Superheroes and origin stories with Michael Beller

Arc 12 - Michael Beller Episode Summary: In this episode of Pipeline Things, Rhett Dodson and Christopher DeLeon are joined by Michael Beller to look back at how inline inspection technology developed and how many of today’s major ILI companies came to be. Drawing from nearly 40 years in the industry, Michael shares stories from the early days of Pipetronics, Preussag, British Gas, PII, TD Williamson, Tuboscope and others that helped shape the field. They also dig into how the technology evolved, from early caliper and MFL tools to high-resolution inspection, ultrasonic metal loss tools, crack detection and EMAT. Along the way, Michael explains how mergers, acquisitions and people leaving established companies to start new ones created many of the names the industry knows today. More than anything, the conversation shows just how connected the pipeline integrity industry really is. Michael reflects on the people, companies and relationships that have crossed paths over the decades, and why it is such a small world for the people working in it. Transcript: Rhett: On this episode of Pipeline Things, before we get into it, I want to ask you as an audience, where does the ILI industry's origin story begin for you? Does it begin with the companies that you know today? Whenever you think of ILI origin, do you think of Rosen, Baker, TDW? What if I told you the origin story is actually much deeper than that, right? And if you go back, you've got to go back to some places in Germany and a company known as Preussac and their involvement with Pipetronics to really understand the landscape of the major ILI players we have today. This episode, we get into that with Michael Beller, and I think you'll really enjoy hearing where the landscape that we know today comes from and what its origin story is. Thanks for joining us. Rhett: Welcome to this edition of Pipeline Things. I'm your host, Rhett Dodson, my co-host, Christopher DeLeon. As we continue in this series, this arc where we have esteemed guests of the pipeline industry, really OGs. sages, wise people, digging into the history of our industry, which is really so much fun. Chris, you're a Marvel fan, right? Chris: Fantastic. 1992, baby. Let's go. That's when it started. That's when I got involved. I remember. Rhett: What's your favorite origin story? Chris: This is hard. So again, I grew up on the comic. this mini series the tv series and the two that that I really- Rhett: Wait wait which mini series like x-men 97 or something Chris: yeah around 97 is fair so for me it was like there's a little bit of like the brutality in it so it sounds bad but i was like you feel bad for him that's how you get emotional because like the wolverine story was kind of hard it's like they take this guy they put all this metal in him and he's suffering and so i was kind of like oh you kind of feel for the guy you're like man, I kind of want him to win. I want him to be happy and he's never happy. So you're just like always yearning for this guy to find happiness. And then it's kind of like the Jean Grey versus Cyclops saga. And like, you know, Cyclops is the better guy, but you kind of just want. Logan to get a win, and he never does. Rhett: Yes, that's fair, because I was thinking, Wolverine probably has the most consistent origin story, but so many of them have varied origin stories, which drives me crazy, because I'm like, Spider-Man might be the worst, right? I mean, Spider-Man must have a dozen origin stories. I'm like, Batman's another one. How many different origin stories? Chris: One per generation. Rhett: Something like that, right? Chris: Yeah, it's one per generation. Rhett: But then you grew up on, not Val Kilmer, Batman. Chris: Oh, man. I remember Val Kilmer. Rhett: Yeah, but it was the one before Val Kilmer. No, before Clooney. And the name is slipping my mind where the Joker was Jack Nicholson. Is that who it's? Jack Nichols? Yeah. Anyway. Chris: Oh, God. That was... Yeah, he came back as Birdman in Spider-Man. Rhett: The name's slipping my mind. Yeah. But... The point is, that's what I knew was the Batman origin story. And then when you changed it, I get frustrated. I feel like sometimes it's like that in the pipeline industry where you've got all these different origin stories. Chris: I have to jump in there. This is a little bit telling for me. For example, my favorite Batman is based on Frank Miller's The Dark Knight, which is like the modern Batman, the darker, more meaner guy. I need to check. Maybe I need to talk to somebody about this. Rhett: But that was different. than definitely from the Joker from the original 80s. Chris: Freeze with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Rhett: Oh, that was so bad. It was so terrible. But today we get some great origin stories. I'm actually really excited about it because I feel like this is one of those things where depending on how you understand terms, depending on maybe where you entered the industry, you have different impressions on what the quote-unquote origin story of ILIS. Chris: And who told you and if you think they were communicating fact or strong opinion. And sometimes depending who you talk to, you don't know the difference. Rhett: Is it elaborated fiction? I mean, sometimes we recreate history in our own mind to make the story more entertaining. Chris: Or maybe they even add their own element to it to like put their staple on it. You know, like, oh, when I was there was when this happened. Rhett: Exactly. Well, look, why don't you introduce our guest? Because I know you and him have a relationship before I did. So I want to give you the opportunity to go ahead and introduce our guest, Chris. Chris: Yeah, no worries. So, hey, guys, I present to you guys Michael Beller. I hold him in very high regard. You know, we were thinking about this OG series. Rhett and I, we spent a lot of time thinking about, like, who are these cool people that we want to bring available to you guys? And at the end of this podcast, I always say it right. I want you guys to feel like you're relatable in some way. So you could walk up