Karl Kolmetz has over twenty-five years of progressive experience in the design, construction, commissioning, and operations management of process units from the US Gulf Coast to Alaska through Asia. He has a strong background in the manufacturing of a wide variety of chemical process technologies and product categories including; cryogenic liquids, ethylene, propylene, benzene & toluene extractive distillation, styrene reaction and distillation, catalytic reforming, crude atmospheric & vacuum fractionation, polyvinyl chloride, and steam & power plant operations.

Mr. Kolmetz has substantial experience in the design and troubleshooting of distillation columns, which is one of the key unit operations in hydrocarbon production.

His experience includes four years of Construction, two of which were on the Alaskan Pipeline with Fluor Daniel. Sixteen years (16) of Refining experience in the Charter / Phibro (now Valero) Refinery in Houston, Texas.  One year of commissioning experience with Raytheon Badger Ethyl benzene / Styrene plants in Asia.  Seven years (7) Ethylene experience: four years in Louisiana and three years in Malaysia with the Westlake / Titan Group.  Four years (4) of distillation design experience as the Asia Pacific Technology Manager for Sulzer Chemtech, a specialty distillation company and General Manager for KLM Technology Group. 

Publications include authoring and co-authoring over 40 technical papers on a variety of subjects for product recovery, troubleshooting, training, project management, process design with safety and environmental concerns. Papers have appeared in Oil and Gas Journal (5), Hydrocarbon Processing (1),  Hydrocarbon Engineering (1) and Chemical Engineering Progress (1).  Conference papers have been presented at the AIChE Conferences, the Indian Oil & Gas Conference , the Japan Petroleum Institute Refining Conference, Oil and Fats International Congress, Best Practices in Process Plant Management, and the Asean Regional Olefins Conferences, as well as others.  Karl is authoring a book on Process Plant Equipment Design.

Karl has been nominated to a task force to help review Chemical Engineering Curriculum in Malaysia.  He has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from The University Of Houston.  He is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

 

Jeff N. Gray has over twenty-five years of experience in the design, construction, commissioning, and operation of process units from Australia to Asia, through North America. He has a strong background in the manufacturing of a wide variety of chemical process technologies and product categories including; cryogenic liquids, ethylene, propylene, C4 and Gasoline Hydrogenation Units, benzene / toluene extractive extraction, and steam / power plant operations.

He has a detailed understanding of the operational, technical and safety requirements of ethylene plants, gained through assignments in Australia, Malaysia and the USA. His areas of expertise include plant commissioning, equipment performance checks and test runs, process design, project coordination, and operations and technical training.

Mr. Gray was commissioning manager on one of the most successful grass roots ethylene construction projects ever recorded. Thirty-six hours from unit feed introduction to ethylene production, with only one outage during the first twelve months of operation. His attention to detail results in project success.

His experience includes twenty years Ethylene Experience with Exxon and The Titan Group. Other manufacturing experiences include; specialized ceramics for ICI Australia, drying applications for WR Grace, wax blending / emulsion specialty manufacturing, adhesives manufacturing plant for ICI Australia, and latex / epoxy resins for Dow.  Jeff is currently Manager of Process Engineering for KLM Technology Group.

Publications include authoring and co-authoring technical papers on a variety of subjects for product recovery, troubleshooting, training, project management, and process design with environmental concerns. Conference papers and presentations have been presented at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Malaysian Society of Chemical Engineers and the Asean Regional Olefins Conference, as well as others.

Jeff has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from The University of Melbourne.
 

William B Lotz has over twenty-five years of experience in the construction, operation, and optimization of process units on the US Gulf Coast.  Strengths encompass project management skills, ability to complete assigned tasked and out of the box optimization ideas based on economics principles.

Experience includes five (5) years of project management in general housing construction, with US Homes and Pathfinder Homes builders. Twenty Eight (28) of Refining experience in the Charter / Phibro / Valero Refineries in Houston and Texas City, Texas.  In the refining companies has been progressively promoted through the maintenance, operations, laboratory, and marine inspection groups.  For the last ten years has been in charge of refinery cost accounting and yield economics.  Bill is the Solomon Coordinator for the bi-annual industry refinery benchmarking studies and internally developed a monthly bench marking review for the Valero Refining System.   

