Episode 17 - Hope & Luck Are Not a Strategy for Success (featuring Bill Valerioti)

Part 2 of our interview with Bill Valerioti, a semi-retired petrochemicals and chemical industry SME, is now available! 

We dive right in with an interesting comparison between the chemical and refining industries. Bill draws on his extensive experience to emphasize the abundance of information available in refining compared to the more secretive nature of chemical manufacturing. Bill also contrasts the differences and overlaps between industry associations, such as NACE/AMPP, API, and MTI. From start to finish, this conversation offers several valuable lessons and underscores the critical nature of adhering to quality and safety standards in the industry.

If you missed Part 1 of our interview with Bill, you can catch the episode wherever you get your podcasts. 

00:28 Differences Between Refining and Chemical Industries

04:14 The Role of Industry Organizations

07:09 Value of Continuous Learning on Career Success

13:53 Future of Knowledge Transfer

18:42 Welding: A Practical Perspective 

26:59 The Emotional Impact of Industrial Incidents

29:34 Advancements in Inspection Technology

31:31 The Future of Non-Invasive Inspections

36:58 The Critical Role of Skill and Qualification in NDE

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Episode Acronyms & Abbreviations

AIChE – American Institute of Chemical Engineers

API – American Petroleum Institute

AMPP – Association for Materials Protection & Performance  

ASME – American Society of Mechanical Engineers

ASNT – American Society for Non-destructive Testing

CUI – Corrosion under Insulation

GTAW TIG Welding – Gas Tungsten Arc Welding-Tungsten Inert Gas Welding

GMAW MIG Welding – Gas Metal Arc Welding-Metal Insert Gas Welding 

HF Alki – Hydrofluoric Alkylation units

MTI – Materials Technology Institute

NACE – National Association of Corrosion Engineers, now known as AMPP (Association for Materials Protection & Performance)  

NDE – Non-destructive Evaluation

QA-QC – Quality Assurance-Quality Control

RBI – Risk-Based Inspection

SME – Subject Matter Expert

TIG – Tungsten Inert Gas 

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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

Well, welcome back. we have with us today, semi-retired petrochemicals and chemical industry, SME Bill Valdi, also affectionately known as Bill Val.

Bill 0:28

You know, since I've worked in both, maybe I ought to spend a, a little bit of time, you know, sharing some huge differences that, again, I'm a bit dated, you know, this is the eighties and the nineties. But I, I went from, you know, spending a lot of time in refining, supporting the units I briefly mentioned, and, you know. At the time, and even today I think the word is, there's a plethora of information that supports refining. Right? another chapter book that I kept close by was API Refinery Equipment Inspection Guide. It was chapter two or chapter three, I think, of a 12 chapter set. And it was great because it was practical knowledge and information about corrosion damage mechanisms in refinery processes and refinery equipment. And so I, I absorbed that, highlighted that. And what I'm trying to say is. there was a lot of good knowledge and information about refining equipment, refining processes.

Branden 1:33

Mm-hmm.

Bill 1:34

Huge crude units. A hf, ALK units, sulfur units, Klaus units, cat crackers, coke or drums. Right. Boilers. so there was a good, basis, a good foundation of knowledge to learn. when I got to the chemical side, you know, the, and the manufacturing facility, Easton and the chemical branch, there was a whole lot less information to rely on. There was, there was less sharing. the chemical divisions were a little more secretive. You know, they had proprietary processes. even if they had some commodity chemicals, they were producing there wasn't as great of exchange of information at the time. so there was, the learning curve was much greater. So therefore the relationships with the process technology, people that understood those chemical processes, the chemical plant operators and the chemistry people who really understood the benchtop chemistry and the catalyst chemistry also important in chemical processes. So that was a huge difference. what I found when I transitioned to, in 1993 was I went from a world where there was a lot of good information. Some of it could be applied to damage mechanisms in the chemical industry, you know, chloride, attack of otic stainless steel and CUI and, external chloride stress, corrosion cracking or, shared, you know, unfortunately in the chemical industry as well. So those learnings are transferable, but the maturity. The level of expertise I did not see within my experiences in the chemistry. We had to build that and establish that. in the day today, it's much better there. There's resources, there's a little bit more sharing. materials Technology Institute does a great job of of sharing. some chemical technologies. 5 5 71 has some go by damage mechanisms for some more. Chemically, you know, oriented processes and that's a good thing. So there, there clearly are outlets, there's a lot of good ways to, to learn that. But what I found was the refining industry fixed equipment and specs, were more advanced, in the, in the refining industry at the time than in the chemical industry. May not so much today. I think it's a more, more in par, the skillset knowledge base. And so that, that's a good thing.

