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The Becht Team

Becht Engineering Company's main strength is based on its professionals. We actively participate in Professional and Code Committees to stay in the forefront of technology. Our contributions have influenced the development and refinement of Codes and Standards. This firm has won awards for professional excellence. It is led by Dr. Charles Becht, President, who is Chairman of three ASME Code Committees and a member of others.

Because of our reputation for technical excellence, we have been able to attract many senior professionals to our staff that are technical leaders in their fields. Many come from long experience in the central engineering organizations of pacesetting companies.

As the nature of this business usually requires short deadlines, we have structured our work methods and staff so that we can respond quickly. Our repeat business with demanding clients attests to our responsiveness to their needs in terms of cooperative efforts in custom designs and speed of turnaround time.

The following are brief profiles of some of our staff.

Chuck Becht IV, PhD, PE
President, Becht Engineering

Dr. Becht, Fellow ASME, Chairman ASME B31.3 Process Piping, is a recognized authority in pressure vessels, piping, expansion joints, and elevated temperature design. He has more than 30 years of experience in design, design review, analysis, check-out, mechanical integrity, development, troubleshooting, and failure analysis. He has developed new components, design methods, and Code rules for severe service and other applications. He is an ASME Fellow and has more than 50 publications and five patents and is a frequent speaker and chairman in technical forums. He received the ASME Dedicated Service Award, 2001 and was the recipient of the 2009 ASME Pressure Vessel and Piping Medal. He is President of Becht Engineering Co., Inc, President of Helidex, LLC, and Director of Veritec Sonomatic Ltd.

His professional career lead engineering positions with Energy Systems Group, Rockwell International, where he became lead engineer in charge of elevated temperature piping and expansion joint R & D programs for Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors and Exxon Research and Engineering. Dr. Becht is a leader in Codes and Standards activities, as listed below. 

  • B31 Code for Pressure Piping Standards Committee Member
  • B31 Mechanical Design Technical Committee Member
  • B31.3 Process Piping Section Committee Chair
  • B31.3 Task Group on Edit (TG-C) Member
  • B31.3 Task Group on Inquiry Review (TG-IR) Member
  • Board on Pressure Technology Codes and Standards Ex-Officio Member (V)
  • Post Construction Subcommittee on Repair and Testing (PCC) Chair
  • Pressure Technology Post Construction Committee Chair
  • Pressure Technology Post Construction Executive Committee Vice Chair
  • Subcommittee On Transport Tanks (SC XII) Member
  • Subgroup on Elevated Temperature Design (SC-D) Member (past Chair)



George Antaki, PE
Chief Engineer, Nuclear Services Division

Mr. Antaki, Fellow ASME, has over 34 years of experience in nuclear power plants and process facilities, in the areas of design, safety analysis, startup, operation support, inspection, fitness for services and integrity analysis, retrofits and repairs.

George has held engineering and management positions at Westinghouse and Washington Group International, where he has performed work at power and process plants, and consulted for the Department of Energy (DOE), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). He also is an instructor of failure prevention, inspection and equipment integrity courses for ASME, and has done teaching assignments for the Department of Energy as well as many other private organizations.

Mr. Antaki has authored several articles, publications and two textbooks on design and mechanical integrity of plant systems and components.

George serves as a member of several committees including:

  • ASME/API Joint Committee on Fitness for Service Member
  • B31 Mechanical Design Technical Committee Vice Chair
  • Post Construction Subcommittee on Repair and Testing (PCC) Member
  • Pressure Technology Post Construction Committee Member
  • Pressure Technology Post Construction Executive Committee Member
  • Subgroup on Dynamic Qualification Member
  • Task Group on Impulsively Loaded Vessels (SC VIII) Member
  • Working Group on Piping (SG-D) (SC III) Member


Neil Bernstein

Neil Bernstein has extensive experience in the cost-effective execution of onsite, offsite, utilities and environmental projects for refinery, chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, power and government industries. Mr. Bernstein enjoyed more than 28 years with Foster Wheeler where he held various leadership positions including Chief Engineer, Manager of Process Design, Environmental Services Manager and Support Services Manager. He was involved in studies, process designs, plant trouble shooting, environmental wastewater, air pollution and solids waste designs and permitting of worldwide plant facilities. His areas of expertise include support facilities, utilities and off-sites and he has worked on major projects located in the U.S.A, South America, Asia, and Africa.