to him at a bar and be like, Michael, what's up? I heard you on the podcast. And he's like, I don't know who you are, but let's have a drink. And second is hopefully there's a little bit of knowledge transfer and he can tell you a cool story. So Michael, welcome. Rhett: Michael, welcome, buddy. Michael: Okay. Well, first of all, I want to say thank you for having me. It certainly is a pleasure and I'm already enjoying it. So that's great. You just introduced me, Christopher. So my name is Michael Beller. I live in Germany, so quite far away from Houston. And I live in a suburb of a town or a city called Karlsruhe. So Karlsruhe is a city that most folks in the US probably... have never heard of but here in germany it's sort of fairly important because we have our supreme court here of the federal republic of germany and there's one very famous person that was born in Carlsruhe and went to the same university as me and this gentleman has absolutely nothing to do with pipelines his name is carl benz as in mercedes-benz so the guy who invented the motor car he was actually born here in carlsruhe um i'm from a family where most of the people work for mercedes and i'm sort of the black sheep in the family because i joined the pipeline industry but i've always loved it and again happy to be here. Rhett: Yeah so michael the reason we brought you on i mean we could have a conversation about mercedes that'd be fascinating but it's it's definitely your background so when we thought about history of ili chris is like i want to talk to michael i was like I actually don't know who Michael is. But in our pre-show stuff, I was like, oh, this is going to be fantastic. So audiences, I want you to think about all the ILI tools that you use today. And many of you are probably running inspections with either something that's called high res or ultra high res or micron or any of the names that are currently used gen four gen five um i'm trying to think um Chris: Plus there's plus plus Rhett: Plus uh ultra superior I mean i feel like they put all these different names and If you had to just stop before we even get in with Michael, when do you think those technologies came around? I'd ask you audience to think about that. When do you, if you had to guess, maybe some of you know, some of you don't. When was the first MFL tool and where did it start? Those are the questions that we want to get into with Michael, which is what is the origin story? of ILI technology, MFL and Caliper as we know it today, right? So hopefully that's the hook that kind of draws you in because Michael's got a rich history with it. So Michael, having set the stage for you speaking to all things origin, tell us, so how did you avoid the auto industry and find yourself? in the pipeline industry. And what was the state of the art? Michael: And what was the state of the art of the auto cars or our industry? Chris: Yeah, our industry. Michael: Okay. Well, I wanted to be an engineer, so I studied mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, actually, although I'm not originally from Karlsruhe. and whilst you're doing that obviously you also eventually have to look for a job to you know earn some money as a student because you know you want to have a good life and the car has to be paid and all of that uh and it so happened that um i was at a we call them institutes at one of the institutes of university and there was a piece of paper there and they were looking like for for for a student assistant that's what we call it here in in germany and i picked up this base of paper and it just so happened that there was a project that had something to do with pipelines and not motor cars so so that it was a pure coincidence I then stayed on, I finished my studies in Germany or in Karlsruhe and then close to Karlsruhe we have something at that time that was called the Nuclear Research Center. It is today part of the university. So the University of Karlsruhe, they're called KIT, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and they also have this former nuclear research place. And the interesting thing is that this research institution was actually involved with developing an inline inspection tool. Rhett: The Nuclear Research Institute was? Michael: Sorry? Rhett: the nuclear research institute was involved in developing Michael: i'll get to that in a minute um so so anyway that was my first sort of you know attachment to to to our industry and i found it so exciting that i decided okay forget about the motor cars let's let's do something with let's do something with with with pipelines um when I finished my studies um actually i didn't immediately join industry but i decided to go for a phd which i did at the nuclear research center in conjunction with university on the subject of fracture mechanics and it was fracture mechanics of pipeline steel so that's the next link to pipelines and then i i started working for a large german corporation which at that time had a pipeline construction division They were called Preussac. Now, the interesting thing about Preussac at the time is they were the German representative of an ILI company called Pipetronics, right? But Pipetronics at that time was a subsidiary company of Trans-Canada pipelines. But they already had an office close to Karlsruhe in a suburb called Stutensee. And that sort of was... the nucleus in this part of Germany with lots of ILI activities over the years. Now, you did ask also the question about, you know, what was the state of the industry and where do all these terms and how do they all fit together? So let me at least try and start to answer that question and remind me if I'm missing something. Rhett: Let me set the timeline because I want to make sure I understand it. You joined this subsidiary. of trans canada pipetronics Michael: No I joined Preussac Rhett: right i'm sorry which was a german rep Michael: yeah and they were the german representative of this company called pipetronics which was a subsidiary of trans canada pipeline at the time Rhett: this is the trans canada pipeline that we know today Michael: this is the trans canada pipeline which