Greg 4:14

I saw, you know, I came out of the chemical industry and then went into the refining industry and chemical industry and other things, but, so my early experience was with NACE a lot back in the seventies Yeah. And the eighties. And I was blessed to be at a very large chemical facility at the time that had just fantastic materials engineers. Yeah. And then, so, and then I got really involved in API.

Branden 4:39

Yeah. I

Greg 4:39

haven't really been involved with AMP at all. I think I quit being involved when it changed from NACE to amp. I don't know why. It just seemed that's what I gravitated toward was more API. but do you see a, a difference in, well, let me back up. In my limited, experience I saw, I, I see NACE and API or AMP and API. As the same, only different. they, they kind of have different focuses, if that's a word. as a chemical operator, we relied more on NACE than on API, but when I came to the refining industry, we relied a lot on both.

Branden 5:20

Mm-hmm.

Greg 5:20

and saw how they kind of fit together. does that mean anything? Do you see anything in the differences between those way the two operate and share information and get information?

Bill 5:30

Yeah, I, I do, I do recall the companies you worked for, and they were some of the premier materials, you know, experts in the world were for producing and writing, for some of the names in the chemical industry.

Greg 5:47

And let me add one other thing too. The debt, bill is that one of the things that really impressed me where I was is those 25, 30 year experience, corrosion materials engineers when I was wet behind the ears, 28 years old, putting my parachute harnesses on and stuff like that, and jumping into equipment. That corrosion engineer's right next to me with a camera. Yeah. Inside of there taking pictures and saying, okay, you just went through this training course at University of Missouri, Rolla, look at this damage up here. Yeah. what does that look like in the heat affected zone? And I don't know that people get that anymore. And of course I said, oh, that's chloride stress cracking.'cause that was the sexiest thing to talk about, right? Yeah. He was like, no. He said, this is, this is actually, accelerated corrosion and heat affected zone. If we could have solution to deal this, we would have this issue. Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. But do people get that kind of experience anymore? I, I kind of crossed things. I went from API to NACE and what they've. Contributed historically to the importance of that seasoned corrosion materials engineer working with the, in, collaborating with the inspector. Mm-hmm. So that's two different things really. But, so if you would address that, the nas API and then how important is the collaborative relationship between the inspector and the corrosion materials engineer?

