Online Engineering Course Instructors

Steve Mackay

CP Eng, FIE (Aust), PhD, BSc(Elec Eng),

BSc(Hons), MBA, MMR

Dean of Engineering, Engineering Institute of Technology

Steve has worked in engineering throughout Australia, Europe, Africa and North America for the past 30 years. He has presented numerous electrical engineering short courses world-wide to over 18,000 engineers and technicians, and has a particular interest in practical and leading edge aspects of marketing, business and engineering practice. He is a fellow of Engineers Australia and the technical director and founder of IDC Technologies, IDC is a growing engineering training and publishing firm which has been operating from offices throughout the world since 1992. He has also acted as the author or editor of over 30 engineering textbooks sold throughout the world. He feels that all engineering businesses need to think global and to keep experimenting with new approaches. He is currently leading a team of two design engineers and four programmers in creating a new video conferencing software package with remote labs which he believes will make a marked impact on engineering training.

Jerry Walker

D.Tech

Jerry is one of those rare engineers who has worked all the way up from "the tools" as an electrical Millwright to achieving a doctorate in High Voltage and Diagnostic Engineering of Electrical Cable Insulation. He commenced his career working on the Hot Strip Mill in a steel plant, on maintenance of protection systems and Variable Speed Drives, for 10 years. He then spent 9 years in the oil and gas industry where he was involved in the commissioning and maintenance of the complete spectrum of Power Electronic and Power Engineering equipment. He has devoted the next fourteen years to a combination of research/consulting and lecturing, focusing on Power Distribution, Power Systems Protection and High Voltage Engineering. One of his major successes during that period has been the designing, equipping and commissioning of a complete high voltage laboratory for the engineering school of a prominent university where he is a professor in the Institute for High Voltage Studies. He is also a director of a consulting company focusing on high voltage testing and the supply of test equipment. He has presented hundreds of courses in electrical engineering topics throughout the world, including Africa, USA, Europe, Australia and Malaysia. Jerry is a particularly entertaining instructor with a host of experiences in, and a tremendous passion for the topic of Electrical Power Cables and Insulation Systems.

G.Vijayaraghavan

B.E. (Hons) Electrical

G.Vijayaraghavan is an electrical engineer with over 35 years experience in the Steel Industry and Engineering Consultancy. He is the author of several of IDC's technical books including Practical Earthing, Bonding, Shielding and Surge Protection which has been published and sold internationally by Elsevier(UK). He regularly designs training workshops for IDC and lectures on their behalf to engineers and technicians world-wide. He is a very knowledgeable instructor and his courses are extremely interesting with many ideas, anecdotes and tips drawn from his rich experience.

Emad Ibrahim

PhD, M.Sc

Professor Emad is a Senior Electrical and Power Engineer with over 30 years of experience in the design, installation, and execution of a wide range of electrical projects. He is currently a respected Professor with the Faculty of Engineering in Helwan University and has also lectured for prominent institutions such as the Arab Countries League, Bahrain Society of Engineers, the KSA Ministry of Electricity, King AbdulAziz University, University of Sharjah, and the University of Manchester (UK). Previously, he has acted as Electro-Mechanical Coordinator, Electrical Superintendent and Consultant for various multinational companies, and has supervised multinational energy and power projects in Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, and most of Eastern African Countries Emad has gained prestigious fellowships with renowned institutions and organizations such as the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IET, formally the IEE), the Syndicate of Engineers, Syndicate of Educational Professions, Egyptian Society of Engineers Institution of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE) USA, and the American Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) USA.

Olof Bekker

Pr Eng, B.Sc (Elec Eng)

Olof has over 25 years of experience in the metal processing industries primarily as an Electrical Engineer, as well as considerable experience in the Mechanical, Electrical and Instrument fields. He has also over 17 Years Petrochemical experience in Engineering and Design. He has a particular interest in cathodic protection systems and has engineered many solutions mainly in the petrochemical industry. Olof currently acts as Manager of Electrical Engineering for Fluor, and has been recognized by Fluor as a subject matter expert. He has recently been nominated as a candidate for the prestigious  Pacesetter Award. An enthusiastic and entertaining instructor, he will draw on his experience to provide you with valuable know-how.

