Latest / Upon Further Inspection / Episode 18 - From Tropics to Tundra (featuring Alexander Gonzalez)

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Episode 18 - From Tropics to Tundra (featuring Alexander Gonzalez) · Upon Further Inspection

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Upon further inspection, a mechanical integrity podcast goes beyond the data and dives into the people, challenges, and stories behind reliability and inspection.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're in the field or in the office, this podcast is for you because mechanical integrity isn't about assets, it's about the people who keep them running.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, Alex, welcome to the show today.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Brandon.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And alongside me, I have Greg Alvarado.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Greg.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Good seeing you.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning, everybody.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Good seeing you all too.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, Alex, I I see you really active on LinkedIn a lot.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always nice to see your comments and your perspective and your thoughts in the world of MI.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's go kind of a little bit back to the beginning.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: How did you kind of get installed involved in mechanical integrity?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Was that something schooling and college that you got into, or how did we kind of get to that place?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely my inclination or my leaning into the mechanical integrity world was since my college days.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: At that time, I was just taking materials engineering and I have a minor in metallurgy.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And there was this kind of oil and gas boom back in those days.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: There was one kind of little branch that specialized, which was the corrosion of materials in the oil and gas industry.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I was enrolled in several kind of courses during my college years, and I was hooked from the beginning on that.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I took metallurgy as a minor in my college career because there were other minors.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: And there was this one on metallurgy.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: I took that metallurgy.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: But within metallurgy, there was actually two sub-branches, so to speak, where people were leaning into one over the other, which was one is the steelmaking process, and the other one was corrosion.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I was kind of hooking into the corrosion and materials in the college days.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when I was in school, we had a materials degree as well.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they were at the school I was at, they were really into polymers and ceramics.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So coming into this industry with people being on the metallurgy side, it was a little different.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did you start out?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like how did you how did you start looking at metals?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why why was it that metal was so interesting to you and even that corrosion?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of people were probably interested in, you know, the actual smelting and and making of steel and the phase curves and all that.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But corrosion, how what was it about corrosion that interested you?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: I have to be honest.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: When I was in college, the first year is kind of nobody had a kind of a subject to specialize on.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody was just doing the basic courses like physics, maths, uh, uh chemistry one, type of thing.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then at the end of the first year is where you're going to start taking, okay, what are you going to do going forward during the rest of your college career?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: So you can decide whether, oh, I'm going to take mechanical engineer or chemical engineer or materials engineer.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: I have to be completely honest.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the first year, I was even not having what I'm going to do.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I started talking to professors and other kind of colleagues and said, What are you going to take?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: Are you going to take mechanical?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Are you going to take electrical?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I honestly not feeling anything really passionate about any of them.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of where I have, so to speak, a little bit of uh analysis by paralysis or whatever is the name.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh then I decided, okay, I have to pick three options actually.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's how the system works at that college.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: So then, based on supply and demand of people wanting to take one career over the others, they set up the minimal kind of uh marks to entry into that career.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I picked my first option was materials, but to be honest, it was just because I didn't feel any passion for mechanical or chemical.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was having this discussion because at that time there was a new career in the college was geophysics.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's very interesting.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: We saw a lot of companies trying to recruit people.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: Companies like Slumberger were visiting college to look at people that were ready to graduate and kind of offering employment right from the beginning.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, this is very attractive, especially for employment prospects down the road, but I was not having it.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I decided, okay, I'm gonna submit my paperwork with materials engineers as my first option.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, I got accepted, partly, to be honest, because it was not a career that was in high demand compared with chemical, obviously, mechanical.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the very popular ones.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I entered into this second year, now formally into materials engineering, and that's where I got hooked with the first course was material science 101 type of thing.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Then I started talking to people and meeting professors, and I start meeting now professors that teach corrosion, professors that teach steelmaking, and that's where they say, okay, now I'm getting potential uh ways or avenues to specialize a little bit more.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: So then with Material Science 101, it was just plain and simple, uh kind of normal ones that it was not at that point that you look into still making process or corrosion.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Not at that point.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, with my talks with professor, some students that were ready to kind of get their degree, so advanced students at that time, then start talking, and then some people say, Yes, corrosion, look, uh, I'm gonna have an internship in an oil and gas uh company right away.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're having this novelty thing about corrosion loops.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where I got hook on that and say after that, say, okay, I'm gonna take all the courses that align with that kind of path.