8 NNSA SitesLinked datasets supporting AI-enabled enterprise oversight workflows
~$1M GrowthPrior international engineering consultancy grown over six years
115+ ProjectsSaudi Arabia / Middle East fire protection consulting portfolio
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Engineering leadership across high-consequence environments.
Rob's career spans DOE/NNSA headquarters, national laboratories, nuclear facilities, international energy projects, industrial facilities, infrastructure, and technically complex design and review assignments.
His work has included senior fire protection engineering, safety-basis integration, independent technical review, fire hazard analysis, design verification, code compliance, technical safety leadership, accident investigation, performance-based engineering, project certification support, and multidisciplinary risk evaluation.
DOE / NNSA HeadquartersSafety engineering leadership, enterprise technical oversight, independent review, accident investigation, and complex technical issue resolution.
National Laboratory / NuclearFire protection engineering, safety-basis support, high-hazard facility evaluations, modeling, assessments, and technical review.
Saudi Arabia / Middle EastMore than 115 fire protection engineering projects across oil and gas, industrial, infrastructure, government, healthcare, and special-hazard applications.
Engineering ConsultingSenior responsible engineer, design review, certification support, calculations, technical correspondence, and owner/client interface.
ENTERPRISE & CAPITAL PROJECT LEADERSHIP
Decision support across major federal mission programs.
19 NNSA Capital Line-Item ProjectsDeputy Director-level support across six Nuclear Security Enterprise sites, including multi-billion-dollar mission programs.
Senior Federal StakeholdersExperience working with Federal Project Directors, Contracting Officers, NNSA Associate Administrators, the NNSA Administrator, DOE senior leadership, field offices, and contractor executives.
Policy / Program / Technical EvaluationEvaluates complex issues involving directives, engineering, quality, design/construction, safety basis, readiness, contractor performance, and mission risk.
Decision-Quality CommunicationTranslates ambiguous requirements and competing technical positions into options analyses, executive briefings, technical positions, implementation strategies, and defensible next steps.
TECHNICAL EXPERTISE
Depth across fire protection, nuclear safety, and technical risk.
Fire Protection EngineeringFire alarm, suppression, firewater, special hazards, code compliance, design review, and certification.
Nuclear & High-Hazard SafetyFire hazards analysis, safety-basis interfaces, plutonium facilities, gloveboxes, combustible metals, and specialized hazards.
Fire & Smoke ModelingCFAST/FDS applications, smoke movement, tenability, egress, and performance-based evaluations.
Risk & Hazard AnalysisPHA/HAZOP support, explosion hazards, barrier analysis, accident investigation, and risk-informed engineering.
International Codes & StandardsNFPA, IFC/IBC, UFC/USACE, Saudi Aramco standards, SAMSS, HCIS, and Saudi Civil Defense interfaces.
Technical Review & CertificationIndependent review, calculations, comment adjudication, deficiency resolution, and PE/EOR-style certification support.
AI-ENABLED DECISION & WORKFLOW EVALUATION
Human judgment applied to AI-enabled professional workflows.
Beginning in 2022, Rob led development of NNSA's fire protection AI-enabled oversight dashboard using linked datasets from eight NNSA sites. He worked with the NNSA AI development lead, Palantir, site organizations, and subject-matter experts to define data needs, refine workflows, evaluate outputs, and improve accuracy, usefulness, and adoption.
Since 2024, he has expanded that experience into generative-AI workflows for business development, opportunity and proposal evaluation, project planning, code/regulatory/policy review, technical document QA, research synthesis, and executive decision support.
Output EvaluationAssess factual accuracy, requirements adherence, completeness, stakeholder fit, escalation logic, and practical next steps.
Human-in-the-Loop ValidationValidate material findings against primary sources before high-consequence professional use or certification.
Failure-Mode DiagnosisIdentify hallucinations, unsupported conclusions, missed requirements, inconsistent reasoning, context loss, and workflow defects.
Workflow DesignUse structured prompting, task decomposition, reusable frameworks, context structuring, and multi-step review workflows.
TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP
Standards, professional service, and technical authorship.
ICC Performance Code
Leadership in the ICC Performance Code rewrite, including chapter-chair and co-chair responsibilities.
Plutonium Handbook
Author of the fire protection chapter, “Fire Protection in Plutonium Facilities,” for the second edition of the Plutonium Handbook.
DOE Technical Guidance
Contributor to DOE fire protection and technical guidance, including DOE-HDBK-1081.
SFPE / AGS
Professional contributions through the Society of Fire Protection Engineers and American Glovebox Society.
Technical Instruction
DOE National Training Center accident-investigation instruction and technical fire-protection presentations and training.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP & COMMERCIAL LEADERSHIP
Business development experience beyond the federal enterprise.
Rob's commercial background includes company formation, client development, opportunity evaluation, proposal strategy, scope and rate negotiation, execution planning, and successful business growth.
International Engineering ConsultancyCo-founded and grew a professional engineering consultancy to approximately $1 million in revenue over six years through repeat-client relationships and reliable delivery.
Commercial ExecutionDeveloped proposals and scopes; negotiated rates, schedules, deliverables, assumptions, review cycles, and support terms; and evaluated staffing, compliance, cost, schedule, and execution risk.
Corporate Development JudgmentEvaluates prospective work for technical fit, resource needs, compliance burden, commercial viability, constructability, and likelihood of successful execution.
Entrepreneurial Track RecordPreviously founded a regional equipment-service business, grew it to more than 20 service contracts, and sold the operating business when transitioning to Los Alamos National Laboratory.
EDUCATION
Engineering plus applied intelligence.
M.Eng., Fire Protection EngineeringUniversity of Maryland
Master of Applied IntelligenceMercyhurst University
B.S., Mechanical EngineeringUniversity of Colorado Colorado Springs · Minor in Mathematics
SELECTED EXPERIENCE
Representative markets and project environments.
Fire Protection & Life Safety
Saudi Arabia / Middle East
Executive & Federal Contracting Consulting
AI-Enabled Workflow EvaluationCorporate DevelopmentBusiness DevelopmentDOE / NNSANuclear FacilitiesOil & GasGas PlantsRefineriesOffshorePipelinesData CentersBESSFederal / MilitaryIndustrial / High Hazard