SmithGroup hires Brian Rener at Chicago office

SmithGroup has added Brian Rener, PE, LEED AP at its Chicago, Ill. office.

Rener joins SmithGroup as a senior electrical engineer. He comes to the firm from M+W Group, Chicago, Ill., where he was responsible for managing the Chicago electrical group and improving the quality of electrical designs companywide.

In his 25 years of practice, Rener has established himself as a leader in the design of critical electrical systems and science and technology facilities.

“Brian Rener brings with him a wealth of experience in the design and commissioning of advanced technology facilities such as research labs, data centers and cleanrooms” said, Cindy Cogil, PE, LEED AP, director of engineering at SmithGroup’s Chicago office.

While with M+W Group, Rener collaborated with SmithGroup on the conceptual design of the $135 million Energy Systems Integration Facility at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. The 182,500-square-foot research complex was recently named 2014 Laboratory of the Year by R&D magazine.

Other notable projects for Rener include the 100,000-square-foot Singh Center for Nanotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania, a state-of-the-art facility critical to advanced research and development in nanotechnology; and the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, a 90,300-square-foot data center in Holyoke, Mass. that was the first University Research Data Center to be awarded LEED Platinum certification.

Rener has been integral to the design of science and research facilities for a host of other institutions, such as the Microsoft Quincy Data Centers, Quincy, Wash.; W.W. Grainger Disaster Recovery Center, Kansas City, Mo.; and the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) at Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Ill.

Rener graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Michigan State University. He is a registered professional engineer in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and 15 other states and a LEED accredited professional. He is also an officer at the Chicago Section of the IEEE Industry Applications Society and on the editorial board of Consulting-Specifying Engineer magazine.

For more information about SmithGroup, please visit our Company Fact Sheet.