Seminar Speakers

Robert Peltier

Robert spent 18 years with SDG&E, Solar Turbines and later, Stewart & Stevenson Services, managing power generation projects around the world. In 1987, he joined the faculty of Arizona State University where he became a tenured professor and taught power-related courses, including gas turbine design, thermodynamics, and power plant design. Captain Peltier was recalled to active duty in the U.S. Navy in late 1999 to serve as a program manager with the Naval Sea Systems Command. He left active duty in September 2002 and completed two more Navy Reserve command tours before retiring in 2007. Robert joined the POWER magazine’s editorial staff in 2002 as senior editor after working as a contributing editor for many years. Robert was named Editor-in-Chief of POWER on April 1, 2003. Bob has a BS, MS, and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and is a registered engineer in California and Arizona.

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Jack Burns

Jack Burns, PE and ASME Fellow, is the Director of Engineering at Burns Engineering Services, an engineering firm he founded in 1998. His company specializes in improving the efficiency and operation of condensers, cooling towers & air removal equipment. The technical services provided range from condenser inspections, tube material selections, modular bid evaluations, retubing specifications, structural assessments, performance testing, troubleshooting of SJAEs & condensers to reduce high backpressures and to serve as an expert witness.

In addition, his firm furnishes utilities cost estimates and practical conceptual designs of retrofitted closed-cycle cooling systems that are compatible with the 316(a) and 316(b) environmental legislation.

Jack previously was employed by the Stone & Webster (S&W) Engineering Corporation for almost 25 years as the titled corporate Consultant specializing in condensers, & cooling towers. Before joining S&W in the mid ‘70’s, he worked for 14 years at the Ingersoll-Rand Company (IR) where he was the Manager of Engineering Development of the Condenser Division. Now known as Yuba, IR was a major manufacturer of surface condensers and steam jet air ejectors for fossil & nuclear power plants. He is also the Chairman of the 2010 and the 1998 issue of the ANSI/ASME PTC 12.2 Condenser Test Code Committees, Chair of the 2008 ASME PTC 30.1 Code on Air Cooled Steam Condensers and the Chair of the 2003 ASME PTC 23 Code on Cooling Towers.

Mr. Burns holds a Bachelor Degree in Marine Engineering from the New York Maritime College and a Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University. He has published over three dozen papers and is a licensed Professional Engineer in four States.

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Daniel Janikowski

Daniel Janikowski has a Bachelor and Master of Science degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Illinois and is currently serving as the Chairman of the ASTM A01.10 Stainless & Alloy Steel Pipe and Tube Committee.

Dan currently holds title of Senior Account Executive for which he previously had the role of Corporate Energy Sales Manager & General Manager at Plymouth Tube Company’s East Troy, Wisconsin facility. A plant built for and focused on the production of condenser, feedwater heater and HRSG tubing for the power industry. He has been affiliated with this operation since 1986. Over these years, Dan has held positions related to quality assurance, technical service, sales and marketing, and operations management.

Prior to managing East Troy, Dan was with the Allied Signal Research Center. There he was involved in alloy development and failure analysis for a number of Allied Signal’s divisions including Wolverine Tube, the largest seamless copper tube manufacturer in the United States.

Dan’s other affiliations include the ASME Heat Exchanger Committee, the ASME subgroup on ferrous products, ASNT, and NACE. In 2007 Dan was awarded the Award of Merit by ASTM and is now a “Fellow of the Society”. Dan has authored several papers on the topics of materials selection, manufacturing and testing techniques for pipe and tube. In addition, Dan has also been awarded three patents.

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Edward Blessman

Edward Blessman is a graduate of Purdue University in Metallurgical Engineering. He earned an MBA from the University of Tulsa and is a Licensed Professional Engineer.

Ed’s current position with Plymouth Tube is as Technical Development Manager with a focus on SEA-CURE® super-ferritic tubing. His activities in the stainless steel tubing industry over the last 14 years include responsibilities in technical services, quality assurance and sales.

He has over 30 years of manufacturing experience in the field including nickel and cobalt based alloys, permanent magnet materials, alloy cast iron, and spring wire.

Ed is active in numerous technical organizations including NACE, ASTM and the ASME Heat Exchanger Committee. He has authored papers on alloys selection, and the production and testing of tubing. He holds two patents (neither of which involves tubing or metals).

In his current position he assists customers to achieve the higher efficiency and reliability in steam condenser and desalination equipment, and wherever the evils of corrosion lurk.

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Ed Overmyer

Ed. Overmyer is President of RetubeCo, Inc. in Ooltewah, Tennessee. Since 1992 RetubeCo has been providing specialized tools and technical services for retubing and repairing steam condensers and balance of plant heat exchangers.

Prior to co-founding RetubeCo with Jamey Smith, Ed spent twelve years as Vice-president of Harris Tube Pulling & Mfg. Harris Tube pioneered in the development and implementation of many of the primary tools and techniques currently used for the high speed, efficient removal of condenser tubes.

Ed received a BA degree in Business Administration from Adrian College.

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James (Jim) Kocher

Jim Kocher is the Director of Emerging Technology and the Principal Level III for Conco Services Corporation, NDE division. Jim was employed at Conco from February 1989 to August 1995 and was instrumental in developing the eddy current group and recently rejoined Conco in June 2011.

Jim has over 27 years’ experience in the balance-of-plant eddy current field serving the nuclear and fossil power generation industry and petrochemical industries. The majority of his experience is with condensers, service water heat exchangers and feedwater heaters with some exposure to steam generator inspections in the nuclear sector.