Ken McConachie

P.Eng, B.Sc (Elec Eng)

Ken's 'can-do' approach has given him a wide range of engineering and interpersonal experience. He has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and over 16 years of design, construction, and facility engineering. Ken also has 8 years experience as an Electronics Technician and in plant maintenance. Currently, Ken is President of SS Engineering in Canada and is a successful Electrical and Controls Engineer. Throughout his career, Ken has worked at various industrial facilities such as oil pipelines, tank farms, oil sands plants, petrochemical plants, sour gas processing and industrial power transmission. Ken's proficiency and expertise in a variety of engineering disciplines include electrical systems (480V through to 144 kV), instrumentation, control systems, and communications architecture makes him a sought after and valuable instructor. You will walk away with the skills and knowledge that you can immediately apply to your workplace.

Terry Cousins

BSc (Elec Eng)

Terry has a BSc Electrical Engineering as well as BComm and MBL degrees. Terry has over 30 years of experience in electrical power and distribution systems in various industries including the mining and steel sectors. Terry is a director of Motswedi TLC Software which he co-founded in 1988. The company develops electrical engineering instrumentation and measurement solutions. Through leadership in his company R&D team, he has collaborated in the design and development of over 300 products including metering and power quality instruments. Terry has served on the South African National Standards committee for power quality instruments (SANS 1816). As a senior member of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers and a member of the IEEE, Terry has authored numerous papers on power distribution and power quality.

Trevor Blackburn

PhD, MIET, MIEEE CEng

Trevor has over thirty years experience in researching, teaching and consulting in the field of power system equipment, including circuit breakers, transformers and power cables. His main areas of expertise are in the insulation and operational aspects of these items of equipment and in the condition monitoring of high voltage equipment. He has had extensive involvement in CIGRE activities on both the local and international scenes and was the Australian representative on Study Committee 15/D1 (Materials, diagnostics and emerging technology). He is a member of a number of international working groups of CIGRE in the above areas. Although still actively involved in research; he is a consultant to the electrical supply industry and has published numerous papers. In addition to his research activities he has organised and lectured in many seminars and courses for the electrical supply industry in the specific areas of electrical safety, partial discharges, condition monitoring, electrical instrumentation, building services and power system equipment. He has extensive experience in lecturing to industry and is an excellent and knowledgeable presenter with a strong grasp of the practical issues challenging the engineer and technician today. He has presented short courses extensively in Australia and South East Asia.

Roger Royal

Dip EE (C&G) Grad.Dip Rob.

Roger has built up a solid 40 years of hard won experience in the electrical power industry and this is apparent in his instructing. He has a passion for teaching and has achieved outstanding results over the past ten years with his courses on circuit breakers & switchgear, earthing, bonding, lightning, surge protection, power systems protection and transformers throughout the world. He commenced his career in the design and construction of transformers, power cables and switchgear with Alstom (GEC); this work included a significant degree of R&D. Roger has since worked for numerous blue chip companies in the classical design of power systems, transformers and switchgear. More recently, he has spent a considerable time in maintenance operations of electrical engineering assets.

Dr. Rodney Jacobs

NH Dip, M Dip Tech, BA (Hons), D Tech

Senior Instrumentation Engineer

Rodney has over 20 years experience in the gold mining industry, underground as well as specialising in Metallurgical operations in the Gold Plants. He has worked predominately in the instrumentation, process control and automation field, and is responsible for hardware and software designs associated with instrumentation. His areas of special interest include PLCs, SCADA systems, process control and programming. Having spent many years on the shop-floor, Rodney has built up a vast amount of hands-on practical experience. Rodney is currently active as a Consulting Engineer in the field of instrumentation, both to the mining industry as well as to other general engineering companies, which require specialised solutions. He has also lectured in Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Digital  Systems, at a university level. Rodney feels that people are the most important asset of any organisation and has a qualification in Psychology to complement his Engineering knowledge and experience Finally, Rodney has presented numerous IDC workshops in the United States, England, Ireland, Scotland, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Iran, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia.

