Episode 13 - On a Cat Cracker During a Tornado (featuring Bobby Wright)

In Episode 13, we are pleased to welcome industry veteran Bobby Wright to the podcast! 

From his beginnings working summers on an assembly line in Arkansas to becoming a business strategist and mentor, Bobby shares the valuable lessons learned and experiences that shaped his path. He discusses pivotal moments, including his roles at refineries and handling emergencies, like tornadoes. Key highlights include Bobby's involvement with coker units, advanced inspection methods, and the significance of a collaborative and well-rounded approach in achieving industry success.

Reflecting on relationships forged, professional growth, and the importance of teamwork, Bobby's insights provide a comprehensive look into a dynamic and evolving career. Tune in to hear about resilience, leadership, and the future of engineering from someone who has lived it all. 

01:43 Refinery Experience and Lessons

05:09 Transition to DNV – Innovations, Achievements, and meeting Greg Alvarado

07:12 Acoustic Emission Testing

18:58 Reflections on Technological Advancements

21:00 Technological Advancements and AI

23:06 Journey into the Coker World

29:06 Catastrophic Failures and Safety Concerns

33:24 Team Collaboration and Reliability

36:16 Institutionalizing Best Practices

40:29 Personal Reflections and Career Influences

45:51 Building Effective Teams

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Episode Acronyms & Abbreviations

AE – Acoustic Emissions

Automated UT – Automated Ultrasonic Testing

EPA – Environmental Protection Agency (USA)

FEA – Finite Element Analysis

H2S – Hydrogen Sulfide

NDT – Non-Destructive Testing

OSHA – Occupational Safety and Health Administration (USA)

PSM – Process Safety Management 

RBI – Risk-based Inspection 

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We’d love to hear from you—connect with us on LinkedIn and share your thoughts on the episode. Have ideas for future topics or guests? Email us at inspectionpodcast@gmail.com.

Join us next time, wherever you get your podcasts. Until then, stay safe and stay informed.

Note: The views and opinions expressed by the guest are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the hosts or the Upon Further Inspection podcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Listeners should seek their own qualified advisors for guidance.

Transcript

Branden 0:00

Upon further inspection, a Mechanical Integrity podcast goes beyond the data and dives into the people challenges and stories behind reliability and inspection. Whether you're in the field or in the office, this podcast is for you because mechanical integrity isn't about assets. It's about the people who keep them running. All right, Bobby. Well, thanks for joining us today. you've been a lot of different places. I've gotten to know you here a little bit this year. what is your actual role these days right now?

Bobby 0:46

Well, that, that's a, that's a good question. I have been a lot of places. my actual role right now is, is kind of a, is a business strategist, coach, mentor. my passion is, taking what I've learned at a refinery and then growing that into, this is, this will be my fifth engineering consulting company now that I'm working with

Branden 1:07

five consulting companies. So probably the opportunity to work with a lot of different people, a lot of different perspectives. So you told me a story a long time ago, about, coming outta college where did we start? Where was college at?

Bobby 1:22

Yeah. Well, I, I, I grew up in Arkansas. My dad was a pipe manager for Whirlpool. and in school I was good at math. I thought I wanted to be an architect until I realized that, it took them 10 years after they got outta school and they didn't make a lot of money unless they owned a company. So, I went into engineering. in the high school, high school years, my dad was plant manager at Whirlpool Fort Smith. they had 5,000 people assembly line building refrigerators, freezers for Whirlpool and, and Sears. So I, I worked on the assembly line, two summers, made really good money and decided a couple things. Number one, I never wanted to work on an assembly line ever again in my entire life. And I really feel and have a lot of appreciation for people that have to do that or do that. and number two, I realized I, I also worked for bricklayer. I like working outside. I didn't want to be in a factory or an inside position. So, when I got outta school or as I was interviewing, it was a really good time in the industry back in the, late seventies, golly, I say that, late seventies. but it's true. I had six job offers. I ended up taking one from a oil refinery in South Arkansas Company called toco. and, I'd never been in a refinery before, but when I went and had the interview and, it just seemed like a interesting place to go and work. And, I didn't know it at the time. I was there for almost six years, but that set the foundation for the rest of my life and career in terms of the equipment I worked with and the people learning how to work with different people from operators all the way through vice presidents.

Greg 3:08

so the refinery in the refinery, what did you do? How many hats did you wear? And looking back, what's the experience that you got working in the refinery to just became so useful, became golden for you later?

Bobby 3:23

Yeah. I, I started, as a project engineer. at that point in time, the industry was in a really good position. margins were good. we were spending money on pro projects and special projects, so I worked on three, four different projects. probably the biggest one was putting a waist eat bar on a cat cracker. and, and Greg, to your point, I didn't appreciate it at the time, but it set the foundation for everything. I already, I already mentioned. You know, learning how to work with others from people operators. again, all the way through plant managers and vice presidents, but it was working with the, the operators and the maintenance people. I was in projects, special projects, and then we had a downturn in the industry. And I went to maintenance and I worked in maintenance for three years planning and, and I, I picked up emergency work orders from operations every morning at five 30. I met with the night superintendent and the day shoot superintendent to plan the work for the refinery. So I learned about all the equipment. You know, I learned about, how our industry thinks, how maintenance and operations. while it should be a symbiotic relationship, a lot of times it's, they, they fussing against each other. Not always help each other, but, it really set the foundation for everything, you know, that I did. we had, as, as I was thinking about some of the questions, there were some incidents. Certainly, I, I was part of the fire team there. I helped put out a fire, in December of 83 on the CAC cracker. And, that, was very exciting and scary at the same time. I was there, we had a tornado to come over the refinery. I was at the refinery when that happened. we were pulling blinds, in a turnaround on Alki turnaround, and I was standing on a platform with four pipe fitters, we had two blinds left to pull to start the unit back up, and I just walked down into the. control room, literally, and they got gas with a wet H two s, and we had to do CPR on all four of'em. Hmm. So I was lucky that, I wasn't one of the four that had to be, you know, resuscitated. it was all that was successful. But anyway, Greg, it, it really, it was a place I loved being, honestly. but we had a downturn in the industry. We laid off 30% of the workforce, and then I just didn't want to be in maintenance the rest of my life.

