PlantSuccess 2007 Northeast: Best Practices Driving Plant Performance
Hyatt Regency Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing, October 16, 2007

Speaker Information

John Sieg Jr, Group Head of Operations, BP International

John has over 34 years of experience in operations and operational excellence. He currently serves as Group Head of Operations - BP International. John joined BP as Vice President of Operations Excellence in March 2006 and led the creation of BP's Operating Managing System. From August 2006 through December 2007 John served as Vice President of Safety and Operations for BP America.

Prior to joining BP, John spent ~33 years working for DuPont in all aspects of site and global operations performing in a wide array of site leadership and influence management positions. Activities during his DuPont career included leading the strategic planning process for DuPont's global operations and serving as Global Operations Director for the Engineering Polymers businesses.

Helping businesses achieve sustainable, transformational improvement in operations performance is John's work pleasure. John is a Fellow in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. His personal interests include sailing, old home restoration and antique watch repair.

Keith D McLeod, Senior Vice President - Operations, Marsulex Inc

Mr. McLeod is Senior Vice President of Operations for MARSULEX Inc, a Canadian TSX-listed public company which provides sulphur-enhanced chemicals and industrial services, including environmental compliance solutions, to oil refiners and other industrial customers worldwide.

McLeod has extensive management experience within the chemical industry in manufacturing, engineering & construction, and research & product development. He has previously worked in a variety of North American locations for companies including Canexus/Nexen Chemicals, NOVA Chemicals, Syncrude and Baker Hughes.

McLeod is an independent Director on the Board of QuestAir Technologies Inc, a public company developing and marketing gas purification technologies and products, and which trades on the Toronto TSX and London AIM exchanges. He has previously served on the Boards of the Canadian Chemicals Producers' Association and the Chlorine Institute, and as a Director and Board Chairman in the not-for-profit sector. He is a member of the Canadian Institute of Corporate Directors.

McLeod has BSc and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta and is a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Alberta. He has completed the Advanced Management Program at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania.

J. "Scott" Gray, II, Distinguished Advisor Group Safety & Operations, BP International Limited

Scott Gray joined BP America Inc. (Houston) in October, 2006 as Director of Operations for the U.S. Region after successfully completing a 38 year career in US and International Plant and Regional Operations. He currently supports the Safety and Operations agenda for BP's U.S. Region. He is reponsible for aiding in the development of regional strategies and tactics to institute and sustain operations essentials across US plants / assets through collaboration, alignment, and implementation of a common Operating Management System.

During his career Mr Gray has developed a reputation for building teams and driving change, whether through stronger competitive operations or improved health, safety and environmental performance. His more than 38 years of experience have been in increasingly senior leadership positions in refinery operations for Union Oil of California, and 35 years in manufacturing for DuPont. He has worked in such diverse operations as fine & custom chemicals, inorganic & organic chemicals, petrochemicals, and polymers. He has served as plant manager for multiple sites, regional HSE director in Asia Pacific and regional operations director in both Asia Pacific and North America.

Mr. Gray was raised in Washington, D.C. and holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering Degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Mr. Gray and Gayle Yates Gray have been married 36 years and have two adult children. Allison is a PhD Uterine Biologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas and Ian is a Political Science graduate student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Gayle and Scott currently reside in Houston, close to their daughter and new granddaughter. Mr. Gray served in line and staff positions (Captain, USAR) in the US Army Chemical Corps.

• AVEVA Inc — Clive Wilby, Principal Consultant — Operations

• Johnson Controls Inc — Charles Miller, Director, Solution Development

• JPavilion Technologies, a Rockwell Company — Don Hart, Vice President of Marketing Solutions