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there were there were networks and relationships that were beginning to form at that time, and those would segue you into the profession that you eventually found out about.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Were there any interesting projects in university, Alex, that were also exposing you to the oil and gas or petrochemical world that you were involved in?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: I remember vividly in one class, the professor was just talking about projects that was being carried out at the Statue of Liberty to avoid the corrosion due to marine environment and using just uh sacrificial anodes inside the skin from inside the statue.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: To me, it was just fascinating.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Up to a point that later I didn't visit New York, but my dad was, and I said to him, if you have the opportunity to go to Statue of Liberty, go inside at that time, I don't know now, but at that time uh tourists can go inside and start kind of climbing the stairs.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Please take pictures of those sacrificial anodes.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's one of the stories that I got hooked on on the corrosion thing.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going back to Brandon's comment about LinkedIn and just to connect with your comment about the networking thing.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: I guess from that point in time when I started talking to colleagues, talking to professors, I understood the probably not consciously, but understood that I have this ability to meet people, exchange ideas that ended up having me using LinkedIn as a social media to interact with colleagues.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: When you first realized, it sounds like you probably realized back either in college or just coming out of college that you had kind of this innate skill to be able to network.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: What for somebody who maybe doesn't have that, what do you think is the best place for somebody to start with trying to get themselves over the hump of starting networking?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think that be open and be vulnerable to just put yourself out.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that one of the tools like LinkedIn is one of them that you can just participate as much as you want.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, I try to keep it professionally and not engaging in any other kind of topics that can derail my idea of exchange ideas with colleagues.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that I guess be brave to experiment with these type of tools.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And if it works for you, perfect.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: If it's not, nobody is pushing you to keep going on that path.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: So also I'm really advocate to meet people face to face.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I heard the story here in the city and live in Calgary, Alberta, that it's I it's an oil and gas town and everybody knows everybody.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: So somebody told me that in this particular city it's like 1.5 degrees of separation, meaning that everybody knows everybody.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's almost impossible to not meet people even when you're walking between buildings in the downtown area.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: I try to, hey, let's just have lunch, let's just have coffee.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: I also play this kind of game when I meet new people, it's like sweet and sour.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, tell me one sweet thing and one sour thing that is happening right now in your life.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if you think about it, it's open a little bit of a truss.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: So if you uh hear me saying something that is not going well, and then you open to also exchange and share your point of view on things that are not going well on your end as well.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I try to practice this with the people that I met, but uh obviously sometimes people just don't take it right from the beginning.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: It could be something that is quite invasive, but it is kind of my approach.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's like be vulnerable and be open.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: And if it works, great.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: If it's not, okay, move on.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Fortunately, there are many other things that we can do, and lots of new people, not just focus on okay, I'm going to meet only oil and gas people.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm just meeting people with different types of background and that I can kind of nurture from that background and incorporate it into my networking skills as well.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I try to also not be too much transactional.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you are so transactional, it's like you're getting advantage of me or you want something out of me only.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: I try to avoid that.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: To be honest, is it's quite difficult sometimes, but it's a give and take, so to speak.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Alex, your transparency and uh what I take as advice to have the courage to be vulnerable as priceless.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's refreshing in today's world, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because most of the stuff we see posted on the internet as people at their best moments.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: We don't see the, you know, the times that we fail.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and remember that most people who are successes became a success only after many failures, which took a lot of courage to get up and keep going and to be resilient, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell And even in the public space, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you look at sports athletes and actors and and people, there's so much public relations training that they go through to just be blah, being able to actually in a real conversation with people to kind of be able to get out of that and actually have a real human relationship and conversation is great.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because usually people are only showing you when they're like this.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but that's I love the example of baseball.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I know being from Venezuela, there's a lot of baseball friends down there, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what other where else can you fail two out of three times and still be in the in the Hall of Fame?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's uh when you're batting.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: If I get a 333 average, hey, I'm doing pretty good, man.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Especially these days, it's all about slug now.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: But it the other thing you mentioned that was interesting is you said Calgary's a small world, low degrees of separation.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think even just in general, our industry of mechanical integrity, inspection, and engineering within the manufacturing space.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's amazing how many times I talk to people and they're like, oh yeah, I know so-and-so, or I know so-and-so.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like for being such a large revenue-generating industry, it is a very small network of people.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So to be able to expand your network outside, whether it's inside of or outside of the industry, is great.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, the other thing you mentioned was when you were in school, you mentioned oil and gas.