Greg 5:44

Gotcha.

Branden 5:45

you've mentioned here a couple times that you've known Greg, or Greg knows a little bit about you let's get up into like the, the 1980s or so. how did you and Greg end up meeting?

Bobby 5:54

Well, yeah, I went when, I was at the refinery, there was a company using some advanced technology inspection technology, acoustic mission and automated ultra sonics. They came to the refinery and were doing, did a couple of demonstrations. And that was about the time that, the things that the plant were causing me to question where I was at and why. So I was looking to leave and I went to work for a company called De Norky Veritas, who was in cci, Arkansas at the time. I thought I was moving to Arkansas, closer to home. You know, little did I know that DNV was headquartered in Houston and the company they bought was gonna be moved to Houston. I didn't know that at the time. So anyway, I come to DNV, they specialized in advanced, as I said, acoustic commission and automated ultrasonics, materials, engineering replication, and then really the foundation for fitness for service. So they wanted somebody that knew about the industry to help them build their land-based industry here in the us. And, I was bodacious enough to think I could do all that. So I came to DNV and, and I was on a road trip. we did a lot of work for Monsanto, acoustic emission testing of fiberglass and other equipment. So I went to St. Louis, which, which is where, Monsanto's HQ was. And I met Greg. we hit it off. We went to Cardinal's game one night and we became friends almost right off the spot. And, and then he, he came to Houston to work with us in the late eighties. And, and, you know, we became friends and actually we built pretty much a powerhouse at Denars, Veritas, you know, Lynn Kayley and Tim Sterman and, and, a lot of people that are still around in the industry, you know, a lot of companies came from our work together. When we were at DMV, we were there. I was there almost nine years. it was a great place to work

Branden 7:49

You mentioned acoustic mission testing. Were you doing the ND work? Were you supporting it from the engineering side? What? Talk about that.

Bobby 7:55

both. I remember one time Greg and I did, we actually ran, I'm

Greg 7:58

laughing now.

Bobby 7:59

Yeah, I'm too. We did an AE test on Ammonia Tower down in Louisiana and it was, it was a cluster. I'll just leave it at that. But we did it, so it, we did a little of both. Brandon, I mean, fundamentally I think what I did at DMV and really all through all the companies I've worked for is brought an understanding of the equipment. How it's operated and the philosophy of the people in the plant of, of what they want, what they need, even if they tell you or don't tell you. And, at, at d and v, you know, we brought an understanding of the equipment and married that with how to apply the technology to an occlusive ae or automated ultrasonics, how to detect and quantify defects. And then the next step is what do you do with those defects? Does that sound familiar? I mean, here, 40 years later, we're doing the same thing. but fundamentally, I, I think, Brandon, if I have any value at all, it's in understanding, as I said, the equipment and, and the people who operate that equipment and what they need. If I have a value, that's probably it.

Branden 9:11

that's your superpower. Relationship building and communication.

Bobby 9:15

I think so. 1 thing I want to, I, I kind of want to hit on, when we were at DNV, my Andy Warhol moment, happened there, we were using equipment, from the Danish Welding Institute. It was one of the first automated ultrasonic sea systems. It was, and it was small. It was not much bigger than a laptop. And, and some of the equipment that we, we use today anyway, we got called, or I got invited to do a demonstration at NASA at the Kennedy Space Center, after Challenger, which was in 1987, I believe, January of 87. January, February. so this would've been an 88 ish. Anyway, they wanted a d, they saw the P scan. We were at a and t conference, and they saw the P scan and. a gentleman named Jim y invited me to the Kennedy Space Center. So, no, we were all busy at, at DNV, everybody was on the road, except we had two young, young guns. We had just hired from Hutchinson, up in Minnesota. Mark Slander and Lenny Penal, they were like 19 years old. So we went to the Canadian Space Center and we set up to do a demonstration on a piece of flight hardware. The sock solid rocket booster outskirt down at the bottom of the white solid rocket boosters. about two inch thick inch and a half aluminum. So we set up to do a demonstration with a pcan, scanning the weld, to show Air Force and NASA people how it would look. And they were trying to, I improve or raise the level of the technology they used for inspection. So during the inspection, mark comes up to me and says he found a linear indication in this well. Now this weld was on an outskirt that was going onto the space show discovery, the next one. So I'm like, dude, no, you didn't, this is going into space. This is, you know, go check it again. Anyway, so he went and checked it again. He went and checked it again, again, and sure enough, it was still there. So I, I went and told NASA what we saw, and, they radiographed and brought in the crews that spent all night looking at it. And the next morning we had a meeting with the vice President of United Space Boosters at Kennedy to go through what we had found. And, you can imagine the environment, the political environment there. After Challenger, everybody was on pins and needles. So anyway, long story short. that was Friday, Monday morning. We had four crews, that, mobilized to the Kennedy Space Center. There was 33 outskirts that we inspected over the next six months year. we were on the cover of USA today, Florida. I was on tv. we were asked to sit in the VIP section when discovery launched the next time. So for a young kid that wanted to be an astronaut, that was as close as I was gonna get, and it was pretty cool.

