Minutes of F&PD Programming Meeting
AIChE Spring Meeting, Orlando Fl
April 23, 2006
8:30-11:30 AM
Attendees – Lori McDowell, Dennis O’Brien, Gavin Towler, Symal Poddar, Bipin Vora, Rick Mallinson, Bob Dye, Dennis Griffith, Ray Anthony, Harry West, Peter Pujado, Irv Wiehe, Marty Poole, Priya Rangarajan
The meeting began at 8:30 AM. Since there were no minutes from last years meeting, we proceeded to the Area reports.
Dennis O’Brien gave the Area 16A report. (Report attached) The refinery topical looks very good this year, with about 13 sessions. Kirtan Trivedi (ExxonMobil) will be taking over from Dennis as Area 16A chair and Refinery Topical Chair next year. Mike Schultz (UOP) and Irv Wiehe (Soluble Solutions) will act as co-chairs.
Bipin Vora gave the Area 16b report.(Report Attached) Bipin will be stepping down as Area Chair and will be replaced by Bob Schmidt (UOP). Next years co-chair will be David Mulliex (Sasol), who will also be the chair of the Ethylene Producers conference. It was suggested that for next year, we try to increase the number of sessions in the Aromatics area. It was also suggested at the Programming Retreat that Area 16A and EPC try to schedule their sessions on Operations and Maintenance so that this can be marketed as a separate track. We will work with David on coordinating this.
Rick Mallinson gave the Area 16C report. (Report Attached) This year there are 6 LNG sessions and 3 on Gasification in the Gas utilize. Topical.Rick will be stepping down and Belma Demeril (Rentek) will be taking over as Area chair. Rick and Chen-Hwa Chiu will remain as co-chairs. Harry West will also help with programming in this area. Chen-Hwa was also awarded the National Award of George Lapping Programming from AIChE President John Chen. Congratulations to Chen-Hwa!
An Area 16d report was unavailable. Gavin Towler did make a suggestion that we consider once again separating Area 16d (Energy/Alternative Fuels) and Area 16e (New Technology). However, at this time we will just locate a co-chair to work on programming in the spring meeting on the Alternate Fuels area. Dale Cairns and Belma Demirel will assist in this (Isaac Rahmin later said he would consider acting as co-chair). They will try to get some programming on coal, ethanol, biodiesel, etc. A lot of this will be co-sponsored by the other areas and may be part of the Refinery or Gas Util.topicals. It was also suggested that we try to have at least one session on fuel cells at the 2007 Spring meeting, since the theme of this meeting is Energy, and AIChE BOD would like to get Fuel Cells back into the spring meeting. Symal will help find a chair for this session. We will also try to move the fuel Cells Topical back to the Spring meeting in 2008. We need to confirm with Galen and Hosein if they would still like to be chair and co-chair (along with Isaac) for this area.
There was no Area 16e written report, but Gavin and Lori gave an update. It has been difficult to program in this area, since speakers are not willing to present unless they can be guaranteed a large audience. However, plans are being made to co-sponsor a 1 day F&PD Management Topical with the Management Group (Area 5) at the 2007 Spring Meeting. If it is successful, it may become an annual event. This will be held on Wednesday, prior to the Management Course held on Thursday, and will focus on mid-level managers. Gavin will request that Engineering Company’s commit to giving a talk on some area of project/resource management. AIChE has committed to being able to sell this as a separate 1-Day event. A social event will also be included and we will pursue corporate sponsorship.
After the Area reports we moved onto other business.
Dennis O’Brien was nominated as the new F&PD Programming Vice-Chair. This will be voted on at the Exec. Meeting in the afternoon (it was approved).
Gavin suggested that we try to attend the student regional conferences and consider some programming at these meetings. Dennis O’Brien reported on a conference in Chicago for the local section where they will reuse some of the programming from the Spring meeting.
Gavin also had a question about the joint programming with the SPE. There is a fall meeting in Galveston, and we want to make sure that any joint programming is complimentary. Lori, Irv and Priya will work on this.
Lori brought up that the Environmental Division is interested in getting back into the Spring meeting, and asked about co-sponsoring a session with F&PD. Lori and Ray Anthony will try to chair this session.
We also discussed marketing of our meeting. A subgroup of Gavin, Dennis O., Dennis G. and Lori will work on trying to better market our programming to companies and individuals, using as much AIChE aid as is available.
Rick talked about our trying to focus on a hemispheric audience for the Spring meeting by incorporating session chairs and papers from Canada and Latin America whenever possible. All are asked to work on this.
We discussed the 2008 Spring meeting, which will be in NO the same week as the ACS meeting. Lori volunteered to be co-MPC and Gavin will suggest this to the EBPC. This is also AIChE’s Centennial year. We will try to coordinate our program and take advantage of these meetings with marketing, etc. We may also try to hold a joint dinner. It was also suggested that we make a strong push with the AIChE BOD to have the technical programming at the convention center.
On the proceedings, Irv commented about the lack of papers. We need to make sure that all session chairs push for papers and also review all abstracts for errors, etc. We will request that all session chairs have access to papers as soon as they are uploaded. Dennis O. also reminded everyone that sessions chairs should read the papers, especially since we will be giving an award for the best paper.
Lori reminded everyone that she will need all sessions for the Spring 2006 meeting by the end of May at the latest. Data needed is session title, session chair and co-chair(s) and co chairs company, address, phone and email.