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: That was interesting for me to hear because I went to school in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Cleveland is known for outside of Atlanta being a very big medical center.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: We have the Cleveland Clinic here, we have university hospitals.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I was in school, everybody was talking about, oh, how do we go design stuff for medical?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do we design bioengineering?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when I took my chemical engineering classes, a lot of the labs and a lot of the professors were working towards the bioengineering and the biospace.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it was interesting for me coming out of there to hear that other schools like Texas AM is huge in the oil and gas industry because of the region that it's in.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So did you, when you originally were going to school, were you thinking about oil and gas?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is that why you went to that school?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or you just said, hey, engineering is something I'm interested in because I'm good at science, I'm good at math, and I'll figure it out from there.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or did you kind of know already that space was something you were interested in?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: No, I was very clear on my objective of engineering at that time.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: However, as I mentioned before, I don't know what kind of engineering at that time.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: However, just based on your company, it was very similar back in the days in Venezuela that we had a pretty big oil and gas industry.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that permeates other sectors in the society.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: And one was education.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: So when you just jump into college, in the back of your mind, you still have, okay, well, everybody wants to be an employee of an oil and gas company.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time, the national oil and gas company was so big that everybody wants to work for them, for sure.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: That also permeates the educational system at the college level.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody wants to have an internship there.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: And in a sense, you actually are influenced by that, subconsciously or not, but you are influenced by having an employment on this type of companies is good.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the future was bright, oil and gas was booming.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: At that time, the national oil and gas company was having a project to expand and growth.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: At that time, we were producing around three and a half million barrels per day.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And the project was just to increase that up to a five million per day type of thing.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: The future was right on that area.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And we were from college, we were looking at that as okay, this is where I wanted to be.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: It looks like a good company, obviously, good employment and good salaries, and this type of other benefits added.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you kind of knew that was the space that you were going.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you you got through college.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So then where did you end up then after after graduating with your materials and minor in the metallurgy?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: During my college year, I did a little bit of internships, and I had the opportunity to do internships in the oil and gas industry.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I I kind of did a little bit of internship doing some failure analysis.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: The operating side of the business and failed parts, and we tried to do metallurgical examinations, kind of metallography and other kind of type of tests.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: That was my initial contact with the corporate world, so to speak, out of college and now looking into how a company works in that area of science, so to speak.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: And right after college, I continued my working in a research and development lab that was associated with the oil and gas company.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I following the direction of certain projects that were there, I ended up working on a project to classify the crude oils that we have been sent, like examples, classify that based on the naphthenic acid corrosion potential using autoclave testing.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we actually had very bright minds there come up with some novel techniques to come up with some correlations of not just to the typical tank number means a higher corrosion rate.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: But what about if I have a crude role and I have very high time number, but it's actually not corrosive as a based on experience?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I participate in this type of test during my stay there initially as a contractor.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where I start getting into okay, now I got my degree and now I'm getting into corrosion and formally and doing this type of activities.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds pretty exciting, Alex.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And for the benefit of some of the listeners who may not be familiar from the chemical industry that may not understand what's so important about those tan numbers, but those are the numbers that oil companies use to predict the corrosivity of those crudes coming in, because you'll hear about sweet crudes versus sour crudes.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Tan and sulfur are two things that a lot of companies look at when they get their original crude assays in to try to estimate number one, the cost.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Usually you get a cheaper cost on the crude if it's got more of those nasties in it, right?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: But then the other thing is how much is it going to tear up your equipment downstream?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that might be a good segue into carrying on your, you know, going downstream now with your career from where you started.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Can you speak a little bit more to that, Alex?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh maybe for the audience, at that time we were having some kind of political turmoil in Venezuela.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: And obviously, I would not know what would happen in the future, but at that time everything was kind of disrupted.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: A bunch of people were pretty much based on the political environment, were actually laid off.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: The industry went into disarrayed for these political reasons, not for uh professional reasons, but it's just the government just tried to mess around with this national oil and gas company.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, in a certain way, that's where my career took a different route.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was having this uh aspiration to be a corrosion engineer and work in a refinery and play with the material selection process, that type of thing.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: But then this disrupted everything.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: In a certain way, disrupt families, uh, disrupt career plans and everything.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And my career plan was actually disrupted.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a little bit of a period of adaptation where I didn't have employment.