Greg 12:08

I remember that, that was pretty cool. We were all watching from inside A DNV. It was, it was awesome.

Bobby 12:15

It was, it was, well, I still can speak of it fondly and I can remember of all the details, and that was a long time ago,

Greg 12:23

but it was the beginning of, I mean, obviously the, the automated UT was proven itself, because. There were some times, right, that there'd be false positives and stuff like that would hurt the technology. But this P scan and the automated ut things started, I think maybe bringing more reliability as long as we had better operators.

Branden 12:44

So was that the plan at DNV to, to build up, just gather as much talent and start,'cause the ad seemed like it was a, a really cool cowboy type time where a lot of new technology, a lot new understanding was happening. Was that the plan or did that just kind of happen organically?

Bobby 13:01

Well, and, and Brandon, that's a very interesting question. I mean, thinking back about it, when I left the refinery, we had shut down, gosh, 50 or 60 small refineries. We'd integrated some into others. we laid off. 30, 40% of our workforce, both hourly and salaried people. So the industry at the time, in the mid eighties was hurting, the oil embargo, you know, Bob, you know, the other

Greg 13:30

thing that was happening at that time, growing up in St. Louis, this part was dark. it was the beginning of the rust belt. The EPA was coming in. All these laws were coming in, and especially around the St. Louis area in the Midwest and stuff, and I'm sure it was down here in Houston as well as other places, as a lot of plants started shutting down, they did meat backing houses, foundries, refineries, chemical plants.

Bobby 13:56

Yeah. I mean, it changed, but, but Brandon, to your point, I think, Deno Veritas was, was trying to get more into the US market. they were an ocean boat based group. the good thing about DNV, they invested in technology and people at the time. Yes, they were, they were out to make money and we did make money. So was it an. I think maybe at a high level it was planned, but the reality was it was to integrate advanced inspection and mechanical integrity technology into the industry, specifically land-based industry, which DMV was not working in at the time. You know, just because the US is the largest market at that time in the world by far. I tell people, you know, I love working there, you know, equity engineering folks started there. the RBI risk based inspection was started there working with Shell and ExxonMobil to develop the technology. DNV was working the approach overseas for shipping, but not really for, for land-based equipment. So we started working on that. And that's where the foundation, like I said, for Fitness, for Service and RBI. So it really, it was the foundation, not just for technology, but myself and Greg and our relationship. Most of those people, we're still really good friends with no matter who, where they work.

Branden 15:17

Throughout your career on the technical side, where was a lot of your focus at?

Bobby 15:21

Well, at the refinery, it was being inspection and maintenance. I literally worked on every piece of equipment or had exposure, you know, to inside of towers and cat crackers and pla reformers and crude units and heaters. And, you know, I've helped light burners on heaters. I've helped put out fires. you know, we talked about CPR, the fire team. we were changing relief valves on the top of the cat fractionator when a tornado came over, you know, lightning strike in the tank that caught fire.

Branden 15:53

hold on. So, hold on. you were on top of a cat cracker when a tornado came through.

Bobby 15:57

we had just finished, a cat turnaround that would've probably been 83. And, we brought the cat back up and lo and behold, one of the relief valves, we had two big relief valves on top of the cat Fractionator. it literally, it, it opened and broke and we had to shut the unit back down, but we still had to crane up. So we were pulling the relief. It was a big one too. Eight 12 inches, I forget. But it was big off the top. And, as we were doing that, a storm blew in or was blowing in. and we positioned the crane. We couldn't, we didn't lower the boom. I don't think. Maybe we did. Long story short, yes, we were pulling a relief valve. we were up there, the pipe fitters were, changing out the relief valve when a tornado came over, the refinery and I spent the entire night, in the refinery. some of the night when the, when the tornado came over myself and one of the maintenance pipe fitter foremans hit under a, a big old steel table in the, in the pipe fab shop. But that was very exciting I was there three days, excuse me, two and a half days straight. No sleep.

Branden 17:02

Your definition of exciting is a little different than mine.

Bobby 17:05

Yeah. Well, I didn't choose that Brandon. just like I didn't choose, you know, when we did CPR or being on the fire team. but technically, I crawled through cats and cyclones and fractionators and trays and, you know, heaters and, I, I was covered in oil more than once. I got sprayed by, we had a sulfuric acid, alki and, Y you know, I, I remember walking into the, back in those days we didn't wear Nomex. I walked into the plant. I had a down jacket on and I walked in and the refinery manager, we had just got the unit back up, but I was sprayed with sulfuric acid. not bad, but my, my down jacket looked like a, a duck feather or goose feather, you know, pillow. And there was feathers coming all through the, office when I was walking in, the plant manager bought me a new, a north face down jacket after that. But working in a refinery and with the equipment gave me a foundation technically. now when I went to stress. Of course, stress and equity impact all have a lot of really smart people, probably smarter than I am. But what, what a lot of'em lack, Brandon was an understanding of how to apply the technology to solve a problem, how to bound the problem. Does that make sense?

Branden 18:26

Mm-hmm.

Bobby 18:27

Technically, that's my superpower. You know, at stress, when I took over the downstream practice, there was, you know, they had masters and PhD guys that, that, you know, FEA and, you know, and fracture mechanics, all of which I could probably do if I had to, but god almighty, you might not want to, want to look at the result. But the one thing they couldn't do or they didn't understand. What loads, what problem they were trying to solve, how to put the loads together, what was really going on with the equipment. Both, you know, not just mechanically, but as you know, everything we do in a plant is operator dependent. So how is the equipment run? What's the flow rates? What's the pH, what's going on inside? Right? And that's what I was able to do pretty much wherever I've been, is help people understand the science, not the, not the calculational science, but the application of technology to solve a problem. Does that make sense?