Ian Verhappen
BSc, P. Eng, ISA Fellow,

ISA Certified Automation Professional

Ian has been involved in digital communications since 1994, installing the first multi-vendor Foundation Fieldbus project in 1996. Since then Ian has served as both; a leading Project Engineer/Designer and an external/cold eyes review consultant for a number of companies involved in pulp and paper, mining, food processing, water and wastewater, oil sands processing, petrochemical and refining industries. Ian is co-author, with Augusto Pereira, of ISA's popular "Foundation Fieldbus Pocket Guide". Also under Ian's guidance as editor, is the Foundation Fieldbus End User Advisory Council's "Engineering Design Guide, Foundation Fieldbus document AG-181". This is the definitive guide for the complete life cycle for Fieldbus projects. The "Guide" has been translated into German, Japanese, Chinese and Russian, demonstrating how widely it is used as the basis for many corporate and project specifications. Ian is also an active volunteer with ISA, serving as Vice-President of the Standards and Practices 2005/6 and was the person responsible for the formation of the ISA-100 Industrial Wireless committee on which he continues to participate. Ian is also heading up the Fieldbus Foundation's High Speed Ethernet Remote I/O development team. Ian is known as a digital communications evangelist and his passion for the topic has taken him around the world to share his experiences. Ian has the ability to explain technology in simple terms that can be understood by others without the same level of theory or experience, a rare quality! Ian's seminars are less presentation than they are interactive conversations loaded with practical examples and experiences, his enthusiasm for the topic is contagious and leaves you not only more knowledgeable about the topic but excited to go "make it work".

Geoff Bottrill

HNC, DMS, MIEE

Senior Hazardous Areas Engineer

Geoff has been working in the instrumentation, measurement and control fields for over twentyfive years and has spent the past fifteen years specialising in Hazardous Areas, Intrinsic Safety and Instrumentation Drawings. Geoff began his career at Kent Instruments, as a service engineer working in both the UK and East Africa. His experience ranges from systems design functions, on-site trouble shooting to technical and commercial customer support. Recently Geoff has taken on the responsibility of mentoring engineers in training, in addition to the presentation of engineering workshops in the process control and measurement field. His positive interactive style to teaching has made him popular with workshop attendees worldwide.

George Marx

Pr Eng, B Sc (Eng)

Senior Electronics Engineer

Over the past 16 years, George has developed an extensive amount of experience in design work in power electronics and electro-optical systems and in surge protection, earthing and EMC experience in the military and commercial market. George's portfolio of achievements include EMC and Switch Mode Power Supply Design for high reliability military applications together with UPS, EMC, Power Supply, Servo Amplifier, Battery and Inverter Design for industrial systems, such as solar panel applications, vehicle management, specialised computer systems and design of a high current starter for vehicle plants. He is an enthusiastic instructor with a wealth of knowledge under his belt. Much can be gained from his entertaining style, as thousands of others have benefited from his knowledge.

Dave Macdonald

BSc (Hons) Inst. Eng.

Senior Instrumentation Engineer

Throughout his career Dave has been involved in the application of instrumentation and control technology to industrial and chemical processes. As a senior instrument engineer in the UK and later with AECI Ltd in South Africa he was involved in managing the design and implementation projects for process control systems from conceptual design to commissioning. Over the past 6 years Dave has specialised in the technology of risk reduction through the application of safety instrumented systems. He has worked as a training instructor and team leader for hazard studies and safety system reviews in chemical processing plants and boiler systems. With IDC Technologies he has developed several workshops to reflect recent developments in international best practices. In the past few years, Dave has lectured on this and related topics to hundreds of Engineers and Technicians in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and South Africa. His positive and enthusiastic approach combined with his broad knowledge of the subject makes this a not-to-be-missed learning experience.

Ian McLean

Eur. Ing. Ian McLean B.Sc, C.Eng. FIEE, FIOSH (rt`d)

Senior Electrical Engineer

With over 40 years of experience under his belt, Ian has a wealth of experience and knowledge that he is eager to share. Ian started as a student apprentice but quickly moved up the ladder to join the Health and Safety Executive in the UK as HM Electrical Inspector. In this role he provided technical advice and appeared as an expert witness in Coroners, Magistrates and Crown Courts.Later, he acted as HM Principal Electrical inspector and became the head of the Power Systems and Ignition Hazards Section responsible for technical support and guidance for Major Hazards, Nuclear, Offshore and Railways Inspectorates. He was also a technical advisor on power engineering matters to the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority. Ian has since retired from the HSE to focus on lecturing and giving technical guidance to organisations. You are sure to learn significantly from this passionate and enthusiastic instructor.