Mr. Bernstein consulted on projects to upgrade water treatment facilities, reutilize/modify equipment, and remediate and recover valuable materials in waste streams. He designed and prepared specifications, evaluated vendors and expedited delivery of preassembled skid packages to treat refinery acid gas vent streams to meet strict state and federal regulatory requirements.

Since joining Becht in 2008, Mr. Bernstein has been involved in several projects including consulting on refinery expansion project execution plans involving selection of the Managing and EPC contractors; and has supported a major refinery in the selection, design and contractor follow-up for a large fluid catalytic cracking unit flue gas cooler. He has coordinated the initial review and redesign of a pilot plant to produce gas turbine quality liquid fuel from a renewable biomass feedstock.

Mr. Bernstein has a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from City College of New York of CUNY and a Master of Science in Management Engineering from New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is a senior member of AIChE and the past Chairman of the North Jersey Section. He has several publications involving refinery practices and permitting of open burning/open detonation facilities.


John P. Breen, PE

John Breen has 47 years of experience with high energy piping systems in nuclear and fossil power generation facilities. He has been a member of the ASME B31 Code for Pressure Piping, Mechanical Design Committee (MDC) for 34 years. He is an expert in the applications of nondestructive examination (NDE) techniques for in-service inspection, and in the evaluation and interpretation of NDE data for fitness-for-service and remaining life assessments.

Mr. Breen’s experience includes field engineering and construction support, establishing critical component safety programs, and developing pressure system failure prevention and plant life management programs at power and chemical process plants. Experience encompasses design as well as maintenance and in-service inspection, evaluation, re-rating, repairs, modification, OSHA 1910.119, Process Safety Management (PSM), Mechanical Integrity regulations at chemical plants and petroleum refineries. He has taught seminars on piping design and analysis for ASME, and various training companies. He has presented “Webinars” for EPRI on Design, Modification and Maintenance of Power Plant Piping Support and Hanger Systems.

Mr. Breen is a member of the following committees:

  • B31 Code for Pressure Piping, Mechanical Design Committee Member
  • B31.3 Process Piping Code Subgroup on Design

Eileen Elizabeth Chant, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr. Eileen Chant has over 20 years of experience in the areas of engineering project management, modeling and performance evaluation of mechanical and energy systems. She has managed a number of projects developing risk-based inspection methodologies and software tools for use by the process and power industry in developing cost-effective inspection and maintenance programs in accordance with API RP-580 and the ASME Inspection Planning Document, PCC-3. She has also managed projects developing fitness-for service software tools in accordance with API 579/FFS-1 and new methodologies for collection, management and statistical analysis of NDE data.

Dr. Chant has a great deal of experience in performance analyses of both near-term and mature energy technologies. Her experience includes development of first-principles-based numerical models, collection and analysis of field data, and subsequent evaluations of such diverse energy systems as boilers, synthetic gas reactors, adsorption-based dehumidification equipment, fuel cells, heat pumps, photovoltaic arrays and solar powered absorption chillers.

As Becht’s representative to the Materials Technology Institute (MTI), Dr. Chant serves on the MTI Technical Advisory Council.

Dr. Chant is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering in from Georgia Institute of Technology, and her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Chant is the author of peer reviewed publications, conference publications and numerous technical reports.



Vasant Chaudhari

Mr. Vasant Chaudhari has over 30 years of experience in advanced civil-structural analysis and design, including non-linear, plastic and dynamic analysis and extreme load design and retrofit. His expertise includes FEA analyses for a number of commercial nuclear power plants, Department of Defense and Department of Energy applications and facilities. Mr. Chaudhari has extensive experience in the application of ASME, AISC, ACI and ASCE codes for structural and mechanical integrity analysis and design.







Harry Costner, PE
Division Manager of Gulf Coast Division

Harry Costner has over 40 years of experience in the petroleum refining business. Thirty-four years were with ExxonMobil and ten in the engineering consulting field.