Greg 19:29

Yeah. A matchmaker.

Bobby 19:31

So yeah, that's the technical part. really, and that, that hasn't changed in 40 years now. It's changing now. as you know, we've got a new game in town around artificial intelligence. And you and I have gotten to know each other, you know, around that a lot. And, and, I was asked to look at, a project that we were working on here, applying AI to fixed equipment. And, you know, the last six months, I would argue that It's gonna change everything we do and how we do it. And, and I'm excited to learn about it. honestly, I mean, if you could teach this old dog, you know, some of that stuff, it, that's what's excited me right now. You know, I, I think back to my dad who was a car guy, but you know, he was born in 36, so. He got to see a lot of stuff and advances in technology after the war and assembly lines and you know, so on and so forth. But if you think about it, you know, Greg and I have got to see everything from the space shuttle to computers, to cell phones. I mean, we didn't have any of that starting off We didn't do science with computers. Yeah, we didn't

Greg 20:43

have desktop. well, we had black and white TV when I was a little kid. We got color in a couple years.

Bobby 20:49

Yeah. I mean, Brandon's laughing his ass off. I know. but it's the truth. But we've come so far and yet I think, this AI wave, this how we use that to improve. Not just our industry, but also to improve our lives.

Branden 21:04

AI is interesting, right? I kind of think about it like this, the advancements in NDE back in the eighties and the nineties allowed for us to make smarter engineering decisions. That's right.'cause we were, we were able to better understand exactly what, what we have out there.

Bobby 21:22

Yep.

Branden 21:22

So AI is now going to come in from an operational standpoint, what do you think it's gonna help boost? Do you think it's gonna help boost something new? or, what's the future there, do you think?

Bobby 21:36

I don't know, but what I see is, I think everything, to answer your question, guys, do you know how to use ai? Do you know what it's used for? Do you know what it can be used for? The answer to all those questions is no. So we are here to start, build a foundation to learn and help each other, get our heads around the technology, what it means to us, how we maybe can use, but it starts with learning about it first and then we'll decide what we wanna spend money on. I had one of our friends say, well Bobby, I don't know, you know, our company, we need to know what the deliverables are before we wanna spend any money. And I'm thinking, well bud, you don't even know what it is or how to use it. And I know that for a fact. because while I may not be a PhD in fracture mechanics, you know, I'm not a dummy either, but we don't know. I mean, I, I mean there's, there are certainly people that know more than we do, but that's why we're coming together to learn from others. Go ahead,

Greg 22:38

Greg. I think, I think Bobby, one of the, one of the big things we're gonna get outta ai, I think we're gonna get a lot of stuff. I think we're at the tip of the iceberg, quite frankly. But I think a lot of the stuff we're gonna get outta AI is gonna help us understand, the uncertainties and the confidence we have in our predictions. It's gonna help us take better advantage of data that's available to us and, and other things. You know, it amazes me, quite frankly, when I hear the industry talk about ai and you got companies like Microsoft starting up an old nuclear plant to help power AI stuff. You know, it's like, my gosh, it's hard to fathom, you know, all of the impact of ai. But I, I, I think it's a lot of promise. I, I think there's a tremendous amount of promise. There isn't just like anything I always said the internet is a parallel universe. You can use it for good, you can use it for evil. I and both as true as ai.

Bobby 23:31

That's right. And people do, they, they do use it for that. So. We'll, we'll see. I mean, that, I'm so excited

Branden 23:39

you mentioned Kers. your name's been associated with Kers for a long time. how did you get into the coker world?

Bobby 23:45

That's a very interesting question. at the refinery where I worked, we did not have a coker. We made asphalt. I'd never wanna go in another asphalt plant, as long as they are, God, they're nasty. actually another thing, sidebar, one of my best friends, I played softball. We started softball team at the refinery. One of my best friends, he was an operator, walked under an asphalt vent just as we had gotten some water carry over into the tank and it puked over, asphalt all over him. And, he went to the ER and he had third degree burns over the top. I didn't mean to get off on a tangent, but it's true. And that affected me, there for sure. when I left the refinery and when I went to DNV, one of the pieces of equipment that we were asked to look at was a coker in Corpus Christi, Anyway, long story short, we started working with applying string gauges, thermocouples. And, and doing acoustic commission.'cause coker are crack machines.

Branden 24:46

what does that mean? That they're crack machines.

Bobby 24:48

they're batch operated. They, they heat up from about ambient maybe 150, 200 degrees to 8 50, 900 degrees every day. they cool down with steam or water. So the, and they're

Greg 25:02

huge, right? Bobby?