Deon Reynders

Pr Eng. BSEE MBA

Senior Data Communications Engineer

Deon has had over 25 years experience in automation, data communications (with a focus on industrial applications) and Ethernet TCP/IP networks. He has specific experience in Systems Engineering, Project Management and software and hardware development. Currently he is retained as a consultant  to industry in the TCP/IP, industrial Ethernet networking, OPC and the industrial data communications areas. Deon is a practical, hands-on person and a highly entertaining speaker. He has received excellent reviews from his thousands of course participants in regions ranging from Europe, North America, Africa and Australia. He takes great pride in demystifying difficult concepts and presents them in a simpleto- understand manner. He is a passionate, enthusiastic and knowledgeable professional engineer. You will walk away from this workshop with a wealth of know-how which you can immediately apply to your work.

Edward S. Meadows

PhD, PEng

Senior Consulting Engineer

Dr. Meadows is a chemical engineer with extensive experience in chemical process control and safety instrumented systems engineering. He is an expert in Advanced Process Control (APC) and is the author of over twenty papers on APC theory and applications. After graduating as a chemical engineer, Dr. Meadows served as a nuclear engineer on the staff of the Director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion program. Dr. Meadows turned to academics following his Naval experience and completed a doctorate in model predictive control using nonlinear models. His work substantially increased the theoretical understanding of APC by providing design conditions that could provide stabilising controller settings for APC implementations. He continued his research work on a 3-year teaching and research fellowship to Brazil, a research appointment at the University of Delaware, and a tenure-track position at the University of Alberta. More recent work has been an emphasis on applications of APC for control of emulsion polymerization reactors and also for solid-oxide fuel cells. Dr Meadows has now joined Kenexis as a Senior Consulting Engineer and was instrumental in founding Kenexis ULC to bring the services and expertise of Kenexis to Alberta and Western Canada. With his extensive experience in APC and excellent communication skills, you will walk away from this with valuable know-how.

Kobus Harmse

B.Eng(Chem Eng), B.Eng Hons

Senior Technical Manager

One word describes Kobus. Passionate! He loves his work in chemical engineering. He has worked in a number of roles at Sasol in the chemical engineering area ranging from the ammonia business, to ultra high purity hydrogen and solvents. Latterly he's been responsible for optimisation support in the Monomers and Polymers business. He spent a year doing detail engineering in Texas which he found a tremendously positive influence on his career. Kobus has received outstanding reviews with his presentations of this course overseas; with many participants commenting on his strong practical bias thanks to his experiences in chemical engineering.

John Westover

BSc ChEng, M Eng Sci Process Integration

John has over 27 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, and his career has taken him from Rocky Mountains and the Arctic Coast of Alaska to various locations in Australia, with several stops in between. He has previously worked for both owner/operators such as Amoco and BP and the engineering company, Fluor and has first hand understanding of the unique needs and requirements of various stakeholders. He first earned the respect of his operations and maintenance co-workers when he proved some thermocouples were not working properly – he had to wear a safety harness and climb a 35-tray distillation column outside the ladder cage to get some data (the data verified his theory). After reaching the age of 40, John completed his Masters degree, specifically looking at how process integration could be systematically used to reduce the weight of offshore platforms (which resulted in a paper for the Society of Petroleum Engineer). Since then his career has started to transition into training and mentoring roles. He developed a practical course for Monash University, showing how the principles of Chemical Engineering taught in school could be applied to real engineering problems and has consistently been one of the most highly rated courses by the students. He has also developed remote training modules for operations and maintenance personnel for a facility expansion with new technology in Pakistan. With Johns experience and knowledge, you will walk away from this workshop with skills that you can immediately apply to your work.

N.S. Nandagopal

B.Sc (Chem Eng), M.Sc, P.E.

Chemical Engineering Consultant

Nanda has over twenty-five years of industry and academic experience in the areas of process plant layout and piping design. His experience includes work in process design, plant design, pipe stress analysis, and piping engineering and design. While at Brown and Root, Nanda designed and engineered major piping systems for offshore platforms; including high temperature and high-pressure lines. He has served on the Board of Directors of Society of Piping Engineers and Designers (SPED) and is constantly in touch with the trends and current practices in process plant and piping design. Nanda has extensive experience in teaching short, intense, review courses for engineering license exams in the USA and is a registered Professional Engineer (P.E) in the State of Texas, USA. He is a passionate teacher who truly enjoys conveying complex technical concepts in a practical, down to earth manner. An effective communicator, Nanda receives excellent reviews from course participants.