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I wanted to know what's next for me now that I was not able to work for oil and gas company anymore.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then I started kind of like back to square one.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: And what I'm gonna do now?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I would like to continue in this area, but obviously job prospects were reduced almost to zero if you are not aligned with the government at the time.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I kind of start almost back to square one, as I said before, and start working as an inspector, doing some pipeline inspections cross-country.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: I just having a completely kind of setup.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was coming from a research and development line, working with bright minds into now just a walk uh three, four, five kilometers per day, just walking doing close interval surveys and stuff like that.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so it was kind of uh swing or sink type of thing, something like that, right?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um sink or swim, yeah.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly that one.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: And there was, excuse me, I'll just in all honesty, and this is hugely well, there was a diaspora of sorts that occurred at that time, and that's what you're talking about now.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: Which at the end, it helps me to be now in Canada as I am, because there were so many people that ended up leaving the country.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: We typically are not kind of uh the ones that are getting out.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: And Venezuelan population were just more accustomed to receive people.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, for example, in the 50s and 60s, you receive people from Europe uh coming from the World War II.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: We were not immigrant type of a population, but for these types of reasons, people were forced to.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: So then we are kind of ending in Houston, ending in Saudi Arabia.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Some people ended in Canada.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where, based on certain kind of relationship that I had at the time, says Alex, there is an opportunity here in Canada.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Canadian oil companies are looking for engineers, and they they have a shortage of engineers.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they are looking into hiring people from UK, from South Africa, and from Venezuela.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Are you interested?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh any anything that kind of improved my way of living at the time, sure, I will take it.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I participated on some interviews and fortunately enough, I got selected, and that's where I moved out of Venezuela and now living in Canada.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that where you were?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Was it in Canada then?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's where you were doing the inspection work, or you you emigrated from doing the inspection work then up to Canada?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, my inspection work was in Venezuela, and they I found other contractors' jobs working in what's uh an upgraded, a crude oil upgrader at that time, which are kind of joint ventures between American companies like Conaco Philips, Chevron, Excel Mobil, and the national oil company.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I ended up working there after my my experience being an inspector.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I was working there, and then I started looking at people leaving the companies going out of Venezuela.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then some of them were really good anchors to bring more people to the States, to Canada.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Some went to Saudi Arabia, and some good friends ended up here in Canada, and they just called me and said, Hey, these companies here in Canada are looking for more people.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: Are you interested?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: If if you are, then we can set up some kind of interviews and see how it goes.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and certainly I've seen this over the years, Alex, and I've had the pleasure of working with and meeting some extremely talented engineers from Venezuela, yourself included, but many others, Shell, Exxon, Suncor, all the companies.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: So what was it, Alex?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Once you came to Canada, was there anything new?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Was there anything that you realized that was kind of just like eye-opening for you?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because you you'd spent I mean your entire life in Venezuela and originally working, you know, for the oil and gas.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And once you got a different perspective, right?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like for me, I lived in Ohio and I travel all over the country and I like seeing different people and different ways of uh how they operate.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Was there anything that was a little bit different for you or new for you once you got to uh once you got to Canada?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: Very interesting question because when you move from down there, Venezuela to Canada, you're looking into, okay, I'm moving into a first-world country, they probably are going to use top-notch technology and all these type of things.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna learn a lot of of those things.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: And what I found was without this in Canada, of course, is that the things that we were doing back there in Venezuela were really top-notch as well.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we were just having good technology and good people.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: So when I arrived here, it's like in a certain way we had things better in Venezuela.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, for example, I recall back there we actually have these 3D models that you click on the 3D model and look at corrosion rates and look at whether you can see a maintenance history of that particular TML or piece of pipe when I come here.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: That was just at the beginning of the stage in Canada.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I had that a while ago.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a realization that we were, again, not to this Canada in that sense, but we were really good at what we were doing back there in Venezuela, for sure.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: So that tells you not just technology, but also people.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: I had the privilege to work with people in Venezuela when I was working in that research lab that ended up being very well known in the industry, very well recognized.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I can name a few.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: I briefly worked with Jorge Howe, which is a recognized contributor in the industry.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I ended up meeting Greg, actually, because when I mentioned Jorge's name to Greg, he probably clicks that I was part of that Venezuelan group that started to move out of Venezuela, finding new opportunities elsewhere.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: In my case, I ended up in Canada.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: But that tells you that yes, we have top-notch resources, uh, good people, and pretty good technology.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: I get that that when I just arrive into a new country is a lot of cultural adaptation, but in terms of technical challenge, I would tell you that I was not having any kind of shock there.