today is called tc Rhett: and this is 1988. Michael: This is 1988. I joined the industry in 1988. And then in 1991, and I looked this up because I couldn't memorize it. In 1991, this German corporation called Preussac, they actually bought the ILI activities of TransCanada Pipelines because TransCanada Pipelines decided to do other things or go back to the core business. So that is when Preussac took over Pipetronics and then basically started to have their own inline inspection company, which they've integrated into their pipeline service division. So that's basically how it all started, or at least where it started for me. Rhett: All right. So what's the state whenever you got involved in 1991? Michael: Well, I got involved in 1988 because that's when Preussac was already the representative. And the thing is, I mean, the ILI industry was quite different to what it is today. It was a much, much younger, less mature industry than it is today. Although the history of ILI goes back, you know, far beyond when I started. So first, ILI tools. um were actually developed and introduced into the market in the united states where you gentlemen are you know companies like td williamson or tuberscope were the first people that that were involved with ili and had developed ili tools um and then then later of course more and more use was made with them because original tools they didn't have such let's say low thresholds of finding defects and not the accuracies um that that well certainly that we see today and what i remember when i entered the industry is first of all that there were different companies about some of them are still around today but others aren't unfortunately i'm a very nostalgic person so i you know i like also the history of companies And there was a lot of controversy because there were still people at the time saying, well, this ILI stuff, well, can we really trust it? Wouldn't it be just better to do pressure testing all the time? And, you know, do we really need ILI? Chris: Things haven't changed very much from a lot of people. So our federal government now finally believes that ILI is a little bit better, but it's been a long journey. Michael: I'm not commenting on what happened. on your side of the Atlantic but I'm reminiscing and obviously this is all my perception gentlemen. So there was this controversy also here in Europe. and and i also remember in the very early days when i was young and naive and i'm just naive now but not young anymore unfortunately there were people that told me well we will never need ili tools because pipelines are coated and we have cathodic protection so what's the point right but later of course time has proven that using ili makes sense but but the thing is um this this term of resolution could be a little bit misleading because resolution is a three-dimensional thing so in those days you know close to 40 years ago when people talked about resolution it was just a depth resolution just depth resolution they were concerned about and and you know as well well you know better than me you know when you do the defect assessment and you want the length of a defect and the deepest point and so on that's basically what what they were looking for and these these let's call them first generation or early generation of tools had a very limited accuracy and a very limited depth resolution so then all this wonderful work was done in in the united kingdom i'm pretty sure you you all all know that you know around british gas engineering research station and so on um and and they they basically went the next step to have which at that time were actually called high resolution tools. That's where the term comes from. And the story behind that is that a lot of burst tests and things were done. um and i'm sure you had other guests in your program that know much more about those programs or those tests but they did all these tests and they could identify minimum defect specifications that an ili tool should really have in order to make it useful for a defect assessment right and and british gas at the time engineering research stationthey were sort of the first people to address that wonderful work lots of papers published um and then introduced a new generation of magnetic flux leakage tools which which were termed high resolution tools and they already had this 10 percent depth threshold which actually is still a number around today now of course people say yeah but the technology has improved over time and yes of course it has it's a continuous development so they're even as we speak tools are getting better and better and better but the other two dimension of the resolution of course is the circumferential revolution resolution so in the these first sort of tools had quite clumsy sensors they were quite wide so you can't place so many around circumference of your pipe and therefore your circumference resolution is limited so you make them smaller and smaller and smaller and this trend is still there and the next thing of course is the power of the electronics you have i mean how how much can i record as i go along the pipeline um because the signals i mean the mfl signal is an analog signal and then you digitize it yeah and that has to do with the power of the electronics so so so it's it might be a bit misleading But in the true sense of the word, going back in history again, when I entered the industry in the 1980s or late 1980s, 1988, there were already these tools called high-resolution tools. But the high-resolution was a relative term. It was related to depth resolution, and it was in comparison to the earlier generation. I hope that makes sense. Rhett: Yeah, so I want to ask a couple of questions, Michael. Since you said you're nostalgic, who were the major players in the 1980s when we were talking high-resolution tools? If you were an operator and you wanted to run somebody, who were the players back then? Michael: Well, when I entered the industry, Preussac was the representative of Pipetronics. But just prior to that... uh price like actually had had their own division that were running pipelines not many nothing compared to trans