Bobby 25:03

They're hu they're 30 feet, right? Well, they're 24 to 30 feet in diameter carbon, half mo, one a quarter of chrome. they are designed as pressure vessels. They were not originally designed to in a fatigue service. So, long story short, the industry moved from a 24 hour cycle, which, which it ran for years, to 12, 16 hour cycles in the, In the nineties. And what that did, that started accelerating fatigue damage at a much higher rate, especially on equipment that was 20 yard 20, 30 years old. So they started having through wall cracks, both in the shell courses, the shell three, four, and five, also down, to the skirt areas where the skirts are welded onto the cone. And, and then you add on, the delta valve, the, bottom un headache, devices and the top un head devices. and putting a side inlet on, you could run'em faster. you had another thermal gradient with a coat coming in at 900 degrees into the cone hitting perpendicular on the other side. Anyway, all, all of it just basically accelerated cracking all around the drum. we built an entire business around. Monitoring that, measuring the loads with strain gauges and thermocouples, finite element analysis. and my passion is understanding the reliability and, and, you know, where the cracks are gonna happen, how long they're gonna happen, how many cycles, but also in tying it into operationally, having worked with operations, daily. I know for a fact I knew even then, even though I wasn't a process engineer, that the way drums are, are, operated, switch and quench procedures specifically can have a huge impact on how fast they, they damage and crack. And operators basically we're, we're raised in a refinery. You have operations and process and maintenance and engineering and, operations process. We run it. Maintenance and engineering, you fix it and, and don't give us a hard time if we break it. But back to Kers, we started working on Kers in the late eighties. and it is carried through my entire career. You know, we, we did a lot. Stress engineering had a wonderful health. They did a lot of monitoring, so they had really good monitoring equipment and we were able to put it on. And then when I got to Beck, we took the next jump and we, we transitioned from Wired. monitoring to wireless monitoring, and now they're actually installing string gauge and thermocouples off rope access to save, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in scaffolding. But fundamentally, the biggest thing we've done, is tying how you operate a piece of equipment, what it does to the equipment, and then making financial decisions and operational decisions, tying equipment response to the way it's operated. And, that's something I've worked on for 30 plus years. And I, I never had a coker at the refinery, but I've been on a whole bunch of them. Uh, mostly North America.

Greg 28:05

Hey, Bobby, wasn't there some other good information that came out from all of that work too about how to design coke drums?

Bobby 28:11

There was Greg. we basically took what we learned, from the way they were cracking and we redesigned'em. they were designed originally like a storage tank where they had thicker plates at the bottom. they transitioned the thinner plates moving up. We transitioned to the same wall thickness. we did a lot of work on metallurgy. We did a lot of work on grinding world crown smooth to reduce St Press risers. But honestly, Greg, the reality was What we could do to improve the design was minuscule v versus operations. The pro, they could tear up. They could tear up a bowling ball.

Greg 28:48

Yep.

Bobby 28:49

Regardless. So. What the biggest thing we had to do and I worked on, is to try and convince the tech services manager and the coker process leads that we're not, you know, we're not trying to, to tell you to slow down how, how you do cycles, but we're trying to help you understand that if you do that mm-hmm. One or two 10 cycles in a year can do 10, 20% of the damage, on a drum. And if you can just improve those 10, 20 cycles, you can, you can do a lot of good for your drums. Mm-hmm. On the reverse side, if you run'em hard and you make a hundred million dollars in profit, then you just need to plan on replacing your coker in five years or your drums in five years or 10. But make that at least you understand cause and effect. And that's really the whole input.

Greg 29:43

You know, something I've always wondered, were there any catastrophic failures of Koch drums that caused fatalities?

Bobby 29:50

there have been three or four, mostly due to fires that, that were caused, luckily, luckily, I mean from the coke

Greg 29:57

drum itself failing, you know, and not a line going through Coke. Well, yeah,

Bobby 30:01

not, not, not as many as you would think. I mean, I've been involved with two coke drums that, the bottom, uh, skirt to cone attachment or cone to shell attachment depending our skirt to shell attachment weld. Mm-hmm. Unzipped 360, not pressure boundary. And then the drum actually sat down inside the skirt a few inches, up to six inches in one case.

Greg 30:24

That's scary.

Bobby 30:25

yeah. Well it was, luckily those happened, not during the fill when you had 900 degree oil in it. That's the key. you know, I've seen on with the side inlets have caused through all cracks. Luckily Greg, we've not had a lot, but we have had some, I mean, there's three or four mm-hmm. That have happened where the fire started. you know, they've un headed live drums operationally, and, you know, and it flashed. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Talked about some of the piping, the overhead piping or the feed piping because it's fatigue. all of the associated piping to the drums also have to be inspected. Mm-hmm. And that's something. When we transitioned from 24 hour cycles to 12 hour cycles, nobody understood the complete impact on the unit. Mm-hmm. So it just took us a while to get a handle on that. But, you know, with ref com and k.com, you know, I've been involved with that since, since 2002 or three. So it goes back a long way. Yeah. The reality is we've gotten better, but people are just now putting it into their DCS, and making, optimization changes. Mm-hmm. Or really understanding that, that it, but it's taken 30 years. We don't move at light speed in our industry.

Greg 31:39

No, we don't.

Branden 31:40

so you said they're putting the new optimized quenching and reheating process getting that into the DCS and having that programmed up to the proper timing, you said 12 hour and 24 hour, that's up and down, or that's one way.

Bobby 31:57

well understanding that is, is kind of critical. You have two drums when you're heating one drum. The other drum is cold, and you have one inlet that goes, feeds both drums. So you gotta switch valve in the middle when you're heating one drum. The other drum is, is, you're unhinging and getting the coke out. And then when that's done, you button it back up and the other drum fills up and then you switch feed going into the other drum. And that, that whole process, it's really looking at it, how it fills and, but the entire cycle, you know, is about 24 hours per drum. But, it's actually, you're only in the drum for 12 hours. But the from switch in to switch back in is about 24 hours. But filling a drum is about a, we call that a 12 hour cycle. It's when you put oil in, and then that time you put the steam in to quench, to quench the drum. the key there is it's batch operated, whereas the rest of the refinery is, is continuous. Right. And it wasn't designed like that. We've made progress on the designs, but right now the biggest progress is, is being made on the operational optimization side. Mm-hmm. Combine it with reliability and planning for maintenance and repairs. So you're not stuck. I mean we still get surprised by through wall crack, but not everybody is monitoring their drums like they should be. In my opinion. yes it costs money, but an unplanned outage, is a half million to a million dollars a day on a coker, depending on margins. You know, so if you can prevent unplanned mount, outings, if you can plan for maintenance versus, you know, unplanned maintenance is, and the turnaround is three to four, five times what it is when you plan for something. Yeah. But that's, that's still peanuts versus how much throughput you're gonna lose.

