Steering Committee 2018

Henri V. Azibert spent most of his career at the A.W. Chesterton Company where he had responsibility for the mechanical seal and mechanical packing engineering staff and product lines. He was granted many patents on mechanical seal designs and improvements. He is a member of the API 682 and 3A Mechanical Seal Standard Task forces, and has been a member of the Texas A&M Pump Show Advisory Board. He is now retained as the Technical Director for the Fluid Sealing Association.

Joel Baulch is the Director – Engineering and Technical Services for Teadit’s North American division. He has 20+ years of manufacturing experience, primarily in the sealing products industry. He has served the last 6 years at Teadit, aiding in the development of their fugitive-emissions product basket, which includes Style 2236 valve stem packing. Acting as the North American link to Teadit’s Global R&D group, he has helped bridge understanding of the fundamentals of equipment designed for fugitive emission service.

Richard Bierman is a strategic and multi-craft experienced Vibration Analyst. He has 13 years of unique experience overhauling the same equipment that he analyzed, providing valuable insight on how machinery vibration reacts to different conditions. Richard began work in the industry as a contract millwright with Agrifos where he was first introduced to vibration analysis. In 2012 he began working in the Reliability Department for Chevron Phillips as a full time analyst with the privilege to optimize the existing program and materialize that vision at the Sweeny Complex.

Heinz P. Bloch is a Consulting Engineer with locations in Houston, TX and Westminster, Colorado. A professional engineer with over 57 years of experience, he held machinery-oriented staff and line positions with Exxon affiliates in the USA and overseas. He is the author of 20 books and over 690 technical papers or similar publications. He is an ASME Life Fellow and graduate of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, holding B.S. and M.S. degrees (cum laude) in Mechanical Engineering.

James V Boyle is a Chemical Engineer focused on project management and business development throughout the Gulf Coast. Being highly family-oriented, he has dedicated himself towards working with a family-owned company with over 130 years of history in North America, West Penetone. Specializing in preventative maintenance, James implements state-of-the-art technologies for chemical decontamination & degasification throughout the petrochemical industry. He obtained his degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he developed a passion for R&D, specifically product innovation.

Scott has over 30 years of experience in pumps and pumping systems. He began his career as a Design Engineer developing upgraded features on pumps that have become standard in the industry today. He has trained thousands of users over the years on topics ranging from pump design and pump hydraulics, mechanical seals and environmental controls to program implementation. He has been involved in numerous rotating equipment reliability programs, many of which have reached world class MTBR status. Currently, as Director of Services for Chesterton, Scott is working to assist end users in using comprehensive approaches to drive reliability increases and lower energy consumption to deliver lower total costs.

Eugene L. Broerman, III is currently a Principal Engineer in the Fluid Machinery Systems Section at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, TX. He is a 2001 graduate of Texas A&M University-Kingsville with a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering. He has over 16 years of experience in the fields of acoustics/pulsations, mechanical vibrations, compressors, pumps, piping system design, finite element analysis and thermal piping stress. He has co-authored and/or co-presented over 50 papers and/or presentations on the previously noted subjects.

Dr. Brun is the Machinery Program Director at Southwest Research Institute, focusing on R&D for the energy industry. His past experience includes positions in engineering, project management and management at Solar Turbines, General Electric and Alstom. He holds eight patents, has authored over 300 papers and has published three textbooks on energy systems and turbomachinery.  Dr. Brun is a Fellow of the ASME and won an R&D 100 award in 2007 for his Semi-Active Valve invention.  He also won the ASME Industrial Gas Turbine Award in 2016.

Jeremy Cooper is a Rotating Equipment Specialist for Bechtel Corporation in Houston, Texas. He has worked as a Project Manager and Project Engineer at suppliers such as Flowserve Pump and Integrated Flow Solutions (Flowtronex) since 2001, and was also a Mechanical Equipment Engineer at Fluor, prior to joining Bechtel in 2010. Jeremy currently serves as the Task Force Vice-Chairman for both API 610-12^th edition and API-685-3^rd edition. He is currently a Rotating Equipment Engineer handling pumps and compressors for an LNG Project at Bechtel. He received his B.S. in Engineering (Mechanical Concentration) from LeTourneau University in 2003.

Jack Creamer is Schneider Electric Segment Marketing Manager – Pumping Equipment, based in the United States. He is involved in key industry organizations such as the Hydraulic Institute and Submersible Wastewater Pump Association, where he holds both Committee Chair and Board level positions. During his time working in the pump industry, he has helped Schneider create numerous solutions that both enhance pumping efficiency and address issues such as maintenance and downtime.

