Dr. Kenneth G. Herd is the general manager for the GE Brazil Technology Center (BTC). Prior to his current role, Herd was the Global Technology Leader for the Material Systems Technologies at GE Global. He began his General Electric career in 1983, working on the development of GE’s first Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems for GE Healthcare, moving to GE Energy in 1986 to develop high-performance generators. In 1988, he joined the Electro-Mechanical Systems Lab at GE Global Research to develop superconducting materials and devices. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering in 1981 and 1983 from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and his doctorate degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1991. Herd holds 46 U.S. patents and has published 26 papers.