Greg 33:46

Yep.

Branden 33:47

So if you had, you know, the right stuff, refinery, and you were in charge of designing and operating the coker, what would be, maybe just from a high level, what would be the key things that you would do to optimize all of your reliability?

Bobby 34:00

we are typically, we are still siloed inside a, a refinery, by process, operations, maintenance, inspection engineering. So one of the things, and, and some, some companies are doing this better than others, is that team would work together. They would be responsible for the entire throughput and the entire reliability of that unit. Now again, some people do that, but there's also variant, they got variations, and they would work when they talk about, switching. Right now we're big on running opportunity crudes and different feed stocks, create different Coke products, create different, impact on the drums. So understanding what crude you run or feed stocks you run and what impacts that has as you're making those decisions process wise, a maintenance or reliability engineer should part of that team. So when you make that change, they understand what's coming and what to get ready for. it sounds. Very simple to do, but working as a team rather than working in silos better. but we, we've got people now that are working towards that end goal. But if it the right stuff, refinery, I like that. we would work together for the integrity and the throughput financially as well as the equipment and make decisions. You know, if you have a process engineer that tells a maintenance engineer that I can make a hundred million dollars in six months, instead of repairing the drum every five years, you're gonna repair it every three years. Mm-hmm. But yet of that a hundred million dollars, you're gonna stick,$200,000 in your bank account. Mm-hmm. what is the maintenance engineer gonna say? He's gonna say, run the heck out of it and I'll have it ready to fix. And a lot of people work hard to do that, but they don't all succeed You know, I remember working, going to a refinery on the west coast, and we were implementing the strategy there. the operator that ran the drill stem, and responsible, they had two or three, their maintenance, engineer, the reliability engineer, ops engineer, the process engineer that was responsible for the coker. They all had less than four years experience, and they had never met each other. So building those bridges again, Brandon, you know, people. Intangible. That is, arguably one of the things that I try and focus on, leadership while they try to do it, sometimes they don't know how to get people to work together and help each other.

Greg 36:40

How dependent is it, Bobby, on certain key leaders in the coker unit? Like for instance is can you institutionalize these best practices? Are they highly dependent on when that person leaves?

Bobby 36:53

Greg, you can absolutely institutionalize it. You can create best practices. for instance, before the advent of all the instrumentation and the controls that we have today, they used to, now we have automated controls, what you're talking about. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, that really controls how coker operated. Now, when you have an upset or something happens. You know, then you, you have the ability to take it off automated control and go, go manually. I remember one project we worked on in Illinois We found that 80% of the fatigue damage happened on, evening and night shift. when we drilled down, we actually, we were working with, tech services outta corporate as well as the, the Coker superintendent process lead. And when we showed him what was going on and what we saw when it was happening, and it was in the switch and Quench procedure, they were switching into a drum. They didn't heat preheat it and, and, they were filling it way too fast. And they, what was happening, they were taking it off automated and go to manual, not because of an upset. Just because they were cowboying. And I remember once we got the operation superintendent to see what was happening, he goes, well, I'll fix that

Greg 38:15

yippy IO ca.

Bobby 38:17

Exactly. So to your point, we've come a long way. It can be institutionalized or regimented, understanding what best practice looks like. there will always be some upsets, but the better you educate, not just the process people, but the guys and gals running the unit. Mm-hmm. It it can't just be operat at the engineer level.

Greg 38:38

Operations. Yep.

Bobby 38:38

It's gotta be down to where the people run the equipment.

Greg 38:41

Mm-hmm. Because

Bobby 38:42

if they're not on board and they don't understand why you can't just tell'em to do it.

Greg 38:48

Yep.

Bobby 38:48

They have to understand why.

Greg 38:50

Yeah. Agreed.

Bobby 38:51

When I would go to refinery, you know, I was always blessed to work around really sharp mechanical engineers. But my, again, my superpower, if you will, is help trying to educate and communicate that to operations and, and process folks so that they would understand.

Greg 39:08

That's priceless, man. I remember. Man, I don't know if it was the same refinery in Illinois, but I remember we were implementing RBI in there and one of the senior inspectors who is part of the core RBI team got so jazzed about what he learned about heaters and what we were talking about, about heaters. That he took it upon himself to put together a small curriculum and a schedule and he would go out to every unit with a heater, whether it had to be on the midnight shift, the afternoon shift to the day shift.'cause he wanted to educate the operators so that they understand when they do this to the heater and they do that to the heater. Here's the tradeoffs, you know, here's what's happening. And, I That's probably similar to what you're, well,

Bobby 39:54

well, it's exactly the same. And then the other thing too, they're the ones in the unit all the time. Engineers, if something bad happens, it's not gonna be us that gets hurt, burned, or killed, usually it's gonna be them. Yep. So the more we can do to educate them, that's why, when I do what I do, I don't do it as much anymore.'cause I'm not in the plants as much as I used to be. But my point is, to your point, our points is it is about education and them understanding why to do something, why not to do something. And it can't just be, I run it, you fix it because it might fail at three in the morning when you're out making your rounds and it's your rear end. So that's the point we wanna try and get across.

Greg 40:38

no unanticipated downtime and certainly not, not hurting anyone.