• SAT Corporation — Howard Beader, Manager, Vice President of Marketing

• Siemens Engineering & Automation — Blair Sullivan, Industry Manager

• SmartSignal Corporation — Steven Tonissen, Vice President of Marketing

• TDS — Mike Huddleston, Director of Sales & Marketing

Moderator

Doug Foran, President, Red Branch Technologies, Inc

Over his career Foran has specialized in building and marketing business-to-business offerings that use high technology to create compelling business advantage. He started his high-tech career in sales and marketing for Calma Corporation, a Silicon Valley company and one of the big-three CAD market founders. At Information Displays Inc. Doug pioneered the electronic technical publishing market and his company dominated its market niche and attained NASDAQ National Market status. As a General Manager for Xerox Corporation, Foran ran two innovative and successful start-up business teams one addressing the document automation needs of utility companies for facilities and asset management, and the other addressing the problems of technical document management for discrete manufacturing industries worldwide. He was a founder of Concept Five Technologies, where he structured and sold a suite of professional service offerings that solved Enterprise Application Integration and Information Security problems for the financial services and pharmaceutical industries. He founded Red Branch Technologies to meet the need for innovative technologies that make business travel easier, more secure and more personalized to traveler’s needs. RBT’s first product, my|mTravel®, will launch early fall, 2007.

BJ Stephan, Site Leader, INEOS NOVA

B.J. Stephan has dedicated his career to the protection of human health and the environment. He has been instrumental in migrating the issue of sustainability as an independent “matter of concern” to the core value proposition in the strategic, long-term plans of organizations across the world.

Growing up in Pittsburgh (once the heart of the world’s steel industry), B.J. personally experienced the effects of business models, which did not adequately consider the impact of human resources, the environment, or social responsibility on financial returns or shareholder confidence. His extensive experience in weaving sustainable practices, and engineered teams into business strategies resulted in an international career leading functional areas for mergers and acquisitions of Fortune 500 companies. With roles throughout North America and Europe, B.J. brings an international perspective on the need for diversity in engineered teams. Having worked in the Federal Government, Consulting, and Industrial sectors, B.J. has been accountable for a variety of functions including safety/health/environment, risk management, customer service, reliability, operations, and supply chain.

With 20-years of experience, he is currently the Site Leader for the Ineos-NOVA Springfield Massachusetts Plant. B.J. earned a BS in Geology from The University of Pittsburgh, an MS in Hydrology from Ohio University, and an MBA from Bay Path College. He also holds an SPHR – (Senior Professional in Human Resources) from The Society for Human Resource Management and is a licensed Professional Geologist in Pennsylvania.

Martin Brown, Director Project Services, Bayer Technology & Engineering (Shanghai) Co Ltd

Martin Brown began his career with Polysar in Sarnia Ontario and held various positions of increasing responsibility in Manufacturing and Engineering. In addition to his employment responsibilities Brown obtained his Bachelor Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Western Ontario, Canada and is a registered Engineer in the Province of Ontario. During his tenure with Polysar Brown managed different production units and was instrumental in developing new isomerization and separation techniques resulting in a patent being granted.

Brown relocated to Bayer in Texas in 1997 to assume responsibility for the manufacture of Polychloroprene and, in 2000, was named Head of Site Engineering for the Bayer facility in Baytown. In 2005 in addition to his Engineering role Brown took the leadership role in moving a production Unit from Texas to China. It was during these visits that he began to investigate the potential of Chinese equipment fabricators for Bayer sites in the US.

For the past year, Brown has been on special assignment for Bayer located in Shanghai with the task of improving Bayer Global opportunities for equipment procurement, Engineering optimization etc. As a result of these efforts Bayer Corporation now procures certain pieces of fabricated equipment in China for their facilities in Baytown, Texas.

Michael Norris, Manager, Manufacturing Production Systems, LyondellBasell Industries

Thomas N Williams, Automation Showcase Leader, Honeywell Specialty Materials

Tom Williams is a Senior Technical Manager in Honeywell’s Specialty Materials Engineering department, and he is leading the Geismar Automation Showcase Project. Tom has worked in Process Engineering and Technology for Honeywell (previously AlliedSignal) for over twenty years, building new facilities, commercializing new products, and optimizing existing operations. Prior to the Showcase assignment, Tom managed Honeywell’s Polymer Process Engineering team.