Dr. Cornie Scheffer

BEng(Mech) MEng PhD SAIMechE

Cornie is an engineer who combines a deep understanding of the theoretical aspects of mechanical engineering with a passion for the practical applications of the technology. He is currently Associate Professor at a world renowned university and is responsible for numerous consulting and research projects that are done in close collaboration with industry, with a special focus on mechanical design and mechatronic systems throughout the world. He has designed and commissioned numerous mechanical products and automation systems for industry. Cornie is also an experienced lecturer on a wide range of topics within mechanical engineering, including mechanical design, maintenance, mechanical vibrations, structural mechanics and mechatronics. Through the years he has prepared and presented workshops on these topics to over 1,000 engineers and technicians worldwide, including the USA, Europe, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East. He is also the author and co-author of numerous technical papers, published locally and internationally. His book on Predictive Maintenance has just been released to the largest technical publisher in the world - Elsevier. Cornie presently consults to a wide variety of industries and is a passionate teacher that follows a hands-on approach in his presentations. His enthusiasm and down-to-earth manner makes for an enjoyable and instructive course.

John Lawrence

B.Sc (Hons) M.Sc B.Com (Hons)

In today's hyped up world, one is hesitant to describe anyone as 'outstanding', but John Lawrence has distinguished himself over the last 15 years with excellent course reviews especially in the IT, project management and industrial communications areas. John has 20 years of experience as a project and departmental manager for a multinational oil company, focusing on designing and managing the infrastructure of the telecommunications, data communications and IT systems. In the past 5 years, John has worked extensively for a number of multi-national clients, managing projects including facilities management, budgeting and financial forecasting. When John is not consulting or lecturing, he enjoys increasing his own skills by reading and writing about state-of-the-art technology topics and how to optimise Return On Investment (ROI) for the overall IT infrastructure. John is a dedicated professional who has trained engineers and technicians throughout the world.

Robert Snaith

HND (Mech.Eng)

With over 30 years of experience in fluid transport systems, Rob has done the hard yards. Commencing work immediately in fluid system applications engineering after graduating, he expanded his focus in later years to the plant management of the manufacture of fluid sealing and transport equipment. In the last decade as a private consultant, he has worked extensively in designing and troubleshooting complex fluid transport systems and equipment. When not working long hours on the design, commissioning and troubleshooting of pumps and pipelines, Rob squeezes some time in for his Harley Davidson motorbike and scuba diving expeditions. He has done many presentations and workshops throughout the world and was placed third in the world in an international pumps, "Train the Trainer" workshop in Boston, Massachusetts in 1998. One of his passions and sources of enjoyment is in instructing technical courses. No matter whether you have very little knowledge or are a veritable guru; you will be sure to take away useful knowledge from his courses, which you can immediately apply to your business.

Philip Lovering

FIEAust B.Sc (Mech Eng) MBA RPEQ

Phil served his Apprenticeship at the giant Port Talbot Steel plant in the UK and was Technical Director of one of Australia's largest specialist engineering consulting firms - Industrial & Technical Services. In February 2007 he left ITS to the new owners and has since focused on engineering education and social work. Phil is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable instructor who brings detailed 'hands on' experience backed by technical rigour to his presentations. In his 40 year career, he has worked in various industries including Steel, (strip, merchant, rod & bar), Offshore, Marine, Oil Production, Refining and Petrochemicals (Cx), mining and in Desalination and Power Generation. Two of his most memorable career highlights were in correcting design faults on pumps of 48,500m3/hr capacity and modifying high speed compressor behaviour. Phil is a passionate enthusiastic and knowledgeable instructor who brings detailed 'hands on' experience to the course material and a great sense of humor.

Francis du Toit

Dip. Mec Eng.

Frans has over 25 years of experience in the plant maintenance environment focusing on steel and chemical industries. He commenced his career at the lowest position in the organization and worked through the ranks to become maintenance manager, and then on to reliability engineer. In doing so, Frans has gained valuable hands-on experience in rotating and statutory equipment. He has in-depth understanding of legal compliance, such as ISO 9002/14001; OHSAS 18000, HIRA's and risk assessments. Frans is a passionate instructor, and enjoys drawing on his real life experiences in to provide you with invaluable know-how.