He has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from The University of Houston. Bill presently lives in Pearland Texas.  

Gerald F. Appleton has over thirty years of experience in the design, construction, commissioning, and operation of process units from North America to South America through Asia. He has a strong background in the manufacturing of a wide variety of chemical process technologies and product categories including; cryogenic liquids, ethylene, propylene, polypropylene, acrylic polymer and sheet, phenol / acetone, benzene / toluene extraction, styrene, polystyrene, and polyvinyl chloride, and steam / power plant operations.

Mr. Appleton has extensive project management experience with seven grass roots commissioning projects; three in Ethylene, one in Polypropylene, one in Acrylic Sheet, one in Aromatics Extraction and one in Phenol.

His experience includes fourteen years Ethylene / Polyethylene Experience with US Steel Corporation, Chemicals Division and the Westlake / Titan Group (Louisiana /Malaysia).  Three years Acrylic Sheet experience with Cyro Industries. Two years experience each in Phenol / Acetone and Styrene / Poly Styrene.  Eight years of PCV experience with WR Grace (in South America) and General Tire and Rubber.  Four years Polypropylene experience with JG Summit in the Philippines.

 

Publications include authoring and co-authoring technical papers on a variety of subjects for product recovery, troubleshooting, training, project management, and process design with environmental concerns. Papers have appeared in Oil and Gas Journal. Conference papers and presentations have been presented at the Malaysian Society of Chemical Engineers and the Asean Regional Olefins Conference, as well as others.
 

Gerald has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Case Western Reserve, Cleveland, Ohio and a Masters in Business Administration from Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia.
 

Swami Narayanan has over twenty-five years of detailed experience in the design, construction, commissioning, and operations management of process units from India, Europe, North America and South East Asia. He has a strong background in the manufacturing of a wide variety of chemical process technologies in the Ethylene Olefin Industry.

Dr. Naraynan is an industry specialist in Olefin Pyrolysis Furnaces including hands on design, commissioning and trouble shooting of over 14 units. He has seven US Patents dealing with Ethylene Pyrolysis Furnaces. His experience includes over twenty years of direct Pyrolysis Experience with KTI, Stone & Webster, and Kellogg Brown & Root. Nine years of furnace and plant optimization experience with Furnace Technology Consulting Services and the Westlake Group.

Publications include authoring and co-authoring over seven technical papers on a variety of subjects including product recovery, mixing, and pyrolysis furnaces. Papers have been published in the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, AIChE Journal, and Chemical Engineering Science. Conference papers have been presented at the AIChE Conferences, in which he has chaired a special technology forum on "Specialty Furnaces for Petrochemical Processes", as well as others.

Dr. Sam is fluent in English, Dutch, Hindi and Tamil. He has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and Post Doctoral work in Chemical Engineering at Technical University of Delft, Delft, Netherlands.  He is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and currently lives in Houston, Texas.

Brian Painchaud has over twenty-eight years of progressive experience in the design, construction, commissioning, and operations management of refinery process units. He has a strong background in the manufacturing of a wide variety of chemical process technologies and product categories including fluidized catalytic cracking, catalytic reforming, hydrotreating, gasoline desulfurization, alkylation, crude atmospheric & vacuum fractionation, propylene, benzene & toluene LLE distillation and steam & power plant operations.

He has substantial experience in refinery management, project engineering, business development, asset sales and acquisitions, operations and technical services engineering. He has proven ability to lead, mentor and develop associates to deliver targeted results. He has successful management and problem solving skills with a proven track record in building, implementing and stewarding business plans in traditional and entrepreneurial cultures. He has served in the positions of Refinery Manager, Operations Manager and Engineering Director for several major oil companies.

Mr. Painchaud’s experience includes two years as a process engineer with Quintana Howell Refinery Corporation and twenty four years with Phibro Energy / Valero Refinery Systems where he served multiple roles in operations and engineering management. He was the Refinery Manager of Pelican Refining in Lake Charles, Louisiana and has spent two years as the founder and Vice President of a technical staffing and consulting firm.

Brian was nominated to be a 1990 National Petroleum Refiners Association panelist and holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston. Brian presently lives in Houston, Texas.

