Mr. Richard Gehse holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Engineering, is a registered professional engineer in multiple states, and is a certified Associate Safety Professional. He has extensive and diverse industry experience in power, metals, chemical, oil and gas, and material handling systems; wastewater and water treatment; onshore and offshore oil and gas; and petrochemical/refining sectors. His experience and industry knowledge cover over 40 years in areas of design, engineering, procurement, construction, engineering and project management, asset integrity assessments, scheduling, cost estimating, quality and control procedures, OSHA safe work practices, and contract management.

Mr. Gehse’s litigation experience includes forensic analysis and testimony on a complex offshore FPSO oil and gas international arbitration construction dispute in excess of $300 million in damages. Having structural engineering, fluid wave mechanics, and construction backgrounds, he was able to testify on damage claim deficiencies, FPSO module stability following the overturning of a module during transport, FEED, steel fabrication, construction delay, and commissioning claims, and prepare documented counter-positions to support the arbitration process.

Mr. Gehse has also provided expert testimony in cases involving intellectual property claims for pressure vessel manways, auxiliary marine-style boilers, and equipment embedded software.

He has equipment/machine experience that includes gas turbines, steam turbines, power boilers, fire tube boilers, refinery furnaces, heat recovery steam generators, reformers, heat exchangers, relief valves, excess flow valves, custom machines and equipment used in the paper, refining, chemical, steel, aluminum, and related manufacturing industries, material conveyance systems, material samplers, presses, extruders, mixers, crushers, filters, sizing screens, feeders, dryers, rotary kilns, robotic paint spray systems, vapor recovery systems, et al. His analytical experience includes piping flexibility analysis, fluid and solid mechanics, failure analysis, corrosion analysis, finite element analysis, heat transfer, and energy conversion.

Mr. Gehse has experience in safe work practices and OSHA compliance for powered industrial trucks (PITs) and mobile equipment that includes mobile lifting cranes, crane safety, lift plans, load rigging, and lift platforms. He was certified in mobile equipment in 2018.
 
Mr. Gehse’s technical areas of expertise include carbon steel, stainless steel and polyethylene piping systems, construction, potential impact area classification and radius of exposure assessments, heat mapping, vapor cloud dispersion modeling, equipment failure analysis, turbines, compressors, pumps, fans and other types of rotating equipment, barge, railcar and tanker truck loading and unloading systems, pressure vessels, furnaces, API storage tanks, aboveground, belowground and underwater piping, multi-purpose tubing for underwater service, pipeline pigging, welding procedures and safe work practices, over-pressure relieving devices, fire and explosion prevention, protection, and venting, damage limiting construction, process safety management (PSM) and risk management program (RMP) regulatory compliance, mechanical integrity, corrosion assessments, power generation, co-generation plants, and combined-cycle power plants.

Mr. Gehse’s power plant experience includes coal, gas, and oil-fired units. He has hands-on experience with coal handling equipment, samplers, combustion, and fly ash. This includes coal ultimate analysis, coal sampling techniques, heat rate calculations, reflective properties of fly ash on boiler operation impact tests, and coal dust hazards.

Mr. Gehse has experience with sand plants related to sand utilized in the oil and gas exploration and extraction. This includes material handling, sizing, separation, and storage processes.

Mr. Gehse’s storage tank experience includes design and inspection of welded, bolted, and non-metallic tanks. Applicable codes include API 650 and API 620. Condition assessments in accordance with PSM, for hazardous chemicals and API 653 code.
Mr. Gehse’s background also includes software development and deployment of engineering technical applications. This includes the development of software for OSHA PSM and EPA RMP compliance, ASME B31G corrosion assessments, ASME B31.1, B31.3, B31.4, B31.8, and B31.8S tools. He has coded in numerous computer software and database languages, and interfaces such as HTML, Google Maps/Earth, and Navisworks. His previous positions in the IT field include information architect, software/systems analyst, database administrator, and software developer. He is experienced in industrial distributed control systems such as Siemens and Honeywell systems and PLC systems. Communication protocol was Modbus.

Mr. Gehse’s wastewater and water treatment areas of expertise include plants at both industrial and public facilities. His fluid mechanics background has resolved several aeration issues related to DO/BOD levels necessary for bacterial survival in aerobic and anaerobic biological processes. He also has experience with control systems for Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli reduction. Expertise in wastewater and water treatment equipment such as pumps, compressors, AWWA piping, clarifiers, API storage tanks, above- and below-ground piping, and instrumentation and controls.

He has managed new grass-roots capital projects as well as the re-vamping and renovating of existing oil, gas, fertilizer, and petrochemical projects. Mr. Gehse has been responsible for executing many complex EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) assignments in the electric utility, metals, and oil and gas industries.

His rotating equipment experience includes pumps, compressors, fans, hydraulic converters/couplings, gear boxes, transmissions, steam and gas turbines used for power generation and prime movers, internal combustion and compression engines using gasoline, diesel, bio-diesel, natural gas, landfill gas, and LPG.
 
His refining/chemical experience includes offshore FPSOs, Pipestills, Hydrotreaters, Hydrocrackers, Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Units, Coking Units, Asphalt Units, Blended Oil Ultraformers, Reformers, Vapor Recovery Units, and related components such as API storage tanks, refractory, and utility systems.

His metals experience includes both steel and aluminum plants. For steel, systems include iron making, steel making and finishing. Process types include both BOF and EAF. For aluminum, equipment includes smelter pots cathode refractory, anode quality, calcined coke manufacturing, and logistics.

His welding experience includes the development/review of welding procedures, review of welder procedure qualification records (PQRs), preheat and postheat procedures, welding techniques such as SMAW, GTAW/ TIG, and GMAW, and welding safe work practices.