Ivan Fair

PhD, PEng

Ivan Fair has extensive industrial and academic experience in telecommunications and data networking. He has been a research & design engineer for both Bell Northern Research (now part of Nortel Networks) and MPR TelTech Ltd. furthering their development of advanced fiber optic systems. It was during this industrial experience that he became interested in the area of coding for data communication networks, and returned to the academic environment to focus on this topic. After receiving his doctorate, he joined Dalhousie University in Halifax before moving to the University of Alberta where he is now a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In addition to teaching communications and data networking courses, he supervises research projects and graduate students in these areas which has resulted in over 90 publications. Ivan has held various administrative positions at university, and continues to be active in volunteer professional activities. He recently assisted Engineers Canada with their development of an Electrical Engineering syllabus, and is currently a member of the Board of Examiners for the Association of Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta.

Gerhard Greeff

Dip. Chem. Eng, Dip. Prod Man, Dip. QA & QC.,

Senior Functional Engineer

Gerhard has worked as a Chemical Engineer for the past 15 years and commenced his career working in the nuclear industry focussing on metals purification and membrane extraction in a process metallurgy environment. He then worked for an industrial chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturer and gained substantial experience in production, plant design, construction and the installation of process control and management systems. He later moved onto the project management of numerous projects in the mining and wood-pulp industries. Currently, Gerhard manages a group of engineers devoted to the design of E-Manufacturing, MES and SCM solutions within the following industries: Metals, minerals and mining; Chemical and petro-chemical; Paper, pulp and packaging; and Discrete manufacturing. An accomplished and enthusiastic public speaker and instructor, Gerhard has received rave reviews on his recent presentations of this course throughout the world which will benefit you in your work.

Richard Wyman

BSME, MSME, Professional Control System Engineer

Richard Wyman has worked for over 20 years as a control systems engineer with the petroleum and utility industries. As the project manager and technical lead, he recently completed the installation of a large distributed SCADA system. This innovative SCADA system is highly redundant and supports multiple control centers. Prior to his career as a control systems engineer, Richard supported a variety of offshore oil and gas exploration programs as a drilling engineer in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada and Brazil. In addition to his technical expertise Richard has given presentations on controls and communications at several professional conferences including Entelec, DistrubTech and the American Water Works Association's Information Management & Technology conference. Richard is an enthusiastic and experienced instructor with a wealth of knowledge and practical experience who will transfer the key concepts to you in an effective manner.

Edwin Wright

B.Sc B.E. (Hons) (Elec) MIPENZ

Senior Staff Engineer

Edwin has over 35 years of practical experience in the planning, design, construction and operation of telecommunications systems, data networks, SCADA and Ethernet systems. He has also been involved as Project Manager on many projects and has a passion for technology topics. Edwin has published numerous papers, and consulted widely on Ethernet, data communications and telecommunications issues in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Over the past eleven years more than 15,000 engineers and technicians have attended his workshops worldwide. You will benefit from his tremendous knowledge and enthusiasm for the topics and his entertaining instructing style. When not working in the communications world he relaxes by reading and writing on technology issues at his beachside home.

Derwyn Oxley

Derwyn studied as an Instrument Technician in UK with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd and qualified with City & Guilds in Industrial Measurement & Control (1976 – 1981). He has worked all over South Africa since 1982 and has been involved with a wide variety of processes and manufacturing industries. His first involvement with PLC’s started in 1983 and SCADA 1985.

Derwyn has served on SAPICS (SA APICS representatives) Cape Town Committee since 1999 and SA Institute for Measurement & Control from 1994 to 2007 where he was chairman from 1996. He has also lectured at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, delivered papers at various conferences and societies throughout South Africa and is a regular contributor to the industry. He currently runs a highly successful systems integration business whose main activity is writing PLC and SCADA software. Through Oxley Inc, Derwyn has trained and mentored many student engineers and really contributed to SA’s need for empowerment and upliftment in a meaningful way.

He is a positive and enthusiastic instructor and enjoys passing his skills and know-how.