During his career with ExxonMobil, Mr. Costner held a wide range of positions that included research, process design, detailed engineering and design, supervision of operating process units, Project Management positions and Heavy Lifting activities in the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge Louisiana Refinery. He was operations supervisor of the largest fuel products terminal on the US East Coast, Manager of Demobilization Operations for the Valdez Oil Spill Cleanup Activity, Project Engineer for the ExxonMobil Coal Liquefaction Pilot Plant and Project Manager for a large Waste Water Treatment Plant.

While at Becht Engineering, Mr. Costner has developed an international reputation for his expertise in the field of heavy lifting technology. He has been associated with several “world class” heavy lifts. He has also developed unique solutions for installation of coke drum shim supports while the coker drums are in service, an “industry first.”

Mr. Costner currently functions as the Division Manager for the Gulf Coast Division of Becht Engineering, located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is a Licensed Professional Engineer in New Jersey, Texas and Louisiana, and is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.


Don Frikken, PE

Don Frikken is an internationally recognized authority in piping systems and valves, development of standards and specifications. His work with Becht includes designing new piping systems, analyzing existing piping systems, assisting manufacturers with respect to code compliance issues, and providing instruction on process piping and piping flexibility analysis courses.

Don has received a number of awards including the ASME Melvin R. Green Codes and Standards Medal in 2002, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the development of documents used in ASME programs of technical codification, standardization and certification. He received the ASME Fellow Award in 1994 and the ASME Dedicated Service Award in 1995.

Prior to joining Becht Engineering, Don spent 34 years with Solutia, Inc. and Monsanto Company working on a wide range of activities including piping and mechanical design, project engineering, and engineering standards.

Mr. Frikken is a registered PE in Missouri, ASME Standards and Certification activities include:

  • B16 Standardization of Valves, Flanges, Fittings, and Gaskets Standards Committee Member
  • B31 Code for Pressure Piping Standards Committee Member and Past Chair
  • B31 Executive Committee Member
  • B31.12 Hydrogen Piping and Pipelines Section Committee Member
  • B31.3 Process Piping Section Committee Member and Past Chair
  • B31.3 Task Group on Edit (TG-C) Member
  • B31.3 Task Group on Inquiry Review (TG-IR) Member
  • Board on New Development Member
  • Board on Pressure Technology Codes and Standards Past Member
  • BPV Project Team on Hydrogen Tanks Contributing Member
  • Codes and Standards Board of Directors Past Member and Past Chair
  • Continuous Improvement Committee Member
  • Board of Governors Member

Other Standards Activities

  • US TAG for ISO/TC 153/SC 1 - Design, Manufacturing, Marking and Testing Member
  • US TAG for ISO/TC 5/SC 10 - Metallic Flanges and Their Joints Member
  • US TAG for ISO/TC 197 – Hydrogen Technologies Member
  • American Petroleum Institute, Refinery Department, Committee on Refinery Equipment, Subcommittee on Piping Past Member
  • Materials Technology Institute, member of two groups involved with evaluation of gaskets.
  • ISA - The International Society for Measurement and Control, SP 93, Sealing Technologies Committee, Member


Rick Hoffman
Texas Division Manager

Rick Hoffman joined Becht Engineering in June, 2009 as a Senior Engineering Advisor. He has more than 37 years experience in engineering, reliability management and maintenance in the refining, petrochemical and synthetic fuels industries. Prior to joining Becht Engineering he was the Director, Specialty Engineering for LyondellBasell Industries. In this role he had world-wide responsibility for corporate technical support, mechanical engineering and maintenance for more than 40 chemical plants and two refineries. He was also responsible for capitol project support, setting the strategic direction for Lyondell maintenance and reliability programs and all engineering and maintenance standards. During his career he has developed reliability programs for refineries, chemical plants, and synthetic fuels operations He also served at the Mechanical Design Coordinator for a major refinery expansion in the UK.