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, yeah, I know this, I know that.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely is something that I knew from the past.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back now, right?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: I guess what what year did you end up moving to Canada?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as I said before, the political environment in Venezuela wasn't not good.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: So people were leaving.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: There were pretty much uh environment that was not rewarding.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: People that oppose the government.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: And in that sense, you were like being in a blacklist.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And you have no opportunities for employment if you oppose the government.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: And with that, there's one big national oil company that controls everything, controls ventures with the American companies, controls employments in the industry.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really difficult to get a job without that kind of buy-in.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: So people start leaving.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where I have to start looking at okay, I need to leave if I want to continue my career.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what what year was this that you were that you ended up leaving?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: I left at in 2007.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Probably in the 2003, 2004 years.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: So in that sense, I actually had that opportunity, but after that, everything was more complicated to leave the country.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: So looking back then, so you've had almost 20 years now since leaving.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, why do you think that Venezuela was so maybe how do I say this?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess advanced compared to what you were seeing.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that do you think that it was being driven by the national oil company?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think it was the influence of the Exxons, the Chevrons, the Conocos?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that looking back, there was so much advancement there as opposed to maybe where else you'd been or where you ended up?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we definitely have a strong influence on North American companies when oil was discovered, then obviously the country was open to foreign investments.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where the ExxonMobiles of the war, the shells of the world came to Venezuela and started helping building these refineries, up to a point that there was a point in time that our refinery complex was the biggest refinery complex in the world, processing almost a million barrels per day.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: But there was that influence of people from Shell, people from ExxonMobil, people from Chevron, it comes to Venezuela as well as at that time it was probably the 70s, 80s.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: The Venezuelan government made a conscious effort to prepare resources of the people.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: So they created a national scholarship program.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, people were just leaving the country to take masters at Oklahoma University, take masters on other kinds of American universities or in Europe, and then they will return.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then when they return, they return with this type of knowledge and ways to do things that get advantage inside the company.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it is a mixture between this type of initiatives from the government at the time and then the influence of the foreign investments of these oil and gas companies as well.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the service companies, right?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: The Halliburtons, the Slumberger's, those are huge organizations as well, right?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, definitely.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: We have the option portion that we need to drill this type of wells.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: So the Haliburton, the slumberger of the world as well.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they create this kind of incentive to prepare people, as you know, there is uh intertwined things of people and culture.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: So Americans ended up marrying Venezuelans and the other way around as well.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that and you had the innies there and the totals as well.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: So in addition to the US and maybe Canada, you had other countries investing heavily.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then there were kind of a discovery of uh huge reserves of oil in the east part of the country, and that's where the government invests on create a joint venture with the foreign companies, and that's where they start building these uh extra heavy crude oil upgraders to improve the quality of the crude oil and to make synthetic uh crude oil, so to speak.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where we have joint venture with Chevron, with Conoco Philips, with ExxonMobil.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: So uh crude oil uh upgraders align side by side.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: One is a joint venture with the Conoco, another was with ExxonMobil, another was with Total.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people got that also that influence of the oiling resources that comes to Venezuela to work on those types of plants.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And in other places, like in the US, I mean Venezuelan wasn't the only place we got heavy crude from, but we started these massive alloy upgrading projects over here so that the refineries could run sweet and sour crudes and take advantage of the price differences of the raw product, right?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: Correct, correct.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because obviously if there is an economic incentive to run those sour crudes, because they were just cheaper than the sweet crudes, but then you have to alloy up your plan.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where here we go, corrosion engineers will participate into these types of things, right?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the mechanical integrity people.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: They're all part of that solution, the many layers of protection.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing that Brandon was just talking about, the influence, uh, we actually have a very strong influence on things like national board and API certifications.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because at that time it was just not a certification itself for us.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a ticket for employment.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: So if you show that you have an API 510, you are very well recognized.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you have certain knowledge that is being looked after.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we saw that okay, we need to start looking into getting that and not just stay with your uh initial spectre or mechanical integrity knowledge, but also get a certification.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where I guess in in Venezuela we are really leaning into certification as a way to not just get knowledge but also better employment opportunities.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: That kind of is part of a personal development program.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: Then when I moved to Canada, those standards and recommended practice being applied here were not stranger, strange to me.