canada pipelines so but they also ran pipelines and they had inline inspection companies or they had tenders for inline inspection work and the companies at that time were people like tuboscope or vetco Rhett: mmmm I’ve heard these names Michael: um but but they they weren't really that happy i i don't mean not happy with the service but the results because the the results from these earlier generations they didn't really help you to fully understand the state of your pipeline although these tools were already a milestone in themselves because when you think about that they told you something also about subcritical defects whereas pressure testing will only tell you where the line pops but doesn't tell you about all the other things so don't get me wrong there's no disrespect or anything but these were the earlier tools which weren't quite as helpful let me put it that way. So when i entered the industry obviously pipetronics was around because i entered the industry when when prozac was involved with them um but the the the the i i think the number one company this is my recollection and my perception but the number one company obviously was was british gas um and and they had this um inline inspection activity, which they called OLIC at the time, Online Inspection Center. Later they rebranded that into Pipeline Integrity International, PII, which of course is a term which we still use today. But when I entered the industry, so they were definitely the number one. And then there were other companies involved, you know, Tubascope and so on. And Pipetronics was already around. Now, of course, at that time, I didn't know so much about the industry as I know now, because when you come as a young graduate and you have your first job, you sort of have a very limited view. So when I entered, when I joined Pipetronics, what I found exciting at the time is that all the tools that were used for metal loss inspection were based on magnetic flux leakage technology which is a absolutely fantastic technology but it so happened um that that the company i had the honor and pleasure of being hired by pipetronics had originated from another german company called cop the company cop is is in lingen lingen emsland which actually is where rosen is and where 3p is and you know so it's one of the birth places of ili in germany definitely But anyway this company cop was founded by a very clever gentleman who originally came from the pressure testing side of things and had then already developed also caliper tools he didn't invent them but they also had caliper tools in this company called cop And COP then decided that they couldn't live forever on just having a caliper tool in their portfolio. So they said, well, what else can we do? And it was quite obvious that metal loss is one of the issues. So having a metal loss inspection tool is something that's worthwhile doing. But there were already all these other competitors with MFL tools were getting better and better. And it then so happened that this company decided to use another technology. And they said, well, why don't we try ultrasound? Let's do an inline inspection tool with ultrasound. And they started doing this development work and for all sorts of reasons which have to do with finance and so on. R&D department of COP, which actually started this development, they relocated to where I live, southwest Germany, Karlsruhe, mainly for funding reasons, because there was money available here that wasn't available at other places at the time. And then together with the Nuclear Research Center, Pipetronics developed this first ultrasonic metal loss inspection tool. And with ultrasound, as you know, the additional, the added value is you can do this quantitative wall thickness measurement. So you can measure remaining wall, let's say, with a higher precision than with MFL. This is not meant in the sense of good or bad, or it's just different. Rhett: Yeah. And what's the timeline? I'm sorry, I was fascinated. Normally, I mean, you kept going and I was just like, I just want to listen to the story. Michael, what's the timeline of this ultrasonics development? So MFL is not mature in terms of deployment, but mature in terms of what you guys considered high resolution depth 10%. Ultrasonics now emerges as a research initiative slash development initiative. What's the time frame on this? Michael: Well, that was sort of middle to late 70s when that started. So this is the development work. And we all know it always takes longer than you think. And then the market introduction was early 80s, 83, 84. So this tool was already there when when i arrived on the scene but of course it was still in a very um you know prototype stage or or just about being commercialized so when when i when i joined pipetronics or actually i joined proisac but later when proisac bought pipetronics we were all transferred to pipetronics um that was sort of the very beginning so to speak yeah it wasn't a prototype anymore it was already a commercially available tool but it really was was the beginning and and it was for those days in true sense also a high resolution tool the ultrasonic tool of that time i'm referring to already had a depth threshold one millimeter right so anything deeper than one millimeter could be picked up and i think even today that that is sort of impressive but of course tools have improved so you know i think things have happened Chris: will you just clarify the relationship between cop and um and pipetronics Michael: yeah cop cop was a or well cop is still around but they're a subsidiary of baker today to at least to my knowledge um but but this gentleman called cop it was a family business they started to develop an ili tool um and they Basically, well, they had an R&D department, obviously, and they took the R&D department and made a little company out of it. And that was branded Pipetronics. So that's where the name comes from. And the name came from the gentleman who was running the department. His name is Hartmut Goetheke. He's also still around. Rhett: So, and then Pipetronics finds its way into PII, which then eventually finds its way into