Other highlights of Mr. Hoffman’s career include a serving as a member of the Texaco Speakers Bureau where he was responsible for communicating with the public concerning the refining industry. Mr. Hoffman also led a team for the final construction, startup, and operation of the world’s first commercial shale venture for Unocal. His team solved over 200 reliability problems to bring the plant into commercial operation. While at ARCO Chemical, which was acquired by Lyondell, he implemented a maintenance efficiency and work prioritization effort, resulting in a $70 million reduction in maintenance cost, and a 37% reduction in maintenance craft personnel, while improving reliability. While with Lyondell, Mr. Hoffman also headed a group of individuals to pioneer fitness for service evaluations, and to implement “program maintenance” to allocate funds for major programs to assure plants could not divert funds from key long-term upgrades. This program was highly successful in reducing failures and improving overall safety and reliability.

Rick has a BSME (with honors) degree from the University of Wyoming. He is a certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional, a member of the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals, and holds his Professional Engineer license in Texas. Mr. Hoffman is based in Silverthorne, Colorado.


Greg Hollinger, PE

Mr. Hollinger has 35 years of professional engineering experience in nuclear power generation. He has been involved in design and fabrication of reactor vessels, steam generators and pressurizers, and piping for commercial and non-commercial nuclear systems since 1978, as well as, non-nuclear vessel design, fabrication and certification. Specialization includes stress classification, fatigue and elevated temperature design for pressure vessel components. Additional specialization in ASME Code certification for construction of Section VIII Div. 1, Div. 2 and Div. 3 vessels and Section III Class 1 vessels. An ASME Fellow, Mr. Hollinger has over 20 publications in his areas of specialty, and has received numerous honors and awards in recognition of his work, such as the ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Division Award in 2004, and the ASME Board of Governors Award for Chair of the ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Division in 1995.

Mr. Hollinger serves or has served on the following committees:

  • Subcommittee on Accreditation (QAI) Alternate
  • Committee on Boiler & Pressure Vessel Conformity Assessment (CBPVCA) Alternate
  • Subgroup on Design Analysis (BPV III) Chair
  • Subgroup on General Requirements (BPV III) Member
  • Task Group Duties and Responsibilities (SGGR, BPV III) Member
  • Associate Editor for The ASME Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology (term ended 2006)
  • Member, International Council on Pressure Vessel Technology, Secretary of The Americas Regional Committee
  • The ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Division, Senate of Past Chairs

Robert (Bob) Jester, P.E.
Manager Of Heavy Lift Operations

Mr. Jester came to Becht Engineering with over 34 years of Heavy Lift and Heavy Transport experience with Lampson International and Rigging International both companies considered innovators in the engineering of lift equipment and rigging. He pioneered the construction of Pressurized Water Reactor and Boiling Water Reactor nuclear plants by lifting the NSSS equipment and structural modules over the containment walls – contrasting with the previous method of installation through the equipment hatch. . He has replaced Steam Generators through the equipment hatch and through “keyholes” cut in the containment domes. He has been the lead engineer in the lifting of contaminated equipment for decommissioning and casking for transport and disposal and has worked on the design for the AP 1000 PWR and the Advanced Boiling Water designs for future construction.

Mr. Jester pioneered the practice of replacing entire FCC Reactor and Regenerator Heads with Cyclones as a unit rather than piecemeal through door-sheets, dramatically shortening Turnaround outages. He engineered the first lift of multiple derricks and cutting deck for shortening Coke Drum Replacement Projects. During his tenure with Lampson his achievements in shortening refinery outages helped grow Lampson to be the world leader in Global Capacity for several years. He has been involved in grass-root refinery construction, and demolition and reconstruction after refinery explosions plus upstream lifting for drill platform roll-ups and construction worldwide.

He has developed transport systems for Crawler Transport and Rubber Tired Vehicles and has been Project Manager for Prudhoe Bay Sealift Operations for movement of up to 5000 ton modules from the Gulf Coast and West Coast to Alaska. He has developed transport of Draglines and In Pit Crushers for the mining Industry. He has been the lead engineer for the construction of heavy haul roads, barge grounding pads, sheet pile dock facilities with whalers and tiebacks, bollards and dolphin structures. He has designed sea-fastening for barges and ships and has engineered loading and rail transport with Schnabel cars as well as critical Ro-Ro and lightering marine operations.

Mr. Jester currently manages the Heavy Lift Division of Becht Engineering, specializing in review, design and consulting on Heavy Lifting He is a registered professional engineer in eleven states.

