Principals

Alliance Contractors
John S. Zurcher · Houston, Texas
Mark L Hereth · Houston, Texas
Kiefner and Associates, Inc · Columbus, Ohio
C-FER Technologies, Inc. · Edmonton, Alberta

Associates
   
Bernd J. Selig · Hartford, Connecticut
Keith G. Leewis, PhD, PE · Chicago, Illinois
David F. Jones - Franklin, Tennessee
K. Fredrick Wrenn, Jr. PE · Charleston, West Virginia
James W. Kelly, PE · Tulsa, Oklahoma
Paul Biancardi, Esq · Houston, Texas
James C. DeVore, PE · Phoenix, Arizona
Tim McCallum · Chicago, Illinois
 

John S. Zurcher, Principal
John has spent 30 years in the gas pipeline industry, actively involved in pipeline safety. He served as Vice president of the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, Pipeline Group, consulting to natural gas and hazardous liquid pipeline operators, trade associations and research organizations, Previously, he worked for Columbia Gas Transmission Company as Manager of Field Services, responsible for company compliance with Federal Regulations, management of capital budget program, and development of the corporation’s risk management program.

At Tenneco Energy, he was Director of Pipeline Services, overseeing corrosion control, geographic information system development, applied systems, and pipeline rehabilitation, integrity and safety projects. With PanEnergy Corporation, Coastal Corporation and Colorado Interstate Gas Company, his duties included design and operations, codes and standards, corrosion control, telecommunications, geographic information systems, and facility design and construction.

John is presently a member of NACE and ASME and serves on the B31.8 Section Committee. John has been Chair of the INGAA Pipeline Safety Committee and the GRI System Integrity and System Operations Committee. He was a member of the DOT Technical Pipeline Safety Standards Committee, the DOT Risk Management Quality Action Team and their Mapping Quality Action Team. He has testified on behalf of the industry before the Congress of the United States on several occasions on matters relating to pipeline safety.

Mark L. Hereth, Principal
Mark has over 30 years of experience in the energy, chemical and environmental industries as well as the oil and gas insurance industry. He has worked in the areas or risk management, management system development, pipeline operations, project management, process plant design and environmental and pipeline safety legislation and regulations. At the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, he was the Senior Vice President and General Manager in their pipeline division. In this capacity he has worked with pipeline companies, industry trade associations and research organizations to develop and improve the management of risk and maintenance of the integrity of pipeline systems in order to improve safety and environmental impact as well as improve the cost structure and reliability of these systems.

Mark presently serves as a board member for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America Foundation and is on the Faculty at the Transportation Center at Northwestern University. Mark has received numerous awards and recognitions from the Department of Transportation for his contributions in risk management and improvements to the Pipeline Safety Regulations. Mark has testified to the Congress of the United States on issues relating to pipeline Safety.

Bernd J. Selig, Associate
Bernd has over 40 years of experience in the power, equipment insurance and pipeline industry. At The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company, he was Vice President of Technology, head of the Home Office Engineering Department and responsible for the company's research and development program. Prior to that position, he was in charge of HSB's $50mm Engineering Services business unit. He acquired several small companies involved in predictive maintenance activities, which ultimately became HSB Reliability Technology, a provider of maintenance management services to a number of industries.

He led a department at Combustion Engineering's Nuclear Division that developed and provided nuclear services including refueling and nondestructive inspection services. He grew the nuclear field services division into a $40mm business by 1986.

Bernie has been a member of a number of technical societies including ASME, ANS and NACE. He was an accreditor of mechanical engineering departments for 6 years and served as a member of ASME's Board on Research & Technology Development.

Bernie has written numerous articles and technical papers during his career. Recently, he was the editor of ASME's B31.8S supplement to B31.8, Integrity Management Programs for Gas Pipelines and B31Q Pipeline Personnel Qualification.

Keith G. Leewis, PhD, PE, Associate
Keith has over 30 years of practical experience in the operations and engineering sectors of the petroleum industry including, steel and pipe making, fracture mechanics, welding, and nondestructive testing. He is the Principle Integrity Manager supervising a $20million plus R&D program for Pipeline Research Council International Inc. that supports oil and gas transmission pipelines. He supports and helps direct the integrity management and system operations, primarily in Corrosion and Inspection, and Design Construction and Operations committees formerly for Gas Technology Institute and before that Gas Research. Prior to GRI, he was Senior Metallurgist at TransCanada Pipelines.