Chris Day is a Graduate Engineer from Michigan State University with a minor in Finance. He is the President of Teadit North America. He has over 30 years of experience in the Fluid Sealing industry at all levels of commercial and field support. In 2000, he joined the Teadit Group as Sales Manager, and shortly thereafter he was promoted to General Manager and then President/CEO in 2005.  He is a former member of the Board of Directors for FSA, and is currently a member of ISD, API and ASTM.

Randy graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from West Virginia Institute of Technology in 1981. He started with Union Carbide Corporation in its Machinery Engineering department and then moved to a large chemical complex run by Rhone Poulenc. He joined Dow Chemical in 2001 where he continues to work today as a Mechanical Technology Associate. He is Vice-Chair of the ASME B73 Committee for Chemical Standard Pumps and has participated on several API 610 and 682 Task Forces.

Jean-Marc Fosseux is a seasoned Rotating Equipment Expert with over 40 years of experience in the oil, gas & petrochemical industries. He was head of the rotating equipment department in Technip and is now a Group Level Expert / Technology Advisor in his field. Mr. Fosseux’s technical leadership has been demonstrated throughout some of the most challenging oil & gas EPC projects around the globe, including a large scale ethylene plant in Qatar, the world’s largest onshore LNG plant in Qatar and the world’s first floating LNG project.

Hemanth Gaddehosur is a detail-driven engineer with more than 11 years of experience in mechanical engineering related to onshore & offshore oil and gas industry. He has a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and a proven track record of success in consistent achievement of engineering project goals. He specializes in rotating equipment (pumps and compressors) and packaged equipment. Currently, he is working as a Field Engineer at the Sasol site in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Biography to come

Biography to come

Michael Huebner is a Principal Engineer at Flowserve Corporation in Pasadena, Texas. He has over 30 years of experience in the design, testing and application of mechanical seals both in the USA and Europe. He has authored numerous articles and lectured extensively around the world. He has a BS in Engineering Technology from Texas A&M University, and is a regular contributor to Pump Engineer magazine where he discusses common challenges in sealing centrifugal pumps.

Brian Kalfrin is a Regional Engineer with John Crane in Pasadena, Texas with over 16 years of experience with mechanical seals and related systems. His duties include on-site troubleshooting and diagnostic failure analysis, formulating recommendations and seal selections to address problem applications, along with design evaluation of existing and proposed mechanical seals utilizing Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software.

Biography to come

Charli K. Matthews is the Founder and President of Empowering Brands. As the Chair of Marketing & PR Committee for the Fluid Sealing Association, Charli was recently recognized with their Award of Merit for her work in helping raise awareness of the association and its mission. Charli also prides herself on being a strong media partner for the Hydraulic Institute, where she is actively working to encourage more women and young professionals to enter the industry.

Robert McIlvaine is the President and Founder of The McIlvaine Company, which publishes reports across worldwide pump and valve markets. He was a pollution control company executive prior to 1974, when he founded The McIlvaine Company. He oversees a staff of 30 people in the USA and China, and is a regular contributor to Pump Engineer magazine where he reports on current trends in the pump market.

Michael B. Michaud is the Executive Director of the Hydraulic Institute (HI). Since joining HI in 2015, Michaud has expanded the portfolio of HI Efficiency Programs by launching the HI Energy Rating Label and Pump System Assessment Professional (PSAP) Certification. Prior to joining the Hydraulic Institute, Michaud spent 19 years in leadership positions at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), where he was responsible for developing and implementing global strategy, managing the International Gas Turbine and Petroleum Institutes, and growing professional development and training activities around the world.

Kamran Mirza is a Progressive Cavity Pump Specialist, and an Oil and Gas Professional. He started his career as a Project Engineer developing drilling motors and downhole pumps for the oil and gas industry and the progressive cavity multiphase pump for Robbins & Myers. Mirza has developed and managed projects in design, manufacturing, field operations, failure analysis and commercialization of new products in new markets. Mirza is an independent Consultant, and has authored several technical papers and holds two patents in Multiphase Pump Technology.

Gopal Murti, P.Eng. is a Senior Consultant at The Augustus Group, LLC. He has over 40 years of experience in design, troubleshooting, plant integrity, reliability management and field consulting for the hydrocarbon processing industry. Gopal has contributed over 30 revisions/additions to various codes based on his field experience, including API, ASTM, ASME and BSI. He is the author of several articles published in Hydrocarbon Processing, Chemical Engineering, the Oil & Gas Journal and articles through the Society of Petroleum Engineers, USA.