Mr. Jester serves on the following committees and societies:

  • American Society of Civil Engineers
  • National Society of Professional Engineers
  • Professional Engineers in Construction 
  • Houston Business Roundtable Crane and Rigging Committee 
  • Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association


Clyde Neely, PE

Following his graduation with honors from North Carolina State University, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Mr. Neely joined Union Carbide where he spent his entire professional career, prior to joining Becht Engineering. Over the next 50 years, Mr. Neely served in a variety of engineering capacities with a focus on pressure vessel engineering for the wide range of process vessel equipment that comprise large chemical plant projects and operations. Mr. Neely was recognized for his skills and promoted to Corporate Engineering Fellow in 1976, and had responsibilities for influencing and providing the design methodologies, standards, and practices that were used Corporate-wide for new construction, repair/alteration, and troubleshooting activities.

Upon retirement from Union Carbide, Mr. Neely joined Becht Engineering Co., and continues his work in pressure vessel engineering. He has been a member of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Committee for over 35 years and was Chair of the Task Group that developed PCC-1-2000, “Guidelines for Pressure Boundary Bolted Flange Joint Assembly.” He is currently Chair of the ASME Subcommittee on Flange Joint Assembly that is in the process of updating PCC-1-2000 (publication of PCC-1-2010 expected in April 2010). Mr. Neely is an ASME Life Fellow. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of West Virginia and in the Province of Alberta.

  • Board on Pressure Technology Codes and Standards – Member-at-large (1987 – 2008)
  • Boiler and Pressure Vessel Main Committee – Member (1985 – 2008)
  • Subcommittee on Pressure Vessels (SC-VIII) – Member
  • Subgroup on General Requirements (SC-VIII) – Member (Past Chair)
  • Subgroup on Toughness (SC-II and SC-VIII) – Member
  • Special Interpretations Committee (SC-VIII) – Member
  • Post Construction Standards Committee – Member
  • Post Construction Subcommittee on Inspection Planning – Member
  • Post Construction Special Working Group on Flange Joint Assembly – Chair


Derrick Pease

Mr. Derrick Pease has over 10 years experience in mechanical engineering design and analysis. He is an expert in stress analysis of complex structures that include seismic, fatigue, creep, heat transfer, fluid-structure interaction, impact, and explosion responses. He is also an expert in fluid flow analysis of piping systems, root-cause failure analysis, and fitness-for-service assessments. Mr. Pease specializes in advanced finite element modeling and simulation of complex problems using Abaqus, ANSYS, LS-DYNA and CAESAR II computer programs. Additional specializations include parametric driven models, custom user subroutines and macros which extend the functionality of the standard finite element analysis software. Code experience includes application of ASME B31.3, ASME Section III, ASME Section VIII, API-579 & NNSA SG-1000. After graduating from college with a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Mr. Pease worked nine years for Bechtel Savannah River, Inc. before joining the Becht team in 2007. He has worked on several projects over the years including:

  • Nuclear process lines hydrogen explosion, seismic & pipe whip analyses.
  • Nuclear waste processing vessels seismic & fluid-structure interaction analyses.
  • Nuclear shipping containers drop accident analysis & design.
  • Nuclear site environmental restoration water treatment plant piping system cost saving improvements and modifications.

Mr. Pease has also provided technical training on using finite element methods to solve complex problems.


Ted Princiotto

Ted Princiotto has almost 40 years experience in the petroleum refining business, 30 years with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company and 9 years with Becht Engineering where he is Vice President of Engineering. While with ExxonMobil, he held various technical, supervisory, staff and management positions. He supervised the mechanical engineering, applied mechanics and rotating equipment sections, participated in six refinery startups worldwide including the demonstration unit and first commercial application of ExxonMobil’s FLEXICOKING process. He held positions in the Corporation’s Corporate Planning Energy Outlook Division, ran the Vice President of Engineering’s Staff responsible for budgets and workload/workforce planning. He was the Manager of the Offsites and Utilities Division, Engineering Services Manager responsible for providing services to ExxonMobil’s production operations worldwide and ExxonMobil’s representative on the API Committee on Refinery Equipment. He has been involved in R&D specifically in the design of mechanical and process technology and managed ExxonMobil’s corrosive crude R&D program. Mr. Princiotto also has led a number of interdisciplinary teams of equipment technical experts for technical readiness/scale up studies for new process technology. Since joining Becht Engineering after retirement from ExxonMobil in 2000, he has been involved in the day-to-day operation and management of Becht’s engineering activities, and has been involved in such activities as the development of risk-based maintenance and inspection methodology and software, development and scaleup of equipment for new process technology and a wide range of technical consulting for the refining and petrochemical industry.