GE, which we know today. Chris: as baker Rhett: yeah yeah Michael: well that is also very interesting um you see when when when you're younger you think in companies right so when i was like in 20s 30s and you went to a conference and you went to an exhibition booth you were quite awed by the other competitors being there and you know dare i talk to someone from pii or is it okay to talk to someone from Tuboscope and you were very much your company but As you are in the industry for longer and longer, you realize that, especially the ILI industry, it's sort of like a family, right? We're competitors, but somehow we're all in the same game. So we have a beer together and stuff like that. Chris: I think it's more like Game of Thrones, to be honest with you, here in North America, if anybody gets that reference. Michael: What I found very interesting is, of course, that, you know, the... And I must admit, when I was at Pipetronics, we sort of did look up to PII, right? So the British gas thing, they had all this knowledge about pipelines, the integrity side, all of that was very, very impressive. And then the merger occurred. We called it the merger at the time when PII bought Pipetronics. And I can't quite remember which year that was, around the 2000s that must have been. 2000 2001 something like that but what a lot of people don't know anymore or might have forgotten is that pipetronics actually consisted of two parts there was like a center of excellence regarding ultrasound here in stutensee so carlsruhe where i live and there was the other part of pipetronics in toronto because remember um pipetronics originally the family cop sold the business or had sold the business at one point to TransCanada Pipelines. Rhett: Who was in Toronto at that time, but is now stationed in Calgary. Michael: Exactly. So first, that company was sold to TCPL and then TCPL later sold it to Preussac to get the timeline right. So the colleagues, the Canadian colleagues at Pipetronics, they never relocated to Calgary. I mean, TCPL went to Calgary as we all know but they stayed in Toronto and then when Preussac took over obviously that was Pipetronics offices and there's a lot of people there and they were mainly working on the MFL side so they also developed high resolution magnetic flux leakage tools. whereas we in Germany were focusing on the ultrasonic tools. And what happened then, just from a historic point of view, I also find quite interesting because when PII took over Pipetronics and eventually that ended up in GE, quite a few people left those two companies. um for all sorts of reasons right maybe you want to do your own thing or whatever the reason was and and the german side of pipetronics um people that originally came from from pipetronics they founded a new ili company called ndt systems and services which today is called ndt global But the canadians also they did their own thing And one of the companies that was founded at the time, although there were other people involved, not just Pipetronix people, was Seapig. Do you remember Seapig later? Rhett: All right. Michael, we're going to pause right here. We're about to get into what I call the GE Mafia. But audience, we need to take a quick break before we circle back around with Michael and talk about this ultrasonic development and what I term the GE Mafia if you've never heard about it. Stay tuned and we'll be right back. Rhett: All right, audience, as we come back with our guest, Michael Beller, you heard a great overview. of some of the origin story of the ILI, but I need to step back as the host and sort it out just a little bit for you, right? Because even myself, I'm having trouble kind of... keeping all of this in my head, so to speak, and I'm learning things that even definitely I didn't know, right? So at the time Michael steps into the industry, he's told us that there are these, you know, the major players, Vetco, Tubisco, British Gas, he himself, TDW, yes, he himself is a part of this German company or German company, Preussac, who's a representative of Pipetronics, who most of us have probably heard about, right? And then we learned that PII, who is the subsidiary of British Gas and OLIC, is eventually merged with Pipetronics. So you've got PII and Pipetronics together. All of that is sold to GE. And what we just touched on, and many of you might know, is that's like kind of the birthing place, the spawning ground for many of the major players that we actually know today in the industry. And I want to give Michael the story. So, Michael, did I get that part of the origin story right prior to the early 2000s. Michael: Yeah Rhett: All right. So we've got GE Pipetronics together, right? And you mentioned Pipetronics got these two halves, right? It's got the half that's still tied in Toronto, which is funny because that's where TC Energy used to be headquarters. And many of you, like me, are probably appreciating how integral TC Energy was to much of the development of ILI technology. And then we've got this other side. which is in Germany, on the ultrasonic side of Pipetronics. Chris: I feel like this is where all the houses, back to the Game of Thrones, I feel like this is where all the houses' names are about to start popping up. It's like the House of X and the House of Y. So here we go. Bring on the houses, Michael. Rhett: All right, so the ILI clans, where do they come from? Michael: Yeah, I'll stay with the Canadian side if I may. Rhett: Sure. Michael: And what happened in my recollection is that on the...Toronto side of Pipetronics also ILI companies sprung up so CPIG was was one of them but it wasn't as I said just Pipetronics people there were other people involved Mark Olson is a very famous name there all very very clever people and then somebody else from Pipetronics who went his own way is Paul Larson He started an engineering company called InvoDane, also in Toronto. And later they founded a company called Pipetel, which started to be active in what we call challenging pipeline inspection today. I'm pretty sure I've forgotten someone now. Ron Thompson. Ron Thompson, very important name in our industry. He