Michael Vander Vorste P.E. Email & Phone Number

Sioux Falls, Sd, Us

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States

Technical and Operations support, troubleshooting and training for Ethanol production.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States

As the Associate District Manager for GOBS (Grains, Oils, Biofuels and Sugars) I am responsible for all Account Managers with territories in the Western half of the United States. We provide service, technical insight and sales for advanced cleaning chemistry and processes. • My team’s sales have grown over 300% in the last two years, which includes the challenging aspects during the COVID pandemic.• I developed metrics to track plant improvements based on our activities and products used. I am able to show $1M to $3M increased value for our customers, based on their size and rate of production.• I have developed standards of service and mentored my account managers, resulting in an improved customer retention – which is now over 95%.• I managed all plants involved in a trial for our carbon safe cleaning program and developed a control method to ensure best practice usage and effective cleaning per unit cost. This program is being released from stage gate, and will use the best practices I developed as the basis for all future installations.• Developed new technologies for dosing chemistry including automated dosing adjustments to pH and automated scripts that mitigate manual error. These improvements lowered customer’s chemistry usage by 30-50%.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota Area

I was responsible for all production, quality, maintenance and safety activities for the Precast Concrete plants. Gage Brothers provides architectural and structural concrete building components.• Successfully managed the move from the original 12th Street location to the new semi-automated plant on North Bahnson Ave. At the height of this transition we had both plants fully operational with over 300 manufacturing team members. I managed the flow of raw materials, production staffing, and scheduling for both locations through the move to the new site.• I brought Lean Manufacturing to the plant, including 5S, Quality at the Source, Value Stream Mapping, reduced product lot size and Total Productive Maintenance. These processes helped ensure the success of the new facility, and greatly reduced labor costs – including a drop in Crane Crew hours of 60%.• Instituted daily POD (Plan of the Day) meetings to ensure all teams worked effectively throughout the day, especially for shared resources like mixers and overhead hoists.• Incorporated new production technologies including in-form concrete retarder, alternate stressing methods, and a new CMMS (Asset Essentials).• Purchased new high capacity forklifts that replaced many mobile crane activities, resulting in a labor savings of 4,000 annual man-hours.• Rolled out OSHA’s silica dust requirements including training, new equipment and cultural changes.

Sioux Falls, Sd

Operations Engineering Manager 2013 to 2016Senior Mechanical Engineer 2011 to 2013Mechanical Engineer 2008 to 2011As an Operations Engineering Manager I was responsible for all technology aspects of Ethanol, Distillers Grain and CO2 production at seven Ethanol Bioprocessing plants within the POET fleet. These plants produced a combined total of 1 million gallons of fuel ethanol every day.• Used operational, environmental and financial production data to identify and solve issues, direct plant personnel, and make capital expenditure approvals.• Ensured compliance to POET and industry best practices, OSHA regulations, and specific state air and water permits.• Troubleshoot fermentation, distillation, mechanical and environmental system to ensure 24/7 operations at peak performance.While working as an Engineer I was responsible for researching and designing capital projects. I also worked with FM Global to support risk-based reviews and recommendations for plant operations.• Designed and update P&IDs for plant projects including a new Acid tank and dosing system that doubled the service life of the tank and containment systems.• Designed inline blending systems for 24 POET bioprocessing plants and provided change management, complete drawing packages, costs, financial justification and training for each.• Facilitated POET Plant Management staff engineering meetings, developed tracking and reporting systems for continuous improvement projects.

Sioux Falls, Sd

While at Graco I was responsible for the CED cell (Contractor Equipment Division), including manufacturing equipment, processes and training for the production of paint spray guns and spare parts packages.• Analyzed processes and equipment in order to generate new capital improvement projects. Reduced production costs by over $1 million annually.• Ensure safety and quality production for five semi-automated production lines and their sub-assembly stations.

At Pulizzi engineering I designed and updated catalog and custom PDUs (Power Distribution Units). These designs included sheet metal, wiring drawings, bill of materials, manufacturing instructions and test procedures.• Researched and developed new manufacturing processes including the use of EG steel (electro galvanized) to greatly improve paint adhesion, printed membrane switch panels, and unified chassis designs for both American and European style outlets.• Granted two patents: a new type of panel mount 15 amp outlet and a cable restraint device. Both of which became part of the standard Pulizzi catalog offerings.

Master Of Science (Ms), Atmospheric Sciences And Meteorology

Bachelor Of Science (Bs), Mechanical Engineering