Jeremy Surak McKennin is the son of T'Lora and Roger McKennin. Then-Captain T'Lora, (presently an Admiral and the presiding Chief Justice of the Judge Advocate General's office,) was the acting dockmaster at the Vulcan Drydocks when the U.S.S. Rochester put in for service in late 2352. Roger was the Chief Engineer aboard the Rochester during its spacetrials and shakedown cruise in 2351-2352.
     Jeremy lived with his mother on Vulcan until his 12th birthday when he asked to spend time with his father aboard the Rochester. Following his acceptance to Starfleet's Junior ROTC program, Jeremy attended an engineering symposium at the Utopia Planitia complex in early 2367. It was during the symposium, that the first Borg invasion occurred.
     The USS Rochester was one of the 39 vessels lost at Wolf 359. Soon after, Jeremy's difficulty controlling his emotions surfaced; the tragedy of the loss of his father combined with the physio-psychological effects of beginning human puberty. To assist, Admiral T'Lora took a two-year leave of absence from Starfleet to support her son's recovery and growth. Jeremy's first attempts at selective emotional repression were a self-control technique jointly developed by the Vulcan Academy of Medical Sciences and Starfleet Medical's Academy of Psychiatric Medicine.
     In 2369, Jeremy McKennin was accepted to Starfleet Academy. During his 3rd year, McKennin took an off-world training assignment with the Corp of Engineers at Starbase 46. The Engineering Task Force deployed there was initially responsible for the transloading of large quantities of supplies and personnel from miscellaneous ships into a coherent delivery pipeline headed for Deep Space Nine following initial contact with the Dominion. After the Station's build-up and renovation was completed, the Task Force remained on location to make repairs to vessels that had been damamged during the Khitomer-Abdication Conflict; By which time however, McKennin had returned to San Fransisco to complete his senior year at the Academy.
     As McKennin and his classmates were graduating, things were worsening on the Cardassian front. Though the Federation and Klingon Empires stood together again, the tides of war were becoming impossible to ignore. McKennin, having jointly recieved his commission into Starfleet, had also obtained a pre-doctorate in Applied FTL Physics from the Daystrom Institute. As a result, McKennin's first posting was aboard the Akira-class U.S.S. Masada as their Warp Core Specialist. He rapidly gained the attention and approval of his senior staff. Because the Masada was in combat conditions at that point, his request to experimentally modify the warp core to obtain nearly a 100% power increase was denied. Anticipating the eventual approval, McKennin made the modifications to the ship's systems in parallel, such that a new command protocol and a single minute worth of work reconfiguring the warpcore sub-command processor would allow him to bring his modifications online. Though it would be over a year later, the oppotunity occured in August 2375.
      While the major engagement between the Federation Alliance and the Dominion was in the outer heliopause of the system; the USS Masada,USS Berkshire, along with the IKC Ki'Tang, were tasked with the retrieval of the ground forces on Chin'Toka III. A Dominion Attack wing of three Jem'Hadar attack frigates and a single Cardassian Galor-class destroyer were sent to eliminate the retrieval squadron. As battle against the heavily armed Federation battleship continued, the Berkshire and Ki'Tang continued their rescue efforts. After a particularly savage torpedo impact, the Masada was on the cusp of systems failures. With the chief engineer taken to sickbay, and the other senior engineers dispatched on repair parties, this left Ensign McKennin in command of Engineering.
     Seeing little hope for survival or victory, McKennin used the opportunity to impliment his changes. Because of his intention to be ready when given the chance, he was able to bring the new system online within 45seconds of the decision being made. With the Masada's warp core back online, her shields suddenly sprang back to life at 90% full rated capacity, phasers recharged to 98% full, and the ship still had extra power to spare. Given an almost new ship to fight with, the Captain brought the ship around and re-engaged the remaining enemy vessels. In the end, the Masada won the battle, but still would not survive to fight another day. The changes had weakened the plasma conduits due to hotter plasma and the resulting pounding from the enemy weapons broke through the conduits' remaining structural integrity.
     Though no one was lost to the experiment, the U.S.S. Masada, having single-handedly destroyed an entire Dominion Attack Wing and given the Berkshire and the Ki'Tang sufficient time to rescue the remaining ground forces before retreating; was destroyed as it's warp core erupted in space like a micro-scale supernova. The resulting court-martial and investigation would ultimately show that McKennin acted in the best interests of the ship and was responsible for saving the Berkshire, Ki'Tang, and the ground forces, though also responsible for the plasma conduit structural integrity failure and breech of the warpcore, ultimately making him responsible for the loss of the Masada. Extenuating circumstances such as they were, the Starfleet Tribunal promoted him to Lieutenant junior grade and simultaneously removed McKennin from frontline combat and remanded him to the repair teams aboard Deep Space Nine.
     Following the cessation of hostilities between the Federation Alliance and the Dominion at the end of 2375, McKennin was transferred back to the Sol System to head up an engineering task force to assist in rebuilding the Starfleet; which included a promotion to full Lieutenant. While at Utopia, he was soon promoted to Lieutenant Commander and given additional duties and expanded responsibilites. By the start of Soon after Voyager's return to the Sol System, Lieutenant Commander McKennin was invited to join the Advanced Starship Design Bureau's Advanced Technologies Council to begin digesting the engineering parts of the Voyager database.