Bill 7:09

So those are good questions. and I have recent experience. I have long-term experience with NACE and, and recent experience with amp, having recently been the chairperson of the high temperature symposium, which I, I haven't done for, for two years now. But I would say that, Amp is different today than it was as nace, you know, by design, you know, they incorporated the SPC, organization and, and polymers, coatings and what have you testing. And so it's not the same. your observation about, you know, where the chemistry industry looked for knowledge and information clearly, in the day was nace, versus API and, and the refining industry clearly looked to, to A-P-I-A-S-M-E as the case may be. I think, you know, the last conference I went to was Denver in 2023. I mean, the 2026 conference is gonna be in Houston. That's an interesting opportunity since, you know, and close to Houston. What, what I'll do there, I, I think. AMP is still probably more suited when I think about who I work with on some committees at amp, chemical companies were more represented. I think Materials Technology Institute is a great outlet for chemical companies and if you look at their list of supporters than subscribers and sponsors, you'll see a lot of good chemical companies. So I think, I don't wanna make any holistic judgements about Sure. You know, AMP versus MTII have some personal feelings. but I really, really, I value both, but I really highly value the work and the approach that MTI and the place, and the books and the publications that they have, on. Yes, on damage mechanisms, absolutely. On welding, on specific chemical processes from chloric acid to sulfuric acid hazard chemicals. and, and if you, you break out ethylene, you know, ethylene has A-A-I-C-H-E, right? it supports an olefin ethylene users group. So there's a niche, opportunity there. So I think it's important for practitioners and mechanical integrity people to consider. Some of those things to put in, get, get in your budgets. You know, the budgets are, are set already for 2026. If you wanna attend a conference or get involved, that's great, express that, but it needs to be in the budget. So be thinking about how to, help yourself and help your company and, and make effective use of your time at those conferences. I'll get to your, your point now about, you know, spending time, you know, with corrosion materials experts and inspection personnel. we brought on, a young, college graduate, recently And after spending a year, with me in the corporate engineering, air engineering group by design, you know, this individual, this person, had a office and a, a assignment in a manufacturing facility because we wanted. this person to learn it firsthand and experience, the manufacturing environment, the pace, the integration, the complexities of getting things done and learning, in a chemical plant environment. And we can spend a whole hour on what it takes to be successful in a manufacturing environment. But again, it's about communication. It's about relationships. you want scaffolding, well, you need to tell us where you want scaffolding, where, how much, what inspection techniques you need to tell us how long, where you need it, when you need it. And so much of working in that environment is taking ownership and responsibility for communicating and controlling and leading some of those a activities. And, and not everyone's cut out for that. it's a tough environment. It's fast pace. It's 24 7, 365, but I still think. you should have some structure to that. The best companies, I think, in the most successful way to do that is with a structured approach of planned. Learning, some impromptu learning, you know? Mm-hmm. unplanned outages, unplanned events. But turnarounds are a great way, solving problems, having the materials people work with the fixed equipment inspection to support them, to spend time with them, helping them dialoguing with them. It's essential. And there, there are some refining and chemical companies I know still do that. They, they have a rotation. They have a plan rotation,

Greg 11:58

yeah.

Bill 11:58

Of, of people. SMEs, fixed equipment, mi people, they rotate them to different units and spend time in various activities to, to help develop them. That is, I think, some of the best models, to learn and incorporate formal learning, incorporate informal learning, soft learning skills, writing, presentation skills. it, it all matters. And, make, make use of it. Take the time. The one thing I would leave people with on conferences, don't underestimate the value of issuing a one page. Trip or conference summary. When you get back, Do it each and every time, and send it out to your supervisor, to the plants you support. Go to that conference. Take notes. Talk to people. And you don't even have to write a five page narrative. I went to the conference, I want to thank the, the company for the opportunity. I attended these sessions and these were the key learnings. That's all you have to do. You will gain such respect and value, and guess who, who's gonna be at the top of the list on the next year's budget to get to go to a conference. So, you know, you have to do that. Be smart enough to do that. And, I think you'll be successful if you do that. And, getting opportunities and then clearly, anytime you can implement, a solution, a recommendation that the genesis of which was from something you learned at a conference, don't hesitate to to make that link. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's important. So, so middle management and upper upper management, Can see and learn the value in having their people attend and participate.

Branden 13:50

Yeah.

Bill 13:50

In those activities.

Branden 13:51

Bill, the concept of knowledge transfer has kind of been a theme here throughout, everything. You've talked about everything from, you mentioned ai, and I know that, that you've used some of it. you also mentioned the number of books, right? So two complete opposite ends of the spectrum there. Generative AI learning, ai. hard copy books, mentorship, conferences. What do you think the future of knowledge transfer looks like in the next five years or so? 10 years? is it something, do we revert back? You mentioned inspection, hearings, articles. Do we revert back to some form like that? Or do you think that there's a path that companies are gonna go start moving towards to be able to help the younger folks, I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but the newer folks and, and even the middle to upper, journey folks. How are we gonna help them continue to learn?