Bobby 40:43

Well, we try, right? But what we do is dangerous. That's something else. We've gotten so much better than it used to be. we get lulled into a false sense of security a lot, but it's just like driving, you know, just like they say, don't text and drive and, and I still do things I probably shouldn't, but man, one mistake and it's all over.

Greg 41:04

That's right. That's right.

Branden 41:05

I've been sitting here thinking, Bobby, it sounds like your time at the plant was really influential on kind of your overall career and, and your overall path. Are there any other major experiences, events, something out there that was really influential on kind of getting you to where you are now?

Bobby 41:27

it's all cumulative. Some play a big role, some play a small role. A lot of it you don't realize when you're in the moment. the thing I try to tell my kids is everything that you do, good or bad, will, will define or determine your path. The question is how do you use it? And again, the worst things that happen, bad things that happen sometimes affect you more. I'm trying to, I don't know, Brandon. you know, I believe everything happens for a reason, certainly my time at the plant. But, everywhere I've been, has led to another opportunity that has been better for me. So it's how you look at it, change. I used to hate change, and now I embrace change because it's part of life. And, and when people get hit with adversity, it goes back to what we talked about early on. It, it's how you deal with it. And when you're in middle of it, you don't always see that. I mean, all you see is the struggle. you don't see who's necessarily there standing beside you to help you with that struggle. But for me, each one of those, life changes has been an opportunity to grow. as I said earlier, I don't know that I would've changed a lot because I'm, I'm blessed.

Branden 42:41

you mentioned a couple times now that, you've got the skillset to be able to kind of operate across the entire ladder, from the, line workers, from back in the day all the way up to vp. what do you think it is that allows you to do that? what skill did you pick up or what has it been that you think that piece for you where you can do that?

Bobby 43:01

You know, some of it can be learned, but I think for me, you guys know me a little bit, my mom's shaped my personality and my family a lot. I mean, I, I, I've always been outgoing. I've always been, relational. Even in high school and, and college. And I, I think working with other people just kind of brought that out. Also, I have a servant's heart, I care about people even though we, we, we are pain in the rear end. myself, I have no exception, but, for the most part, I think some of it's God-given and then some of it, is intentional, if that makes any sense. I think as I've grown, I dare say mature. I don't know that I use that word for me, myself a lot, but, understanding what your gifts are and how to use them, and I think my relationship skills with people, I genuinely care. So it's not. And most of the time that comes out, I also have a little fire. So sometimes it comes out with a sword. But, most of the, most of the time it comes out that I genuinely care about people.

Greg 44:07

Now I can attest to that, Bobby, I can attest to that, bro.

Branden 44:11

uh, you, you've mentioned your dad a few times. was he an engineer? He was plant manager. Was he an engineer background?

Bobby 44:16

he has degrees in industrial management, but effectively an engineer. He, he was, my grandparents they lived through the depression, which my dad, you know, was a, he, he was born in 1936, so that's a whole foundation for, work ethic. And he was very stoic. I got my personality from my mom and what I mean by that, you know, he worked hard. He didn't say a lot. you know, he was one of those, I've got a lot of friends that whose parents who grew up in that vintage, you know, they lived through World War ii. and it, it just affected how they viewed life and the fact he didn't grow up with a lot. So he worked his rear end off, you know, and, and, and I think, I started working when I was. 13, helping my grandpa bale hay and, you know, and then, I always worked and I actually love working. I don't look at what I do as work for me, it's, it's almost a mission. It's my purpose. I wanna help people that want my help to either, you know, mentor their leadership or their engineers, or even a business action plan. That's what I love to do. you know, I've had a company ask me recently about some coker stuff, and they're just way off base with where they're going, you know? Uh, but you, and, and that's, I think that's the benefit of where I can help people. Not just leadership if, but if they want it. I try to help people understand their value as well as the value we offer, you know, to a client. But at the end of the day, it's people. It's the name on the back of the jersey that matters. It's not the name on the helmet. uh, after I left stress, I had one of my really, he actually worked for me real, uh, uh, And, We got in this conversation. And I guess he said, and it was a really nice compliment, I guess he said, well, you showed him that, it wasn't the company name that mattered. It was the name on the back of the jersey that mattered. And that was probably one of the biggest compliments I've ever gotten.

Branden 46:24

It's a nice compliment to get for sure. It was. Yeah, it was. you mentioned building teams and hiring. what's the number one trait that you look for when you're talking with folks?

Bobby 46:33

That's a really good question. Toco, at the refinery, they also, in the good times, they sent us to a week long, actually, we did two weeks on hiring and what to look for in engineers. they put us up in the Ritz Carlton in Los Angeles. So to see Redneck Bobby from Arkansas at the Ritz Carlton at his young age, that's a whole nother, whole nother story for another time. So learning about, what to look for in people, how to interview people. For me, It's looking for obviously technical ability. Okay. Understanding can they do the science number one. But what I really focus on branding is who they are as people. What's on the inside. we would have a team of people interview. You know, did they know how to do fracture mechanics or FEA, whatever we were hiring them for. But what I would do, I would work to try and get to know them on the inside. Greg mentioned resilience, perseverance, ability to communicate. trustworthiness. I mean, it's hard to take a checklist and, you know, yes, you're trustworthy. but I would, we would ask questions or I would ask questions to try and find out how they handle certain adversity or certain issues, to make sure they weren't gonna give up. So, Brandon, to your point, trying to understand what's on the inside. You know, there's a lot of ways to solve an engineering problem. people are always involved, whether it's getting information, getting good information, asking the right questions, being able to get along with your peers, you know, being able to get along with your clients, not being arrogant. Engineers love, love to prove how smart we are. but that doesn't always come across very well if you're a consultant. Right? so, and dealing with consultants that work for me, that are asses to our clients, that's just not gonna ha, that's just not gonna work. You know, commitment to service, treating people like you want to be treated. those are intangibles that I always tried to look for. I mean, I had a, I had a checklist of things that I, you know, kind of went by, but fundamentally that was it. we set up a protocol for mentoring that, if you were coming to work for us, you would meet with the people you were gonna be working with, and you would, we'd have a lunch and you would present in front of all of them because you were coming into a team and if one of our team members did not get along or had a concern about you coming in, it had to be resolved before we hired you. It was not just, I want you here. I mean, sometimes, yeah, we had people that we really wanted, but, it was a team decision.