also started his own company. i think it was called intratech but correct me ron if i'm wrong if you hear this but but ron actually and also um the cp guys they sold their companies for reasons i don't know to baker baker at that time had already collected some other companies um and and as i talk about it we should write a book about this because um There is another line there, because in Canada, of course, there were also clever people that went into developing inline inspection technologies. And I remember at one of the first conferences that Proysac sent me to, and, you know, timid little engineer I was, so I was very impressed by meeting all these famous people. There was a Canadian company that had introduced a mapping tool. And I think it was a research company called Pulse Search, and they had developed this tool together or on behalf of a company called Nausco. And Nausco was taken over by BJ. But BJ Services, they had their own inline inspection tools, the vector tools, speed control, and all that wonderful stuff. And then...BJ was taken over. Rhett: By Baker. Chris: By Baker. Michael: Weatherford was taken over by Baker. Chris: Which had the Russian tools. Michael: And Weatherford actually took over. Oh, it's getting more and more exciting here. Because at that time, there was also a company in Russia into inline inspection. And this Russian company that had actually developed their tools first using...technology they had bought some other place but they were also very clever people so they further developed that and that company was taken over by weatherford and and then this whole thing i mean baker now with with all these ili companies and it must have been quite a challenge for the management to integrate everything so you know i admire those guys and then the whole thing was taken over by ge and and we all know what happened after that right so Chris: Because Ron's company also went into Baker, right? Michael: Sorry? Chris: Ron's company also went into Baker, so you ended up having Baker... Michael: His first company went into Baker, yeah. Chris: So Baker ended up being like a holding for all of these ILI companies. Michael: Sort of, but then all sorts of things happened, and you would have to ask those gentlemen, like Mark Olson or Ron Thompson or Paul Larson, what happened after that. because new companies were formed again. I mean, the CPIC, I mean, you know, Entegra. Entegra sort of was started by people that were originally CPIC and then Baker for a while, and then they started CPIC. Rhett: Mark Olson again. Chris: Mark Olson, Rick Desoniers again. Michael: Sometimes in history, you go full circles. So I'll share this with you. Remember, Pipetronics, Canadian part, German part, ultrasound. and MFL. Chris: Magnetics. Michael: And on the German side, some people had left for whatever reasons and they founded this company called NDT Systems and Services, which were heavily into ultrasound. They didn't do any MFL, at least not when they started. But NDT Systems and Services was also sold at one point and bought by somebody and that person also sold it on and ended up with privium yeah edify um and and and they eventually they bought integra not so long ago but when you think about it it's pipetronics too because they brought together the canadian part or some people of the canadian part and of the Rhett: It's circular. I got what you're saying. Michael: It's not the same people anymore because a lot of people have retired or done other things. But when you think about it, I think it's quite an interesting story. Rhett: So it's funny. So you've got Baker gobbling up all these companies. Baker gobbles up and acquires a whole bunch and becomes the Baker GE and then eventually GE, then eventually Baker. But when we put those two together, becomes the entity. that we know it today, which is actually a smorgasbord of many different technologies that were assembled from the fallout of kind of the Pipetronic side, but really driven mostly by the Canadian or North American market, I'm going to say. And we know that after GE, they went on and respawned new companies and have now kind of regathered. And so I've got the picture of Baker GE on one side. I've got the picture of NDT forming on the other side of the pond, which is in its infancy and only concerned with ultrasonics. But there's one major player we're all familiar with that had its birthplace in Lingen. And so I'm curious if you know the origin story there, because you mentioned Lingen was this hot seat. Chris: We haven't heard the big R yet. Rhett: Yeah, there's this hot seat in Lingen. There must be a tie there with Rosen. in lingon Michael: right yeah um so so rosen and i i must say at this point i mean i worked for different ili vendors which i think was already clear but i had the the honor and privilege to work for rosen for for the last third of my career and i must say that herman rosen definitely is one of my really big heroes in the pipeline industry And I don't know all the little secrets, so you would have to talk to Herman himself. Chris: Maybe you can help us get Herman on the podcast. Rhett: Yeah, we don't need to start with the garage story or the climbing out of the window story that most of us that work there are familiar with. Michael: So the company was founded in 1981. So this is slightly behind the tuboscopes and the vetcos of this world. And the truth is that Herman started in an office above a garage. So Steve Jobs started in the garage. Herman started. on top of the garage so we'll leave it hanging there and and then he's a electrical engineer and i think he even started in that business so he was doing electric engineering thingies but then he discovered our industry and i think the first tool in my recollection i mean i wasn't at rosen at the time but i think the first tool he developed with his team was a caliper tool and then following on from that he went into mfl technology and and then you know this wonderful story of Rosen and today I mean we I told you what the companies were at the time but today of course we all know Rosen is definitely the number one company rosen