STEPHEN J. WALLACE has over 15 years of technical experience in the design, construction, commissioning, and operations management of process units located in the Continental United States and South East Asia. He has a strong background in the manufacturing of a wide variety of chemical process technologies and product categories including; cryogenic liquids, ethylene, propylene, benzene & toluene extraction, styrene, polyurethane, polymers, and steam & power plant operations.

Mr. Wallace has an established track record in the field of process safety. He possesses extensive experience performing hazard analyses using a variety of techniques, operating experience as a production manager, process safety consultant, and manager of safety and health, and author of over 25 presentations and publications in the field of safety and loss prevention.

Mr. Wallace has been a Production Manager, and managed laboratories and health and safety programs. He has worked within and has performed audits and hazard evaluations in numerous types of units. As a manager of health and safety for two OSHA Star facilities, he had responsibility to ensure compliance with all OSHA regulations. (The "Star" is the highest recognition that OSHA can bestow on a facility to recognize superior safety.) He is a trained incident commander.

Mr. Wallace has extensive experience performing consequence analyses and computer modeling to determine the potential effects of chemical releases. He has developed risk management plans to comply with regulations from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He has modeled worst-case scenario releases, as well as alternate scenarios, and used the information to evaluate safeguards in place to prevent releases.

Mr. Wallace has been responsible for developing and leading all aspects of a comprehensive process safety management program, including leading incident investigations, conducting hazard analyses, initiating management of change procedures, and verifying operating practices. He has performed audits as a special government employee working with the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He developed reports for the US Department of Energy to evaluate performance of various facilities.

In performing incident investigations with the US Government, he reviewed data, conducted interviews, and evaluated forensic evidence to determine the root and contributing causes and develop recommendations to prevent reoccurrence. He developed guidelines to comply with Responsible Care codes at the facility level, and has a comprehensive understanding of various good practice guidelines from organizations such as the NFPA, API, ISA, and ASME. He was a guest lecturer for the PSM graduate class at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Stephen has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from The University of Kentucky. He is a registered Professional Engineer (by exam) in the field of Chemical Engineering. He is certified by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) as a Certified Safety Professional. He is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Society of Safety Engineers. Stephen currently lives in Washington D.C.

 

Khanh Nguyen has over 18 years of specialized process control experience in the petrochemical industry in North America.  He has a detailed understanding of regulatory process control and advance process control concepts and optimization

He has worked and consulted for leading petrochemical companies such as Dow, Valero, Lyondell, ExxonMobil, as well as leading process control corporations.

He has successfully implemented numerous Regulatory and Advance Process Control applications in Ethylene Plants, Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Units, Crude Distillation Units, Hydrotreating Units, Alkylation Units, and Hydrocraking Units.

Khanh holds a Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Business Administration from Louisiana State University.

Edgar L. Mohundro has over twenty-five years of progressive experience in the design, construction, commissioning, and operations management of process units. He has a strong background in the manufacturing of a wide variety of chemical process technologies and product categories including; cryogenic liquids, ethylene, propylene, benzene & toluene, fouling mitigation, selective hydrogenation, removal of trace contaminates, dehydration, product quality, handling and transportation of olefins and diolefins, and recovery of olefins from FCC gas.

His experience includes twenty eight years Ethylene Experience with Exxon and BASF. Publications include authoring and co-authoring technical papers on a variety of subjects for product recovery, troubleshooting, training, project management, and process design with environmental concerns. Conference papers and presentations have been presented at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers ,as well as others.

Edgar has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Univ. of Tennessee.

Jonathan A. Kolmetz has wide ranging international experience from the US, through Europe, the Middle East to Asia in contract law, banking and investment. He has a strong background in the banking and the investment sector with US Federal and the State of Texas insurance and investment licenses.

He has two years of investment services experience with First Allied Securities and JP Morgan Chase Bank in Houston, Texas. He has six years of experience working in the area of government contracting, working with KBR, Bechtel, Fluor Daniels, and other prime and sub-contractors on government procurement. Jonathan is currently Business Development Manager for KLM Technology Group.

Jonathan graduated from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science with a minor in Business Administration. Jonathan currently lives in Houston, Texas.