Bill 14:41

Okay. Yeah. I really like that question. Brandon, I have some, you know, personal experience about, you know, how I learn and how I, you know, have evolved in my learnings. And I have, you mentioned hard copies of books. I, I probably mentioned that myself. But you know, on Kindle Reader here, I have no fewer than, you know, six technical books. on there, you can't see that. But I have Welding metallurgy and Welding by John Lippold. I have Anthony Anos, retired mechanical reliability expert with ExxonMobil. I have welding volumes. so I think electronic learning, I think what I've accepted is, People can be successful doing it a different way. for years I was stuck in the mold was when I was interviewing, I had to really be careful of my biases. If, if the, the person wasn't, you know, kind of aggressive and, and kind of like, you know, really on point and jumping out there aggressively to communicate and, and had tremendous amount of hobbies, but they were more laid back and passive. I had to accept that. You know, people learn and, and can be successful in different ways. and so I learned a lot about that and, and, you know, young people I've been exposed to in the last seven years because I've been on the recruiting trail and, and interviewing and, meeting young college graduates and, and young inspection personnel. You know, that they learn differently. They, they learn, By searching. I think we had an example you're familiar with Brandon, where AI did a fairly incredible job of really digging into the chemical equations that support how organic acids can be formed in organic solvents. if they were exposed to impurities like oxygen, water, and chlorides and what have you. Now, the best time to evaluate a AI. Or the, the best way to do it, in my opinion, is to take an area you're very, very familiar with and, and pose some questions to AI and evaluate the responses. And I have to tell you, not only in the example I just shared, but in other searches I've done, I've been impressed. I I've asked it flat out metallurgical questions. I've asked it weld, filler rod recommendations to provide, validations of what weld filler to use. and what I've learned is it does a great job of feeding back to you what's in the public domain. You know, the, what, what inco or, or rolled alloys have published, what TIS and Krepp or Bolt Alpine is published'cause if you've published a, an article in the public domain, they're multimillion dollar, computer facilities are, are searching and identifying that what it it doesn't have is, what do they call it? Intrinsic knowledge, you know, company knowledge of the way you do things and what filler rod you've selected from doing trials and writing welding procedures. So, but it really does a good job with the knowledge, that's in the public domain. and so I'm impressed with it. you know, take it for what it's worth. I'm sure it's gonna get better, but I hate to be the one saying this, but, I can see, in the future, you know, more and more companies relying, and having their engineers, be it chemical engineers, being, maintenance engineers, being fixed equipment, inspection personnel, using ai, you know, to, to ask metallurgical questions and get some sense of the boundaries, you know, of this doesn't work, so don't go there, but about how to solve problems. and the other thing, and this is a little bit simplistic, but in terms of, you know, what I'm doing now and what I'm spending my time in is this being semi-retired, mostly retired, is I've always, appreciated that. Having knowledge of materials and their properties is great, but if you can't join them and they're not very weldable or their properties go the heck in a hand basket when they're welded, you don't have