group yeah in in our industry inline inspection and um integrity assessment so so it was herman uh entrepreneur very clever technical person excellent Chris: so michael i have to jump in because i'd love for somebody to correct us um obviously when i got indoctrinated and at the time into rosen when i got hired on by mr yoxel I was like, man, you know, give me the origin story. So we hear the garage. So we hear all that. But the other one that I heard was it's I had to assume it was with cop. Apparently Herman was driving and he saw some lads on the side of the road doing something. So he pulls over and he's like, what are you doing? And they were like, oh, you know, we're inspecting a pipeline. He's like, well, what? And that's the first time he got exposed to a caliper pig. And so he was like, oh. i can do this as an electronics engineer and then he goes back to his garage and voila uh what we now know as rosen is born and i just thought man how cool is that because back to the whole full circle if that's true you know it's just that whole idea of like COP. Michael: It's very interesting you sharing this. I can well believe it. I wasn't at Rosen at the time, and I haven't been at Rosen as long as Chris, so I'll have to tell Chris why didn't you tell me that story. It's embarrassing that I don't know that story. But it all started in Lingen, and there was also... some connection or some relationship between Herman Rosen and the Kopp family. I don't know any details. You would have to ask him. So there are good reasons why, you know, Lingen, I mean, Lingen really is the center of anything to do with pigging in Germany. um now my friends here and students say wouldn't like that so but you know don't don't tell them um but students they of course because of the development of the ultrasonic tool became like sort of the second center uh within germany but lingen and students a those are the two places and and coming back to students what i find amazing is that sometimes you know when i when i When I wasn't retired, so when I was still traveling a lot, people didn't know Karlsruhe, you know, Carl Benz and all that. They didn't even know which part of Germany I come from, but they all heard the name Stutensee. Oh, Stutensee, that's where those ILI tools come from. And Lingen, of course, the same thing. So lots of people in our industry know Lingen. But Hermann, of course, is a very, very important part. of our industry, but sort of started, it was another nucleus. Know what I mean? So there was this TCPL side of things, British gas side of things. And then, of course, the tuboscope and TTW were at the origin. I mean, TTW were the folks that came up with the first caliber tool. To my knowledge, that was actually TT Williamson. And then tuboscope were the first MFL tool. Rhett: So I want to lay the landscape for most of our modern industry audience. Just think about me. When you think about the major players in the industry, I think Rosen. Chris: TD Williamson. Rhett: TDW. Michael: And NDT. Rhett: No, I wasn't done. Rosen, NDT, TDW, Baker, Integra, Novatec. You know, so many of those, right? So Rosen, we theorize, has some connection to COP and that, you know, not a direct connection, but an association by geography. Michael: They knew each other. I'm not saying there is a connection with these two companies. Rhett: But then these other ones, think about it. So Baker GE gobbles up all of these companies that come out of the PII. Pipetronics merger, right? And then those people kind of go off and do their own thing, right? So you get NDT forming over here on the ultrasonic side, Integra forming up on the MFL side. They eventually come back under one umbrella together. You've got another individual who starts his company, Ron Thompson, Novatek, who's back on the MFL scene, right? And is a player today. But it's funny to think, you know, that the industry, while it gets gobbled up and got condensed. uh it's kind of circular as you pointed out right like so ge gobbled them all up and then they spawn new ones and now they're being gobbled up again over here Michael: as i said it's It's a small industry. It's sort of a bit like a family. And me and others always say you have to be friendly to each other because you meet everybody at least twice. Chris: And again, just a little bit of kind of like a footnote, right? So, I mean, there are so many more ally companies out there, right? Rhett: This is true. Chris: And we're not trying to cover everybody, right? The idea here is a little bit of like a disclaimer. It's like this is Michael's story, right? This is his experience. I mean, there's still companies like Enduro, right? that here in the US and other companies that we like, we didn't, I mentioned quest and how quest was also then, you know, uh, got like merged into bought by Baker. Um, you know, we didn't get into the, the whole like line of log NDT tuba scope site. So there's, there's all these other fantastic companies that are doing really cool things. This is, again, the focus here is it's, it's just kind of Michael story and like his perspective. He said, this is my nostalgia, right? This is what I've seen in his story. So just a little bit of a footnote there for everybody. Let's go on the technology side. So we've talked about the big R. When you came in, you gave us a good idea of ultrasonics. And honestly, you did a great job because when I think of ultrasonics and NDT systems, I think metal loss. But then there's another big component of cracks. What's your nostalgia and storytelling about cracks? Michael: Well, the crack story actually started in the 70s when a very little German company called Goetheke. was actually the dad of the gentleman I mentioned before. He developed an eddy current crack inspection tool. Now, the issue with eddy current is you can only measure things on the near side. So this tool was only good for internal cracks rather than the whole and wasn't commercially such a big story. But that was basically the first crack inspection tool. um in in the history of ili and then it went on that um companies um pipetronics for instance developed the first