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: So here in Canada, in the US, everybody was talking the 510, 570 language.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we had that certification back there in Venezuela.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just like, yes, I understand what you're talking about, and I can plug myself in quickly.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's kind of neat you say that because I never looked at it that way before, but things like 510, 570 or NBIC, whatever, there's a common language there.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we both have that 570 or both have that 510 and both have that knowledge, wherever we came from, there's a commonality there and an understanding.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: I have a pretty interesting story.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead, Brendan.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna say it's it's interesting hearing you say that because when we had Andrea Orphanides on, she was mentioning she's from API and she heads up the whole certification program.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she was mentioning that they already know that there's a large adoption of API across the world, and they're looking to figure out how they can continue the expanding on that.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of a cool link for me to hear that that that that's kind of how it's all happening in that common language.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, what yeah, what's what story do you have?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: I just had kind of an interesting story how I ended up nailing my job interview here in Canada.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: At that time, I was just uh preparing myself to take, I was still in Venezuela, I was preparing myself to take the 510 certification exam.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I took a training course and obviously read the end-to-end the recommended practice and standards and codes and everything.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then the interview kind of called came and said, Okay, we're gonna have a kind of a screening phone interview, and if you pass, you maybe need to travel to Canada to have a face-to-face interview and say, Okay, sure.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: I passed the phone interview, then they sent me the airline tickets to come to Canada and have the interview, the face-to-face one.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: At that time, I already took the exam for 510, and my my knowledge was fresh, very fresh.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like two weeks before the interview that I took the exam.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I ended up here in the interview, obviously, the HR person and then technical person, QA managers and everything.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: And they were just the typical behavioral questions.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then they started throwing me technical questions.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember that a QA manager that I he ended up being my boss later on, asked questions about tell me about when we can do this type of process instead of post-wed heat treatment.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I recall vividly, that was a question from the API 510 exam.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it says, Oh, sure, of course.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is you need to do this and that.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's like, oh wow, Alex knows his things.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was just not luck, but it was very good kind of a coincidence that I had that fresh knowledge from my API 510 exam.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I nail the question and says, okay, good.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that makes me happy that at the end the QA manager told me, Yes, I throw that on purpose and see if what you're doing, and you nail it.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: So you're good.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: But that's the importance of this type of certifications and programs.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely I can see the influence of API across the world.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we have uh other standards in Australia and in Europe, but definitely API is being recognized.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why people actually also took this type of certifications for employment kind of mindset that says, yes, with an API 510, maybe I can get a job in Malaysia or in, I don't know, Vietnam or on Southeast Asia contents, because the API is very well recognized on that.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it travels.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: It travels well.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh okay, so I have a question.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: You come from Venezuela, and I know there's plenty of different climates in Venezuela, but I when I think of Venezuela, I think of hot, warm, beautiful weather, and then you end up in northern Alberta, where it is landlocked, there is no ocean, there's no beaches, and it is terribly cold for a large span of the year.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: How did that go?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was very challenging, definitely.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was living in a coastal town in Venezuela, so the upgraders were just in front of the beach, literally.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I was living in an average plus 30 degrees Celsius in all year round.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, to be honest, and probably 80, 90 type of thing.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then suddenly found myself with my wife in a town where the winter can reach minus 40 degrees.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: At that point in time, I learned that minus 40 in Celsius is the same as minus 40 in Fahrenheit.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: So of course the snow was the novelty at the time.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: After a while, the the joke about the white stuff every day becomes a reality and can be exhausting.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it was challenging.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I have to be honest, uh, the coal itself is not a big factor for me.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can have good jackets and ready to go.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: For me, what is was and still at up to this day is the lack of sunlight.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because obviously we are going into that kind of way up north that 4 p.m.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: during winter time is completely dark.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you actually left your home to go to office, it's dark.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: And when you come back home, it's dark.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: So the lack of sunlight, especially coming from living in a coastal town with beach every day and exposure to sunlight is a challenge for me.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: But it is something that, okay, we have to go with the program.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: This is it, this is what we have to kind of sign for when we decide to move to Canada.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, it definitely is a kind of adaptation that was challenging, but it has worked out perfectly.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Upon Further Inspection on the Canon Integrity Podcast.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: This episode was co-created by Inspectioneering and Core Solutions.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our producers are Nick Schmoyer, Jocelyn Christie, and Jeremiah Woo.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional advice.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Listeners should seek their own qualified advisors for guidance.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, please join us next time wherever you listen to your podcast.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, stay safe and stay informed.