a practical material that's gonna find many applications. So from the get go, I respected and appreciated welding welders, the ability to make a quality, high integrity weld, and the implications in the effects of welding on the properties, the microstructure, and the performance. So I, I've been taken for the last, Four and a half years, really into learning hobby welding. I do, GTAW, TIG welding and GMAW MIG welding. And to the point I'm trying to make is I've learned a lot, over the years, being very involved in welding procedures, watching welders, talking to welders, looking at failed welds, looking at electrodes. I've learned a lot from welders, but I didn't spend enough time under the hood, as they say, where you can actually see the weld puddle. To my point about technology, I've learned a lot about welding from YouTube videos. Hmm, okay. To the point I, it's a tremendous way to have experts demonstrate techniques of TIG welding, pipe welding, six G welding, heavy wall welding positioning, you know, the TIG torch, the mig torch, mig welding. I've spent time on carbon steel, stainless nickel base alloys, aluminum, so there's so many ways to learn. Now, You know, if you don't have access to spending time with a welder and actually, you know, getting the welding hood on and looking over the welder's shoulder, getting a vantage point where you can see, you know, the arc being struck and the well puddle and how the well puddle is agitating, and how the movement of the tig torch, you know, ties into the sidewall in a root and melts the base metal. And, I've learned a tremendous amount. From, again, reading, learning over the years, working with great welders and welding engineers, reviewing procedures, company procedures, talking to qa, QC people. I mean, a lot of the QA QC people and NDE people started out in welding. And, it's funny, you know, again, your perspective. I, I have a good friend, Ken Harris, who recently retired. And, I, I view him as a close friend and he's, he is a blessed man and he's a, a determined, strong man. he's continues to help me and share ideas with me. And I was sharing my love of hobby welding and he listened for a while. And, and at the first opportunity between breasts of my narrative, he said, you know, something? He said, yeah, welding is a lot of fun until you have to do it as a job, as, as a living. And then it's, and then it's not too fun. And I had a, I had a laugh and say, okay, I understand that. but I would say, you know, a lot of times you look at a weld and there's not a lot of high quality or, you know, the visual appearance isn't quite right and it, it isn't all there is to look at, as you very well know, it's a volumetric inspection that matters. And, what's going on subsurface. that even if you follow the procedure, there's still a lot depends on the skill and the, the determination and the rigors at which the welder executes the weld. And what I've learned is. there's not just one thing or the, there's only one important thing about welding. Everything about welding. From knowing what you're welding to, the technique you're going to use, having a procedure following the procedure, your tungsten, maintaining your tungsten and good quality cleanliness. You can't be clean enough in welding. But when you're, when you're running a tig bead, you learn a lot from the puddle. you know right away if you're having issues, the, the weld puddle is agitated, it's gassing off, the arc is erratic. You might as well just stop. If you're getting porosity or the weld isn't behaving properly, you can rest assured that something's not right. And I've learned there's so many ways to screw up and contaminate a well. and, and that's a whole nother topic of discussion. Yeah,