Jim Has co-authored and presented technical papers with the Electric Power Research Institute and was a member of the peer review committee assisting with the development of the ASNT Central Certification Program for Balance of Plant Heat Exchangers.

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Gary Fischer

Gary Fischer holds a Bachelor of Science in Electric Engineering as well as an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and is also a member of the ASME Codes and Standards, PTC 100 committee dealing with plant performance related outage and operating conditions. Gary has been an active member of the ASME Heat Exchanger Committee for the past five years.

During the past eight years, Gary has served Conco Systems as the National Sales Manager for the power generation market with responsibilities for all sales activities in the US market.

Prior to joining Conco, Gary worked in the communications, industrial and commercial contracting fields dealing primarily with controls, instrumentation and software implementation as well as system configuration.

Gary is a frequent presenter at power generation conferences including ASME, Electric Power and EPRI and has coauthored several technical papers on topics including condenser performance improvements through effective tube cleaning, eddy current testing and tracer gas leak detection.

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George Saxon

George Saxon, Jr. is the President of International Markets at Conco Systems, Inc., Chairman of Conco Systems, Pty Ltd in Australia, Managing Director of Conco Systems SPRL in Belgium and a Director of Conco Industrial Services Corp.

Conco Systems, Inc. is the world leader in off-line mechanical tube cleaning and has participated in condenser performance improvement projects for major power producers worldwide. Conco deliverables to the power generation industry include exclusive technologies for condenser tube cleaning, tracer gas leak detection and eddy current testing.

George has a Bachelor Degree from California University of Pennsylvania in 1982. He completed his MBA in 2000 with High Honors at Duquesne University. George has been one of the principal members of Conco Systems since 1982. Currently, his responsibilities include Business Development, Marketing and International Business.

George is an active member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Power Division and serves as the Vice Chair of the Power Division’s Executive Committee. He is the Past Chair of the ASME Heat Exchanger Committee and Past Chair of the International Relations Committee. He is active on the ASME’s Performance Test Code for Steam Surface Condensers committee. He has also served on Technical Advisory Committees for Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and is a former member of the American Society of Non-Destructive Testing (ASNT). He is a published author and speaker

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Eric H. Fayard

Eric Fayard is the director of technical marketing at Conco Systems, a global provider of condenser tube cleaning and testing services founded in 1923. Conco introduced the world to the first offline mechanical tube cleaner and continues to design, engineer and manufacture cleaners focused at improving condenser efficiency, reliability and availability.

Eric previously was employed by Astra Zeneca pharmaceuticals as a business development manager in their gastrointestinal and infectious diseases division. Before joining Astra, Eric worked with Bristol Myers Squibb Corp. as a territory business manager in the neuroscience and hospital and institutional sales group.

Eric is a frequent contributor to POWER, Power Engineering and other industry trade publications and was the master of ceremonies at the 2010 Condenser Lifecycle Seminar in Atlanta. Eric was track chair for Plant Maintenance for Electric Power 2011 and is a member of the ASME Heat Exchanger Committee.

Eric holds a Bachelor of Science in marketing degree from the University of Phoenix and is a contributing member of the American Marketing Association. Eric is an accomplished speaker and published author of numerous technical papers on the topics of condenser performance, tube fouling and remediation, multi-frequency eddy current testing and tracer gas leak detection.

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Jamey Smith

James (Jamey) W. Smith is Vice-President / Engineering & Operations of RetubeCo, Inc. in Ooltewah, Tennessee.

Since 1992 RetubeCo has been providing the global power generation industry with superior tooling and technical services for cost effective, high quality repairs to steam condensers and balance of plant heat exchangers. Prior to co-founding RetubeCo, Jamey spent 7 years as a mechanical engineer with Harris Tube Pulling & Mfg. Inc. Harris Tube Pulling developed and implemented many of the primary tools and techniques currently used for the high speed, efficient removal of condenser tubes.

Mr. Smith received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee.

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Jim Mitchell

After graduating from college with a liberal arts degree, Jim began his power industry career at Westinghouse Electric Corp, Power Systems Project Division, where he was a key player in the business of building “turnkey” nuclear units overseas in Yugoslavia, Brazil, South Korea and The Philippines. Jim spent 10 years at Westinghouse Electric, including a stint at Napot Point in The Philippines, working between project engineering and subcontract purchasing. From there, Jim joined Amertap Corp., (currently Taprogge America), selling on-line condenser tube cleaning systems and circulating water debris filtration systems. In 1987, Jim joined what would evolve into Plastocor, Inc., and in 1990, with his partner Mike Horn, purchased the license for Plastocor, Inc., covering North America and the Caribbean. Jim holds the title of Vice President and is responsible for sales of Plastocor Materials and Services.

Jim's other affiliations include the ASME Heat Exchanger Committee, NACE and ASTM. Jim has authored several papers on the topics of full length condenser tube coatings and has written case histories on condenser tubesheet and waterbox coatings.

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Mark Tagliamonte

Mark Tagliamonte is Vice President and Manager of Projects at RetubeCo, Inc. in Ooltewah, Tennessee. The company has been providing specialized tools and technical services for retubing condensers and balance of plant heat exchangers since 1992.

Prior to joining RetubeCo in 1996, Mark was the General Manager for Siemens Power Corporation’s Nuclear Services Group for North America. The group provided equipment, engineering, and inspection services to the nuclear industry. Mark was the President and CEO of QUALTEC Testing Services, an FPL Group Company, from 1987 to 1991. Prior to 1987 he held various engineering and field service positions in the power industry.

Mark received a B.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering from SUNY Maritime College, Brooklyn, New York.

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