Welcome to the PIPELINERS podcast. I'm Russell Treat and this is episode one. The PIPELINERS podcast where professionals, Baba Geeks and industry insiders share their knowledge and experience about technology, projects and pipeline operations. And now your host Russell Treat.
You're at one of those ideas that just wouldn't go away. Let me tell you this is one of those. I started listening to podcasts Oh probably two years or so ago in earnest, you know where I'm listening to them several times a week if not every day of the week while I'm commuting I'm listening to them when I'm working out I'm listening to them in the morning when I'm getting up And I've really found them to add a lot to my life So I had this notion that it would be a neat idea to do a podcast and frankly I also had this notion that pipe liners in particular spend a lot of time driving you're either commuting downtown to go to work Or you're out in the country and you're driving between sites So it's a lot of time in the car. There's a lot of opportunity for listening to podcasts and doing something other than just driving with your time So to that end I had this idea of doing a pipeline or Scott podcast.
Well, why would you do a pipeline or podcast? There's there's already people doing oil and gas podcasts and who is this for? Well for me Pipelining is a special business. It's a kind of a dark art There's not near as many conferences dedicated to pipeline and they're certainly not the size of some of the conferences that are dedicated to oil and gas So we're a smaller community and to a large degree.
We're really spread out. I mean pipelines are ubiquitous. They're everywhere So the idea was I want to kind of pay back give back to the industry what the industry has given me So this is for people who want to be who want to be professional Pipeliners who like the business and really want to learn more about the business and learn what is the state of the art? What's new?
What's going on in cyber security and automation controls? Telecommunication regulatory requirements the idea is the pipeline or podcast is the place you come to gain that information and They become part of a community of people that are all interested in similar things Let me tell you a little bit about myself first off right out of the gate. I want to tell you I'm an Aggie Yes, I know there's probably snickering out there for those of you that know a lot of Aggies or at least there was a lot of snickering I decided I want to go to an end and it's the fall of 2017 and the outlook for football is not great So we just won't talk anymore about that my degrees in civil I went into the Air Force because they paid for my college and I did enough civil construction to know that's not What I wanted to do for the rest of my life I got out of the military I worked briefly in process engineering for a cryogenics company liquid CO2 liquid oxygen liquid nitrogen that sort of stuff after several years with that company I started my first business in 1988 sold that business in a couple of years and joined a company called software marketing Which was really where my interest in technology and my interest in oil and gas started What we used to do at software marketing is we would look for what we called a device The device was a tool that had been built in software had been sold to and was being used by a customer and the customer liked it And they would tell people favorable things about it, but not yet a product because there was no training There was no support. There was no road map for future development no marketing team No sales organization what we would do is we would commercialize add those other pieces into products and we worked in a lot of different industries We worked in healthcare banking Platform IT oil field services So I learned a couple of things while I was working at software marketing when I learned a lot about technology And I also learned that of all the different verticals what I really liked was only gas That's what my buddies worked in and for whatever reason I just liked that business We did some interesting things back in the very early 90s with coil tubing and coal tubing monitoring And we did some other things and other aspects of oil field services.
I really loved it in 1993 I left that company to take a position running a company called BMP Energy Systems BMP was a measurement services company in Canada and a measurement Software company in the US this was around the time that for quarter six thirty six Which is a new regulatory requirement was coming out that was changing the way that the large gas transmission pipelines operated We had a technology that would allow you to Integrate a circular chart those of you that been around the business for a while We'll remember these you would take the round chart you would place it on a platter You would spin it and trace the lines and from that you could calculate a volume and we basically put all that on a PC in DOS at the time and would calculate and back stamp a volume which was really cool and very state-of-the-art when we did that at the same time This was when electronic flow measurement was beginning to proliferate and this new requirement out of FERC was driving businesses that way So there was a lot of change going on. I was with that company for six years I learned a ton about measurement in the way I learned measurement and really kind of going back to why the pipeline is podcast I learned measurement by going to measurement schools. I went to the American School of Gas measurement I went to the Internet National School of Hydrocarbon measurement and many others every year for a number of years And I would go to all the classes and I'll certainly learn a lot from the classes But more importantly than that where I really learned the subtleties the distinctions, you know, why different technologies the history I learned that from talking to people who had been in the business longer than me had more knowledge and experience in me And one of the things I really loved about the business is people were willing to share that they actually wanted to help people Learn and learn the business so that there would be people coming behind them that were, you know, as capable If not more capable than they were in their own careers. That was really the way I learned the business in 1999 I started inter-sis corporation as a control systems integrator actually we started as a measurement consultancy That kind of led to doing some data collection and telemetry that led to doing some simple HMI simple scale systems and that grew into doing full blown skata and then in 2011 we took inter-sis and we turned it into a software Company focused on pipeline operations and the control center.
Anyways, that's kind of my history That's my background. Hopefully that helps you understand a little bit about Me and where I come from and really why this has been an idea that wouldn't go away really I want to give back I want to create an opportunity for people that might not be able to go to as many Trechos and schools as I had the opportunity to go to as I was learning the business So let's talk a little bit about the pipeline podcast what it is and what we're going to try to do This will be the only episode hopefully that's just me the intent here is to interview people every week going forward with somebody new on some other Interesting and relevant topic for the industry in addition the idea is that we're also going to create a community We're going to learn together. You know, there's this is such a big business. There's so much to learn and there's no way You can know it all we all need to be continually learning this is going to be an opportunity to do that So going forward the show is going to be an interview format.
We're going to do it weekly We've already lined up guests the next several weeks. We've got some interesting topics a lot of people have been hearing about Internet of Things we're going to talk about the industrial Internet of Things in the future of skata I can't tell you how many times I've had people tell me that what is Internet of Things and how's it any different from what we're already doing? We're going to attempt to answer that question. We're also going to talk about industrial cyber security with an expert in that area Industrial cyber security distinct from just information systems security Basically, how do you keep people from getting access to your control systems?
We're also going to talk in an episode here shortly about the high performance? HMI what it is why it's important? What does it take to successfully implement it and on from there? We want to know I want to know about what it is that you would like to hear about what it is that you would like to know about You can reach out and make those requests and I my promises that I'll be listening to every one of those I'll be reading every one of those and we will be working to line up guests lined up subjects that are going to serve the people that are listening to the Podcast to that end you can find me on LinkedIn again.
My name is Russell. That's r u s s e l Anybody that knows me well knows it's only one l and the last name is treat t reat Yes, just like trick or around the Halloween time So easy name to remember an easy name to find and you can find me on LinkedIn You can also go to our website It's pipelineers podcast calm go to the contact us page and if you've got some ideas about what you'd like to hear about or Any feedback on the show please drop it. We're eager to hear what you have to say Also, you can follow us on SoundCloud and you can rate and review us on iTunes Google Play and Stitcher Well, that's all for now. We look forward to getting together with you again and having you join the conversation Thanks for listening share your questions and comments with us at pipelineers podcast calm You can support the show by liking and following us on SoundCloud or by rating and reviewing the show on iTunes Google Play or Stitcher Thanks for listening to the pipelineers podcast