Branden 23:35

it's a good one.

Bill 23:35

But what, what I'm trying to say is. How I would turn around. Again, it, it was an experience I'm not proud of, but we were having some problems welding, some iron nickel base, ethylene alloy materials. And there was a, a number of reasons, proposed, about why we were having a problem from the electrodes, the wire quality to the, the gas quality, the Argonne quality. And, you know, I was taking information second and third hand about what the problem was and what the experience was. You know, I should have known better, I should have got off out of the office. A few years ago and, you know, got qualified to go inside the furnace and, and get, get a welding hood on and talk to the welder and watch'em putting in, you know, the weld. Be, so I would leave fixed equipment, inspectors, analysts, qa, qc, problem, people to when, when appropriate, when, when it's important and things are not going well, get as close to the firsthand experience and that the person who's executing and finding a difficult and talk to and see if you can observe that activity. you, you'll learn a lot is what I'm trying to say. Okay.

Greg 24:58

Does this tie into Bill what you said earlier about if you're use, and I'm not trying to talk about AI here, but just as an example, the tacit knowledge. I mean, I've met, guys that I would call blacksmiths that were some of the most amazing, welding engineers.'cause you can get into some pretty hairy situations like you're describing now, right.

Bill 25:20

Yeah, I think, it does matter. I, I think about the learnings and experiences that people bring to the table, and I think the more you know, you learn from your failures. I think it was Thomas Edison was said that he learned more from the 422 incandescent light failures and filament failures than he did from the successes. And, and, and that's the truth of Ed. And I think that. Boy, I know. You know, so many times I've been in conversations and you know, you hear, well, did you have a procedure? Did you follow the procedure? Was the procedure at the job site? Did you see the procedure? And unfortunately, in too many cases, they never did see the procedure. The well procedure test procedure. Yeah. Yeah. I hate to put a percentage on it, but that's kind of the beginning of success. It, it really is. Up to not only the skill, but the determination of the welder to give you a, a good quality product. And of course, you know, there's competing priorities. You know, they, they need production. they need to get so many wells done, so many pipe wells, so many feed produced. Otherwise, you know, they're falling behind with the contract stipulated. So there is a lot of pressures and, it's up to us to realize that, it takes a certain amount of perfectionism, I believe, both from being an analyst, an engineer, and in this industry. And the reason why I feel that way, and I've said it in a different context, but everything matters. And I haven't said it, but, you know, one of the things we talked about before this discussion was what, what things in my career have made a significant lasting impact? And for me, it's very clear they were three major, manufacturing plan, incidents, fire explosions, casualties, fatalities, those ingrained on my brain, a commitment, you know, to the people, to the communities, and to the environment. I see it's still even emotional today that I always wanted to give my best and represent in decisions and judgements the best that we could offer, to do the right thing because it all matters. lives matter. You know, businesses matter. some of my companies, the businesses were no more after, having declared force majeure for too many years. Other people, other products move in and take your place at the business round table, so to speak. So, don't underestimate how. Everything we do, how it's installed, you know, how it's welded, how it's erected, how it's inspected, it's all important a day in, in day out and, and ongoing programs. So, I would say people give it your all. it, it all matters. and you never know when a shortcoming may reveal itself, it may be. Upon initial startup and maybe during the NDE that's done, on it, but it could be years and years later and whenever it happens, some of the worst feeling In the world is when you have a unit or piece of equipment that's evolved in a breach of, the pressure boundary or has a failure, and you start processing session, your role, your, your contribution to that unit, to that asset, to that equipment. there's a time you go through in the mental process where you break out in a cold sweat and wonder if, you know, you may have had something you may have done, recommended, did do, didn't do, could have contributed to that shortcoming or downfall, and it's not a pleasant feeling. So, I committed, myself. To endless hours of reading and learning and bouncing ideas off people and doing what we thought was right and correct. And again, a lot of times it was, something we decided but we couldn't implement right then. And so now we rely, thank goodness, we rely on, risk-based inspections and risk modeling to help us understand, any benefits by reinspecting, you know, doing another inspection is, is this damage mechanism or is this. Shortcoming. Is it detectable through inspection? Can we learn more about the state, the condition? Does it matter if we go back and reinspect it? And, you know, can defer, you know, this repair, can we add acoustic ion monitoring or, or what can we do, you know, to buy some time, so to speak? Because it's not a good time to take the unit down. We don't have the resources, what have you. So, we do that with greater knowledge and information today. And I think we can make better decisions because of the advancements and. The technology and the, analyses that, that are available and that we can do today. and where the industry is advanced, it's, it's not a blind, you know. Well, yeah, I think it will be all right. My, my gut tells me that this typically takes four to five years before it manifests itself, you know, based on my experience. well, we'd like to hear your experience, but we'd also like to supplement it with, you know, with some calculations or analysis. and we can do that today. And so that's important as well.

Branden 30:57

Yeah, that's exactly what I tell inspectors when it comes to RBI, you know, leverage the RBI to help with that gut feeling. If RBI is sitting there, especially a quantitative or semi-quantitative version, is sitting there saying, Hey, the risk is this. You can take that with you to management as, as you've been saying, we need to do this inspection, we need to do this inspection, we need to get in this vessel. Yeah. You can take that piece of paper and say, Hey, here's backup, here's why. definitely I use that in training courses all the time, talking to people about RBI.