Before joining Honeywell/AlliedSignal, Tom worked for Mobil Research in polyolefins, specialty chemicals, and hydrotreating; he holds four patents, a BS in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and an MS in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from Rutgers University.

David Lauterbach, Consultant, Energy Engineering Group, DuPont Engineering Research & Technology

Dave is a consultant in DuPont’s Engineering Research and Technology organization and is a corporate expert in the industrial energy field. As part of the Energy Engineering Group, he is dedicated to the cause of safe, reliable and efficient energy use. During his 27-year tenure he has provided knowledge, skills and expertise to help improve all aspects of energy utilization in support of corporate objectives across the globe. In addition to his leveraged corporate technology experience, he has onsite experience in industrial utilities and process plant operations.

Dave lives in Houston, has a Mechanical Engineering degree from West Virginia University and is a Professional Engineer in Texas.

Richard Guhl, Manager PTG Manufacturing Solutions, Bayer Technology Services Americas

Rich Guhl received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Montana State University and an MChE from the University of Houston. He has almost 20 years of experience in the chemical industry (Production, Maintenance and Technology Improvements)-- all with Bayer. Rich recently completed a 5-year assignment in Leverkusen, Germany, where he worked in the fields of Advanced Process Control and Operator Training Simulators. Rich currently manages the Manufacturing Solutions Group, which is a part of Bayer Technology Services Americas located in Baytown Texas. This group specializes in Advanced Process Control, Dynamic Modeling, Optimization and, currently, in the new field of CO2 footprint calculation and reduction.

Bruce Taylor, Manager, Business Process Integration, Energy (USA), Inc

Cathy Culpepper, Site Manager, INEOS NOVA

Cathy Culpepper is Site Manager – Bayport for the new joint venture INEOS NOVA. She received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University in 1991 and joined Dow Chemical in Plaquemine, La, where she worked as an operations engineer in the LHC3 Flexicracker. She transitioned to polystyrene when she joined Nova Chemicals in Decatur, Ala in 1995. Cathy was named to a leadership position as the operations leader at NOVA Chemicals’ polystyrene facility in Massachusetts and later accepted the operations leadership role at the Bayport Styrene facility in 2004. During her tenure in this position, the plant completed a $100 million debottleneck project that increased the capacity to 1.7Blb/year; in September 2006, she moved into the role of Site Manager.

Laurie Bassi, PhD, CEO, McBassi & Company

Dr. Laurie Bassi is the CEO and a co-founder of McBassi & Company. She is also Chair of the Board at Bassi Investments, Inc.

Laurie is one of the world’s leading authorities on the emerging “decision-science” of human capital management—the processes and practices within an organization that align the management and development of employees with its business results. She loves working with clients to help them improve organizational performance through targeted, effective strategies for managing and developing their people.

She has overseen the development of McBassi’s Human Capital Capability Scorecard, a powerful tool for pinpointing and improving the unique people-related drivers of an organization’s business results.

Prior to launching McBassi & Company, Laurie served as the director of research for Saba Software and as vice president at the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). While at ASTD, she created internationally recognized standards for measuring and valuing firms' investments in education and training, and a core set of quantitative indicators for measuring the effectiveness of knowledge management initiatives. She has also served as the director of several U.S. government commissions, and a co-chair of the National Academy of Scinces’ Board on Testing and Assessment. The early years of Laurie’s career were spent as a tenured professor of economics and public policy at Georgetown University.

Laurie has authored over 60 published papers and books, and is a sought-after speaker both domestically and internationally.

She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University, a M.S. in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University, and a B.S. in mathematics from Illinois State University.

Paul M Spicer, Manager – Manufacturing Projects, Shell

Paul graduated from the University of Wyoming in Chemical Engineering and the University of Houston with an MBA. Paul has worked for Shell in various manufacturing roles for over 30 years. These roles include technical support roles, project roles and production manager roles at various sites in Shell as well as global support to manufacturing roles. Last year, Paul moved from his position as Production Manager for Shell Chemicals Deer Park site into another central support role in Houston supporting all Shell's manufacturing sites in the Americas.