Keith has served in a wide variety of North American industry and research management positions from tenured Professor to Director of Technology. He continues to serve as a technical resource to AGA, AOPL, and INGAA and in this capacity has helped to develop and improve the management of risk and integrity and reliability of pipeline systems. Keith is a working member of both ASME and NACE and heavily involved in the design and application of the methodologies for direct assessment especially within operator integrity management programs. Keith has published over forty refereed papers and articles and is a registered engineer in Ontario and Nova Scotia

David F. Jones, Associate
David has over 30 years experience in the gas pipeline industry in a variety of line and staff management roles including Human Resources and Administration, Safety and Health, and Field Operations. At Tenneco Energy, he was Director of Human Resources, overseeing staffing, compensation, benefits, training, EEO, personnel records, records retention, and facilities planning and management. He moved from Human Resources to become Director of Tenneco Energy’s Central Division where he had responsibility for operating the company’s largest field division which included a portion of Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, all of East Tennessee Natural Gas, and Midwestern Gas Transmission Company. During this time, David spent three years leading transition teams during mergers with El Paso Natural Gas, SONAT, and Coastal Corporation.

In his last position with El Paso Corporation, he was Vice President of Eastern Operations where he had general management responsibilities for operations and maintenance of Tennessee Gas Pipeline, Southern Natural Gas, ANR Pipeline, and Southern’s LNG Receiving Terminal at Elba Island, Georgia. These systems comprised over 1,300 employees, 30,000 miles of pipelines in 25 states, 165 compressor stations with over 1.3 million horsepower, and annual operating budgets in excess of $400 million.

David was also active in key leadership roles in the industry and has served on the Southern Gas Association’s Corporate Telelink Network (CTN) Board of Directors, Chairman of Interstate Natural Gas Association of American (INGAA) Security Committee, Vice Chairperson of the Oil and Natural Gas Security Coordinating Council, and a member of the National Infrastructure Advisory Committee Pandemic Work Group.

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K. Fredrick Wrenn, PE, Associate
Fredrick (Fred) was with Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation for 39 years. He started in the engineering department doing mechanical, civil and electrical design and construction of compression, gas conditioning measurement and pipeline facilities. Fred also spent time as Director of Operation Engineering where his team provided technical support for transmission facilities and as Project Director for Columbia’s expansion projects. Fred finished his time with Columbia as Vice President responsible for project management, engineering design, codes and standards, technical training and materials procurement.

Fred is a member of ASME and serves on the ASME B31.8 Section Committee. Fred is a past member of the PRCI Executive Committee as well as PRCI’s Research Planning Task Group. Fred also served as a member of the Gas Research Institute’s Transmission Program Advisory Group and was a member of INGAA’s Environmental, Safety and Operations Committee. Fred also co-founded the EPRI Gas/Electric Partnership.

James W. Kelly, PE, Associate
James (Jim), has 30 years in the Natural Gas Industry. He began his career with The Gas Service Company (formerly KPL) where he worked as a Division Engineer and Division Superintendent designing and constructing gas distribution pipeline systems. He then joined Duke Energy Corporation (formerly Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company. While with Duke, he held various engineering positions as well as Manager of Pipeline Design and Manager of Codes and Standards. After leaving Duke, he took a position of Engineer VI at Wilbros Engineering where he designed offshore pipelines and associated facilities.

Jim is a member of ASME and serves on both the ASME B31.8 Section Committee and the ASME B31.8S Integrity Management Committee. Jim is a licenses professional engineer in Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and California.

Paul Biancardi, Esq., Associate
Paul has over 25 years working in the natural gas business. He started his career with the Office of Pipeline Safety in Washington, DC as an enforcement attorney. He then moved to the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee where he served as a staff attorney working on Order 436. Paul then moved to the private sector as first an FERC attorney and later a Safety attorney with Duke Energy which included during his career, Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Company and Trunkline Gas Company.

Paul is licensed to practice law in the states of Texas, California and the District of Columbia. Paul has specialized in the interpretation of pipeline safety and other materials transportation regulations as well as OSHA, FRA, FAA and Federal Motor Carrier Safety regulations.

Paul has published numerous articles pertaining to legal issues related to natural gas pipeline safety.

James C. DeVore, PE, Associate
James (Jim) has 40 years in the Natural Gas Industry. He began his career. As a Junior Engineer with the Arizona Public Service Company before he went to work for the American Meter Company as a product manager. Jim then went to work for Southwest Gas Corporation as an Engineering Manager and working his way up to head the corporate engineering staff. Jim then worked at San Diego Gas and Electric holding several management positions in engineering and operations. Jim has been a consultant since 1994 specializing in gas engineering and operations.

Jim is a member of ASME and serves on the ASME B31.8 Section Committee. Jim is also a member of the ANSI Z380 Gas Piping Technology Committee and the ANSI B109 Accredited Standards Committee on Gas Displacement Meters and Service Regulators. Jim is past chair of the American Gas Association’s Distribution Measurement Committee. Jim is a licensed professional engineer in California.

Tim McCallum, Associate
Tim McCallum has more than 30 years of experience in data base design and information technology management. Tim held several positions in several different IT companies before he formed is own company in 1993. Tim was the prime contractor for much of the IT work undertaken by GRI. This work included the development of Risk Management software products and the development of the Incident Reporting and Trending System as well as the Pipeline Open Data System. Tim is presently developing data bases for use by companies in reporting of their performance measures as required by the new Integrity Management Regulation.

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