Bill 31:25

Yeah, it, it's a very good point. And the other thing that came to light when you said that Brandon was, I think you all know this, I think the industry is rapidly approaching the point, where we'll have to go inside of. very few vessels in the future. now, now that's not a hundred percent the case, but I think I read an article recently that the technology is so good when used properly, it's actually more reliable. The results in the findings are more consistent and more predictable than a human being. it's for a lot of reasons, but a lot of it is AI and, forgive me for the, the X SMEs out there and AI and computer and software, but it's recognition, visual recognition, right? And so much has relied on, you know, the inspector goes in with their experience and their tools and their eyesight in their mind and their database of what am I seeing? What does it mean? Where am I seeing it? What does this imply? But. Once you take your eyes off it and a day later, a week later, it's just your memory bank. But if you have a digital laser scan, 3D image, white structured white light image, the computer can look at the profile and, and particularly if you have a reference profile when it was new or only in service for a year, it says, Hey, wait a minute. This is different. There's something here that wasn't here, initially, when it was new or last year or last inspection cycle. But, but I really believe, and I was, I wouldn't have said this probably five years ago, but I, I think more and more now, we, we can get a look at the inside of the equipment or mid wall equipment and, and understand. So the old days of having to go in and don your harness and safety ladders and recovery equipment and your escape back and yeah, I think we're moving to where so much more will be done. extrinsically.

Greg 33:31

Non-invasive.

Bill 33:31

Non-invasive. Do you agree with that?

Greg 33:33

Totally agree, bill. Totally. I I can't tell you how many times at work that I'd be in a glass line vessel with a 5,000 volt spark tester and slip and fall.'cause it was wet in there. And I'm underneath a, an agitator now a glass line agitator. I gotta get our, our ladder fell apart on me when I was, you know, yeah. 20 feet in the air, you know, thank God I never was injured like that. Or the time I went into the vessel and I had the, everything lockout tagout was right. I had the entry permits, everyth, they had the lamb air movers in. I come out and, It winds up that those three holes that I saw on the sidewall that were opposite the external jacket had nitrogen flowing through'em because they were repairing the jacket. Mechanics were downstairs at another level, repairing that. You know, why not avoid all that if, if we don't have to go inside? Right? Why are we going in.

Bill 34:26

Right. I, I agree. I agree. It's, you know, it was kinda like the experience I had, climbing up to, the flare stack to, to get a look at some piping igniters up there, the purge gas line. And I, I was, not really comfortable with heights anyway, and I wasn't the primary inspector. I was the tag along, but the only thing I could share knowledge of was the part of the flare stack that you could see between the ladder railings, because I think that's the only thing I looked at the whole way up and the whole way down. So, yeah. Yeah. I wasn't gonna be very valuable in my observations on that inspection.

Greg 35:06

And now they got drones doing all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And they had the automatic cable crawlers that could go and inspect the cable going up. I'm hoping that the industry's getting closer to taking full advantage of those kind of things, but I think part of that too is the quality of the inspection.'cause some of these things are heavily like welding. Some of these NDE techniques are heavily operator dependent.

Bill 35:28

Some of them aren't.

Greg 35:29

Yeah. Right.

Bill 35:30

Yes, I agree with that. A hundred, 110%. Which raises another good point, about not only NDT and NDE practitioners, but performance, skillset, qualification and demonstration. And many companies have been doing this for years. I think it's correct. When I say A NST has introduced some performance demonstration testing where level twos, level threes have to come in and do on mockups, with samples, with embedded known flaws, have to demonstrate their skills and abilities. And I think, not to pick on NDE practitioners, but, but my, our hat's off to'em for recognizing that. It's a skillset, it's learned there. There's, you know, fine tuning adjustments and comprehension. More of it is analyzed by computers now and judgements are made that way. but even in welding, we had some higher end iron nickel, chromium alloys that not everybody was skilled in versed at welding. So even though you had your a SM section nine card six G position, we still were having too many bus and too many failed x-rays and testing on these high alloy, components that we implemented, in shop skill, demonstration of welders and their ability to run the iron nickel chromium alloys. Yeah. On these materials because, It was, it was so important to us once we got in the furnace to, to have good quality work. So,

Branden 37:14

absolutely.

Bill 37:15

I know, you know, you feel out of time. Someone always wants to put another test for another exam in front of you, but it, it just serves to demonstrate the criticality of the performance and what we do and how we do it. The reliability, integrity, and quality of what we assemble and do in a petrochemical and a refining industry. It's a very unforgiving industry. hope is not a strategy, you know, hope and luck are not a strategy to success.