Behrouz Ghorbanianin

BSc, MSc, MIEAust

Behrouz completed his degrees in Telecommunications and Electrical Engineering in 1985 and 1993 respectively, and then concluded his studies in Electrical Utility Engineering at Curtin University (Perth) in 2004. Behrouz started his career in the oil and gas industry where his role got him involved in the maintenance and repair of electronic and navigational marine equipment (VHF and SSB radios, Sat Nav, engine control panels etc). He then moved to the power industry and was involved in the design, installation, and commissioning of substations mainly for consultancies and utilities. He has also established a good reputation in teaching power system protection over his long term services lecturing at Curtin University, and also over the period he worked as a Protection Engineer in New Zealand.

Over the past years, Behrouz has been involved in many major projects across Australia (Port Hedland, Barrow Island, Tamar Valley, Karratha, and Newman for example). His most recent experience is related to cost estimation and risk assessment of major substation projects with a special focus on the secondary systems (Protection, COMMS, SCADA). He has also worked as an Engineering Manager and Senior Project Engineer on major copper mine projects overseas. Behrouz has also gained good knowledge in substation design, HV cables sizing and installation, transmission system design, earthing system design and applications, and power system protection design and applications.

Tristan Holland

B.Eng (Chem), M EngSc (Advanced Process)

Tristan has been working within the Australian water industry for the past 13 years after graduating with his engineering degree. His engineering experiences have taken him from the humble port of Adelaide to all areas of Australia and around the world including Africa, PNG, India and Canada. Tristan started off in commissioning and operations of water and wastewater treatment facilities, and then moved to designing, construction and commissioning.

Over the years the technology that Tristan has been involved with has been as varied as his engineering experiences, including pipework design for water treatment, air pollution treatment systems, and wastewater treatment systems in remote challenging environments. Two years ago Tristan decided to expand his qualifications and started a Masters of Advanced Process Design, providing an advanced ability to adapt other engineering technologies to water and wastewater treatment systems. By bringing together his technical knowledge, understanding of theoretical processes and practical based engineering background, you will leave this course with practical ideas and applications that can be implemented into existing systems.

Dr. Peter Fuhr

Dr. Peter Fuhr has been involved in industrial wireless, sensors, and secure systems for 30 plus years as a NASA Space Optical Physicist, University Professor, and Serial Entrepreneur. Dr. Fuhr, who has dual roles as CEO of Wi-Fi Sensors and Senior Member of Research & Development at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, serves as the Co-Chair of The Secure Infrastructure Controls Society, is the Director of the Association for Advanced Agricultural Technology, and is the co-founder and past Chairman of the Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance. 

Peter is involved in wireless, sensors, and control systems standards organizations chairing numerous work groups and committees.  He has embedded sensors into various structures worldwide ranging from buildings, dams, airplanes, hot air balloon, spacecraft, nuclear power plant containment vessels, even humans. Peter has published/presented over 700 technical articles pertaining to wireless, sensors, security and systems. 

His pioneering work in networked sensor systems for structures earned him the Presidential Award for Excellence in Research. Segments of his research activities are featured in the SPIE Milestone Series on Fiber Optics.  

Tom Neillings

Dip EE, Dip Bus Mngmt

Tom started his career as an engine fitter in the RAF. After leaving the RAF Tom worked in oil and gas North Sea projects. During this period he gained valuable experience and knowledge of diesel power generating systems operating in harsh environments. Tom continued his career in South Africa with a short period in Saudi Arabia.

Tom's down-to-earth and practical, yet entertaining approach to the subject of diesel generators makes him a sought after speaker and instructor in this area. His enthusiastic approach to training coupled with his helpful nature is guaranteed to maximise the learning outcome for his delegates.

Deepak Pais

B.E (Electrical & Electronics)

Deepak started his career within the Zinc mining & smelting industry as Project Engineer in Substation & Distribution Greenfield project. He then worked in a Marine and Logistics firm in the Bahamas as Maintenance and Commissioning Engineer. Following this he worked with Japanese and German automobile firms as Maintenance Engineer for Distribution and Utility related systems. He currently works as an Engineer in a regional NSW electricity Distribution utility.

Deepak has hands on experience in Distribution, Utility and Substation related systems. He has a particular interest in the consistent interpretation and implementation of Greenfield and Brownfield Standards with an emphasis on safety, reliability, economy and whole of life cost analysis.