ultrasonic piezoelectric crack inspection tool which was commercialized in the 1994 1995 so some 10 years after the Chris: and at that point you were at ndt systems right systems and services at this point Michael: no no no no pipetronics pipetronics um were the first people to come up with a um slanted beam crack inspection tool using piezoelectric uh sensors because ndt only happened after the turn of the century Chris: i'm just trying to check here a little right but the the pipetronics side that was in the 90s though 80s 90s when they were doing the slanted beam ut i'm talking when when ndt brought it around that's at that point you were with ndt systems for the development technology Michael: when the ndt started they started with a white sheet of paper so to speak because they came from pipetronics and they also developed wall thickness measurement tools but also crack inspection tools that's correct but pipetronics they were the first guys to have that so the first technology that that that you could call a high resolution crack inspection technology was piezoelectric ultrasonic tools which of course need a liquid coupling so they're not really ideal for gas pipelines where cracks are more more dangerous and and then the next step was the development of the EMAT tools and EMAT of course is also ultrasound but people call it something different it's just the mode of how you create the ultrasound is different it's an electromagnetic principle to create the ultrasound but the tool itself is an ultrasonic tool and That development started in two companies. So actually Pipetronics also was working on that prior to being taken over by PII. At the very same time, there were all these wonderful developments at Rosen, ending with the Rosen EMAT tool. And names that have to be mentioned are, of course, Herman, because he had the vision to have such a tool. But I would like to... mentioned George and Ron Ahlers, who in San Luis Obispo were, you know, very important people driving this technology. So that's the EMAT technology. And then later, we find that, you know, even more refinements were possible. So today they're also phased array tools looking for cracks and stuff like that. And it was actually PII that introduced the first phased array tool that could do cracks and wall thickness at the same time with something called a linear phased array. This is round about a bit after turn of the century. And because we're more interested in the history and people rather than the technology, there's another name I would like to mention, Wolfgang Krieg. You met him when he was with Rosen, but he was also...with other companies. Wolfgang was my boss several times when we met over and over again, and I have very fond memories of him. And it gets even more interesting because it's Wolfgang's brother, Professor Gunther Krieg, who was sort of one of the most important people in getting this first ultrasonic tool actually being developed. So the Krieg family also plays a very important part in our industry. Rhett: Fascinating. I feel like we could, Chris, I really feel like we could keep going. Chris: I have one regret. We're not actually doing this over a beer. That would have been fantastic. I could totally go for a Dunkel or a Hefeweizen. Rhett: Yeah, so it's so interesting when you hear how many of the people within the industry, and if there's one thing, audience, that I hope you take away from this, you've actually said it several times, Michael. And I say it, but probably not from the amount of background and history you do, which is you should assume that whoever you're working for or working with, you will see in some capacity again in the industry, either as a client, as a boss, or as a colleague. And it really speaks to how well you need to treat each other and how small the integrity industry is. Because again, you might be working for someone today. And then you might be working with them or they might be working for you later on. Right. Like that. I don't think that's going to change. Chris: I'll say it a different way. I would say I think we're all blessed to be in a really cool industry. Rhett: Yeah, we are. Chris: It's small, but it's big. But we all kind of know each other. We're all we're all mission oriented for, you know, public and pipeline safety. And we all know the importance of the energy infrastructure. And we play a super cool part in that. And I love that you were willing to come on and give your perspective and your nostalgia um without you know guys like you guys coming on and sharing uh some of these untold stories or things that people couldn't find in a book somewhere uh this would be a lot less fun so that's just my way of saying that Michael: I just want to say i'm really grateful that i had the privilege of being in this industry like 38 years i first hired now But I'm still keeping myself busy, but mainly on the lecturing side and writing articles and being involved with some conferences. And I think we have an industry full of clever, talented people, but also very nice people like yourself. So I thoroughly enjoy this. Rhett: Well, thank you. And again, about that book, man, you should talk to Jerry Rao. Maybe we have a third book in the beginning. Chris: Nothing against Jerry, but I don't know. Maybe we should rethink the origins of... Yeah, we could totally geek out on this. We might have to figure out how to do this. If you know of a good publisher, Let us know, Michael. I know that was one of our offline discussions. Rhett: Well, fantastic. Michael, really, thank you for joining us. It's been a pleasure having you on. To our audience, thank you for listening to the origin story of ILI Technologies and the players, many of the major players we know today. We hope you'll stick around as we continue our conversations with esteemed guests in the industry. Thanks, and we'll see you again in a couple of weeks. This episode of Pipeline Things was executive produced by Kara Turner and filmed by Ms. Haley Smith. Thank you to Forme Marketing for allowing us to use their facilities and especially to our guest, Michael Beller, for joining us on this episode.