Ole Raadam

Ole has over 20 years experience in process design development, process optimization and trouble shooting. He has conducted safety evaluations for refinery onsite units and offsite and utility facilities. Before joining Becht, Ole worked over eight years in various positions at Denmark’s largest refinery and later spent over five years with a US oil major’s engineering and research company providing technical and project services to it’s affiliates worldwide. Since joining Becht Engineering, Ole has been involved in developing and leading several large utility systems modeling efforts for US refineries, energy conservation consulting and in the Front End Engineering for a large Cogen project. Ole has also been the lead in developing a number of process design specifications from initial screening studies through safety reviews and project follow-up. Many of the process specifications have included reuse of existing equipment saving the client significant capital costs and improving project schedules. Ole has a M.Sc. degree in chemical engineering from the Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark.


Arcot Radhakrishnan

Arcot "Radha" Radhakrishnan’s career has spanned over 37 years of worldwide involvement in the petroleum, chemicals and oil producing industries, including service with Shell Chemicals, Exxon Corporation and with ExxonMobil Corporation. At Exxon his R&D contributions included development of equipment technology for synthetic fuels (DOE) and the development/implementation of storage tank design and construction practices for atmospheric and low temperature services. His career has included a diverse range of technology assignments relating to capital projects, commissioning of new facilities, R&D, trouble-shooting, and incident investigation.

His recent assignments, during the past 10 years with ER&E, were focused on supporting Exxon’s development of a streamlined methodology for conducting assessments of affiliate facilities worldwide. This effort required the development of an in-house knowledge base and methodology for risk-based analysis of management and operations of equipment in existing facilities in refining, chemicals and producing operations offshore. Development of Corporate Standards, Procedures and Practices, using a streamlined risk-based approach, was the primary focus of this methodology that was rolled out to Exxon affiliates. He was responsible for training, and leading cross-functional plant engineering teams to implement the risk-based methodology to enhance safety in operating practices for existing facilities.

He was responsible for training, and leading cross-functional plant engineering teams to implement the risk-based methodology to enhance safety in operating practices for existing facilities. He was the Industrial Advisor on the Mechanical Engineering Faculty at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is a past committee member of the API SC on Piping and Storage Tanks, and the API Task Group that developed the API 653 Standard for Inspection and Repair of Atmospheric Storage Tanks. He has an MSc degree in Lubrication and Bearing Design, from the University of Leeds, UK, Graduate Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the University of Manchester College of Science and Technology, UK and BE in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University, India.

Since joining Becht Engineering in 2003, Radha manages the West Coast Office, providing leadership in reliability management systems development and consulting support for oil majors in the refining business. He has led reliability surveys for a number of refineries, as well as specific process units, which have led to substantial performance improvements, and has helped clients develop and implement integrated reliability management systems. 

 
Tony Scribner

Mr. Lyman (Tony) Scribner is a recognized authority in Materials Engineering and Corrosion Control in the Chemical Process Industries. He has thirty-nine years of experience in failure analysis, materials selection, design of equipment to minimize corrosion, troubleshooting and process modifications to minimize corrosion.

He has led and been the Technology Steward for the Materials Engineering function for Union Carbide for more than 30 years and oversaw the development of specifications for five technology areas - Materials Engineering, Paints and Coatings, Insulation, Cathodic Protection and Internal Coating and Linings. He has worked as a plant corrosion and materials expert, in the laboratory conducting metallurgical failure analysis and corrosion testing and in engineering helping to design chemical processes to reduce corrosion and the cost of facilities.

While with Becht Engineering, Mr. Scribner has been consulting on corrosion, metallurgical problems and failure analysis on metals, plastic and ceramics for clients such as Bayer CropScience, Dow Chemical, Invista, Celanese, Sipchem, BOC, Duke/Fluor Daniel, Reichhold and M&G Polymers.