Dr. Lev Nelik has 30+ years of experience with pumps and pumping equipment. He is a Registered Professional Engineer, who has published over fifty documents on pumps and related equipment worldwide. He is President of Pumping Machinery, LLC, specializing in pump consulting, training and equipment troubleshooting. He teaches pump training courses in the US and worldwide, and consults on pumps operations and troubleshooting, engineering aspects of centrifugal and positive displacement pumps, maintenance methods to improve reliability, improve energy savings and optimize pump-to-system operation.

Kevin Nyers is a Mechanical Reliability Engineer for Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG facility in Louisiana. He has 6 years of experience in reliability engineering in the chemical and oil & gas industry. His duties includes machinery troubleshooting, maintenance support and root cause failure analysis investigations. He is an alumnus of The Ohio State University.

Robert Perez is a Machinery Engineer with more than 35 years of rotating equipment experience in the petrochemical industry. He has worked in petroleum refineries, chemical facilities and gas processing plants. He earned a BSME degree from Texas A&M University at College Station, an MSME degree from the University of Texas at Austin and holds a Texas P.E. license. Mr. Perez has written numerous machinery reliability articles for magazines and conferences proceedings and has authored or coauthored 8 books related to machinery reliability. He is the Owner of RXP Consulting in San Antonio, Texas.

Ernesto Primera is a Mechanical/Maintenance Engineer with 19 years of experience in rotating machinery, condition monitoring, performance analysis and reliability evaluations. He is a Global Instructor for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a partner and instructor for the Hydraulic Institute. He has a Bachelor of Maintenance Engineering degree and a Master’s Degree in Predictive Maintenance & Diagnostics Technique. He is a member of ASME, SMRP and the Vibration Institute. He is currently part of the Chevron Machinery Engineering Team at the Pascagoula Refinery in Mississippi.

David Sanders is a Mechanical/Maintenance/Reliability/Project Engineer with 28 years of experience in rotating machinery in the oil, gas and chemical industry. David’s background includes capital projects, drawing reviews, equipment troubleshooting, lubrication analyses, scope of work development, design engineering, equipment sizing, maintenance engineering, PM programs, maintenance management systems, API/ANSI/ASME Standards, rotating equipment, equipment data sheets, reliability engineering, vibration analyses, root cause analyses, reliability improvement and project specifications. David holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.

Katie Switzer is a Reliability Engineer and ISO Category III Vibration Analyst who works with plant operations and maintenance to improve their equipment uptime and reduce maintenance costs. Katie specializes in rotating equipment Predictive Maintenance program development, and has worked in several industries including nuclear power, aerospace and chemical manufacturing. She currently holds the role of Senior Reliability Engineer at Addivant, a chemical additives manufacturer in Morgantown, WV.

Baha Tanju had his first pump experience in 1991 when working with cargo pumps and pump control systems at Framo, Nederland. Since then, he has contributed to Cameron/OneSubsea drilling and production control systems development, and has worked at IntecSea for several major energy companies as a Subsea Control Systems Engineer. He joined Chevron in 2006 where he is currently supporting the Subsea Gas Compression qualification program. He has a B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering, a M.S. degree in Engineering, a M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Management Information Systems.

Brian S. Verdehem is the Vice President of Sales at Odessa Pumps, a DistributionNOW Company. He has a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York. He has over 23 years of experience in a wide range of engineered pump applications in the fields of petroleum refining, petrochemical process, upstream and midstream oil & gas, power generation, pulp and paper and general industry. Mr. Verdehem has extensive knowledge in the engineering, reliability and application of API 610 centrifugal pump packages and controls.

Alan Wilson is a Mechanical Technology Associate with Dow Chemical. He has 15 years of rotating equipment experience with Dow as of 2017. As a member of Dow’s Hardware Discipline Technology Center, Alan provides rotating equipment support to Dow projects and plants. Alan is a member of Dow’s Pump and Seal Technical Solutions Team, and he is the leader for Dow’s Process Cooling Technical Solutions Team. Alan is also on the ASME B73 committee for Chemical Process Pumps.

Mr. Jay Zaffino has over 27 years of experience with rotating equipment in the petrochemical, refining and natural gas industries. Jay’s experience includes roles as an application engineer, project engineer, rotor dynamic analysis engineer, compressor specialist, sales engineer and rotating equipment reliability engineer. He currently specializes in American Petroleum Institute (API) and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) equipment, including pumps and compressors, as well as other rotating equipment utilized in petroleum, chemical, petrochemical and natural gas industry processes.