Hydrogen

Bongaards, Don

My degree is in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Upon graduation in 1964, I was commissioned a lieutenant in the United States Army Corps of Engineers and served in Vietnam.

In August 1966, I began my career with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. During the first seventeen years, my experience was primarily in nuclear steam generator development. During the last four years of these seventeen years, I was promoted to Section Engineering Manager and, later, Department Engineering Manager of a $40-million Atomic Energy Commission (presently the Department of Energy [DOE]) contract to develop a steam generator for a “breeder” nuclear power plant. My department also performed government contract engineering studies to develop solar power steam generators and fluidized bed coal gasification boilers.

In 1982, I transferred to the Thermo King Corporation (a subsidiary of Westinghouse) to become Engineering Manager for the Truck Transport Refrigeration Equipment Department. During the early portion of my employment with Thermo King, my engineering group developed a newline of truck refrigeration equipment for the world market. I was later given responsibility for design engineering activities at Thermo King factories in Barcelona, Spain; Hamble, England; and Prague, Czech Republic

(Formerly Czechoslovakia). Before retirement in 2001, I was responsible for the successful development of a new line of refrigeration equipment for the Japanese market and the development of a new alternator-powered refrigeration system for the European market.

I have written numerous technical papers for international conferences and for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and currently 218 hold seven patents. I was also the Chairman of the Florida West Coast Section of ASME in 1974-75 and passed the state of Florida professional Engineering examination in 1975.

My experience in power generation equipment design, and the design and manufacturing of complex electromechanical equipment, makes me uniquely qualified to evaluate the process of producing hydrogen and the mass production costs of equipment associated with that process.