Mr. Scribner has developed and taught courses on Corrosion in the Chemical Process Industries and Metallurgical Engineering. He received the Distinguished Service Award from NACE International in 2002. Mr. Scribner is a Licensed Professional Corrosion Engineer in California. He is an associate director of the Materials Technology Institute.

Mr. Scribner serves on the following committees:

  • NACE International – The Corrosion Society Committee Member STG36 & STG39
  • American Institute of Chemical Engineers

 

Trevor Seipp, PEng
Division Manager, Becht Engineering Canada, Ltd.

Mr. Seipp has over 10 years of experience in design, analysis review and failure analysis of process and power equipment, piping, and structures. He has extensive analytical experience including linear and non-linear finite element analysis using ANSYS and ABAQUS, buckling analyses, steady-state and transient heat transfer and thermal stress analysis of pressure vessels and piping, fitness-for-service evaluations, and fatigue assessments.

Prior to joining Becht, Mr. Seipp worked for 10 years at Fluor where he was the finite element analysis expert for Fluor’s Calgary office, providing finite element analyses and computational fluid dynamics for clients worldwide.

He received a M.Sc. from the University of Minnesota in Aerospace Engineering, and his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan. He is a licensed professional engineer in the Province of Alberta. Mr. Seipp is active in ASME Codes and Standards as a member of Sub-group Design Analysis of Subcommittee Design. Mr. Seipp is also a prolific author, writing 14 conference papers and 3 journal articles.



Bob Sims

Mr. Sims is a recognized authority in risk-based technologies for optimizing inspection and maintenance decisions, design and analysis of high pressure equipment, mechanical integrity evaluation of existing equipment and Fitness-For-Service analysis.

Mr. Sims is the past ASME Senior Vice President for Codes and Standards and past Chairman of the Codes and Standards Board of Directors. He also currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Joint API/ASME Fitness for Service Committee that is responsible for API 579-1 / ASME FFS-1, the joint Fitness-For-Service standard that was published in 2007. He is a member of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Subcommittee VIII on Pressure Vessels. He is an ASME Fellow and has more than 20 publications and two patents and is a frequent speaker and chairman in technical forums. He was responsible for developing the recently published “Guide to Life Cycle Management of Pressure Equipment Integrity”. Mr. Sims has been recognized by his peers in the industry as a leader, having received the J. Hall Taylor Codes and Standards medal in 2004, and the Melvin R. Green Codes and Standards medal in 2006. Additionally, he has been nominated to the Board of Governors for ASME for 2010 – 2013.

Prior to joining Becht Engineering in 1998, he worked for more than thirty years with Exxon (now ExxonMobil), the last ten years as a pressure equipment specialist with Exxon Research and Engineering.

Summary of current ASME Positions:

  • BPV Project Team On Hydrogen Tanks - Member
  • Board on Standards and Conformity Assessment - Member
  • Post Construction Subcommittee on Inspection Planning (PCC) Member
  • Pressure Technology Post Construction Committee Vice Chair
  • Pressure Technology Post Construction Executive Committee Chair
  • Subcommittee on Pressure Vessels (SC VIII) Member
  • Subgroup on High Pressure Vessels (SC VIII) Chair

 

David H. Vahlsing, PE

Division Manger, Philadelphia, PA

Dave served in refinery tech service, central engineering, corporate headquarters and R&D during his career with Sunoco. During this period he developed and managed engineering and research for a wide range of new and revamped refining and petrochemical processes. He also marketed Sunoco engineering and research services when Sunoco sold manhours outside of the corporation.

Dave’s role at the Philadelphia office is to match the needs of Becht clients with our staff skills, to prepare clear and mutually acceptable scopes of work and to monitor the progress of our projects to assure complete customer satisfaction.

He is a graduate of MIT, past chairman of the Chemical Consultants Network, past president of the Philadelphia Squash Racquets Association, past president of the Cynwyd Club of Bala Cynwyd, PA and continues to be involved with a variety of civic organizations. Dave is a cofounder of Hydrocarbon Enginering Associates, an engineering services company that was merged into Becht Engineering. He is licensed as a professional engineer in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

  • 2009 Pressure Vessel and Piping Medal
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