Greg 37:44

A really good buddy of mine who's a project manager, said, his, the three priorities are, and this order as well are quality, schedule, and cost. Because if I mess up on those first two, it's gonna back off. Yeah. Either

Bill 37:59

way. yeah. Absolutely. Good points. Absolutely.

Branden 38:03

I have one last question, bill. Go for it. I, I'm just, I'm super curious. you mentioned that you're getting into, the hobby welding. what are you creating?

Bill 38:10

So, that's a good question. I've done a lot of practice. on plate and honing my skills and abilities, and it's the hand-eye coordination. And really when I'm. Looking under the hood, what am I focusing on? You know, what am I taking in? But to answer your question, I've done a lot of fence work. I, I make a lot of bracketry and supports for wood or, or metal fencing that I have on a one acre lot. So I don't have a ranch or farm. I've done some metal art, not, not chickens or roosters, but I've done a scale model of the Eiffel Tower. I've done that at a rebar and a stainless steel expanded metal. I've researched the dimensions and the angles and the geometry of the Eiffel Tower and try to mimic that on a seven foot scale model of that. and I've done mostly tig TAC welding, and then I've done, GMAW MIG welding, but I've had to use on a quarter inch, two 20 volt, you know, so I only have a two 20 welding receptacle on the side of the house. So I had to move my welding, my Hobart welding gear out to the side of the house on the concrete driveway I converted a, a 30 amp, an RV outlet receptacle. I had the electrician change out and put a welding, you know, configuration of an outlet. I guess the one thing I would say, Buddy of mine who lives in the neighborhood is, I shouldn't say this, but he's from Arkansas. So naturally he traps feral hogs. and he needed some help building some, trap cages, you know, the big, farm ranch steel wire, mesh, uh, to the angle, iron frame. His primary welder that he would turn to was backed up and he couldn't meet his demand. So I had mentioned to him when he was trapping feral hogs behind my house, that I'm a hobby welder and that if he needed any work. So he took me up on it and I helped him build some, feral hog traps about three years ago. And about two months ago I saw him and he said, oh, by the way, those traps you built, they, they held together really well. They're still huling up. I've talked. That's awesome.

Branden 40:18

That's awesome.

Bill 40:19

I called many, many of feral hogan though, so that's great. Yeah, I a lot of fun. I was

Branden 40:23

just, just over the past weekend I was telling my wife that, my, the next thing I'm thinking about is welding. we've got some stuff around the house and a couple different things that we're being able to have some welding and make a couple brackets or a couple tools or things outta steel as opposed to wood, might be more useful. Yeah. So anyways, bill, I want to thank you so much for your time joining us today. You're welcome. this has been awesome. If we could do this like every single day, I'd sit with you and listen to you as much as possible. Well, I appreciate that. Fantastic.

Bill 40:55

I really do because so many times when a metal is speaking, people are glassy eyed and looking at their phone, so I try not to be. But I, I just get so excited about the industry and the people. I love the people I've always felt comfortable with the people. I could go on and on about how great it, it is. I guess one of the greatest disappointments for me was that none of my kids decided to follow in my footsteps, probably.'cause they realized, you know, how many hours, you know, weekends and nights now. The blessing was when you support a manufacturing plant in Houston, you may be following in a lot of hours, but You're not traveling. And that was the trade off for me in corporate engineering. You're on a plane, you're traveling. When you're working the plant. The phone may ring at any time, but you're probably home sleeping with your wife and maybe seeing your kids every day and night. So you're welcome. I thank you, Brandon. I respect you and appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you. Appreciate so much, bill. This is awesome. Thanks you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. You bet. Bye now. Take care. Bye now. All right,

Branden 41:58

Thank you for listening to Upon Further Inspection, a Mechanical Integrity podcast. This episode was co-created by Inspectioneering, and CorrSolutions. 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.