Branden 49:16

Nice. Makes sense. building on, people. in your 45 year career. Thank you, Brandon. From Remind. Yeah, no problem. Yeah. who would you say have been the, I mean, obviously it seems like, it's pretty, pretty evident that your parents were very influential on you. it probably sounds like Joe as well. Anybody else in, throughout your career that have really helped, shape you, shape your views that, have helped you along the way?

Bobby 49:45

Well, it, it, again, it all starts, you mentioned mom and dad, my grandparents. but in the industry, everywhere I've been, there's been, there's always three or four people at the refinery, Polk Creole, Milton Py, and Ted Day. Robert Love. I can still remember their names. That was in the late eighties. D and v, you know, Greg and Lynn and, and, you know, Mike Wechsler and Tim Munsterman and, and Keith Brown. at ERA, I worked for, Dr. Brian Kane, and, then Chris Perks, and then some of the guys I still hang out with. Everywhere I've been, I've been blessed to really become really good friends with some of the, Smartest people I've ever worked with, at, at DNV ud, I can still remember there, there were some other guys and then at and, and e, ERA, John Breer and Dr. Kane. And then at Stress there was, you know, Richard Boswell and Claudio and Chris Alexander and Julian Bedoya. And, again, everywhere I've been. And it backed, you know, Dave Dewe and, and, the Becks, the family. Joe had a lot of impact as you, as you've heard, but everywhere I've gone, I've been blessed to make really good friends and friends that have stayed like Greg. That even though we've competed together against each other for off and on for 30 years, we're still friends. And at the end of the day, it's, and we collaborated

Greg 51:13

for 30 years. Well, we

Bobby 51:14

did, we've helped build other people's companies and we've been able to

Greg 51:18

overcome the competitive envy or any of that kind of crap to That's right. Still be friends, you know, another we're doing together

Bobby 51:26

now.

Greg 51:27

Yeah. Yeah.

Branden 51:28

Nice. Good. Good. Greg, any anything else interesting?

Greg 51:32

No. No. Well, there's a few things, but we'll leave those in the closet. those skeletons? No, just, just, well, not kidding, but I'm kidding. Bobby, who was the one that was up at the top of that crane basket when that AE test was going on? Was that you or me that got wet up there? That

Bobby 51:50

was you.

Greg 51:51

That was, that's right. You were on the bottom with the operator.

Bobby 51:54

I was on the ground, yeah.

Greg 51:55

That was an experience. That's what say that was an experience. Well, when you

Bobby 51:59

mentioned crane basket, I was actually in the top of a crane basket, the top of a flare, doing a flare inspection, you know, 300 feet off the ground. And if you've never been in a crane basket, 300 feet off the ground, it's a little, if you say anxiety, that's not even. And then, and then one of my good friends, also in maintenance. he had the crane operator drop the crane basket about 30 feet free fall.

Greg 52:23

Oh geez.

Bobby 52:24

Yeah. and then he didn't let me down for a little bit till I cooled off, but I still got even with him. But back in those days, he's lucky I didn't kick his rear. This stuff,

Greg 52:34

this stuff was all pre PSMI wanna say. No. Yeah, no, you don't. Do you get

Bobby 52:38

fired for stuff like that today? That's, you know, but we did a lot of stuff. The fact that I'm still alive, God's not done with me. I had a 36 inch monkey wrench fall off the top of the cat structure that hit a head and rail right beside me severed the handrail. That was literally, and if it had gone, it went to the right. If it had gone to the left, it would've killed me. The tornado, the alki unit, the CPR. You know, anyway, there's, and then some other stupid things I've, I've done. But

Branden 53:09

sounds like you're, the reason OSHA was invented.

Bobby 53:11

I probably was. I was. Well now, now granted I didn't do all of those things. Some of those happened to me. But the fact that, you know, that we don't have more people killed than what we do is probably just a gift from God.

Greg 53:26

Agreed. Agreed. Even when these big things happen, it's amazing. Sometimes it, they could have been so much worse.

Bobby 53:34

it really is. I mean, we have things happen all the time like that.

Greg 53:38

How do you wanna wrap this up and bring it in, Brandon?

Branden 53:40

Bobby, I think this has been awesome. I mean, I've gotten to know you a little bit over the last, the last few months, but, you know, to have the opportunity to sit down and kind of hear even more about, where you come from and, and what's helped shape you and, and who you are. And, it's been really a nice pleasure here. So, I appreciate you taking the time. Well, thank you. Appreciate you. No, I, I

Bobby 54:01

appreciate it. Appreciate you asking. I've enjoyed it.

Greg 54:04

Thank you for listening to Upon Further Inspection, a Mechanical Integrity podcast. This episode was co-created by inspection, hearing, and Core solutions. Our producers are Nick Schmoyer, Jocelyn Christie and Jeremiah Wooten. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional's advice. Listeners should seek their own qualified advisors for guidance. If you enjoyed this episode. Please join us next time wherever you listen to your podcasts. Until then, stay safe and stay informed.