Robert J. Burger is an experienced director of both public and private companies, bringing an engineer’s pragmatic approach to enterprise risk management. His expertise includes global industrial services, capital equipment manufacturing, clean energy, and marine businesses. His significant governance contributions include: navigating sweeping regulatory changes and market-driven product design pivots; business rebranding; investment thesis and gap analysis development; strategic review of major acquisition targets, integration, and exit options; and cyberattack response and recovery.

Burger currently serves on the boards of Fairbanks Morse Defense and Victory Energy, where he is a member of the audit committee. Prior board service includes Ocean Power Technologies, a pioneer in wave energy, where he chaired both the compensation and the environmental health, safety, and risk committees and served as a financial expert. Burger has chaired the membership committee for NACD Northwest and has moderated several chapter events, most notably a blueprint for a commercially smart climate transition. He has been a NACD Board Leadership Fellow since 2017.

Executive roles include president and CEO of MAN Diesel and Turbo North America—the world’s leading provider of engines for ships and power stations and a top provider of turbomachinery for oil and gas, chemical, and industrial applications—and both president and managing director roles with LM Wind Power—the world’s largest provider of wind turbine blades and service. Earlier professional experience includes leading GE Energy’s worldwide gas turbine product service business and serving in the US Navy, both at sea and later leading shipyard engineering, repair, and modification projects, including underwater salvage.

Burger holds two graduate degrees in mechanical engineering (a master of science and a master of engineering) from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he completed the preliminary design of the San Antonio class of ships, and he earned a bachelor of science in ocean engineering from the US Naval Academy. Burger has lived in South Africa, Japan, the Netherlands, and throughout the United States.