Illustrative Resources 

Ken Graziani - Senior Consultant

Mr. Ken Graziani is a Senior Consultant in the Energy Practice of The Quaker Group and is based in Fairfax, Virginia. Ken is a results-oriented PhD Chemical Engineer with 37 years of industrial experience at Mobil and ExxonMobil in the innovation, evaluation, development, and commercialization of technology. Ken also has strong technology leadership and management experience. Ken has broad technical experience in refinery fuels and lubes process technology, alternative energy, chemical and biochemical reaction engineering, and process modeling. 

Ken's characteristic strengths include: leadership; initiative; strategic thinking; intuitive problem-solving; and team facilitation and communication. In his role at Quaker Ken provides critical technical and leadership consultation for clients in the hydrocarbon vertical. Ken has led cross-functional, matrixed refinery process research and development initiatives totaling more than $100M/yr. Specifically, Ken has led process technology innovations at ExxonMobil in support of refinery Catalytic Cracking, Resid Upgrading, Light Hydrocarbon Processing, Reforming, Alkylation and Crude Distillation. Many of these innovations were subsequently commercialized. 

Ken led a large ExxonMobil Engineering Division responsible for all refinery process technologies. Primary activities included technology R&D, refinery capital projects, technology licensing and overall technical support. Ken has also led technology work for Mobil Oil's Lube Refining, Crude Distillation and Crude Assay processes and characterizations. Ken's technology operating experience and responsibilities at ExxonMobil extended from the corporate research interface to refinery operations technical support. Ken developed and commercialized Mobil's All-Catalytic Lube Process. 

Ken has a PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois, MS, Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois, and BS, Chemical Engineering, Summa Cum Laude, from The Pennsylvania State University.

Kevin Peters - Senior Consultant

Dr. Kevin Peters is a Senior Consultant with the Quaker Group and the President and Founder of Strategic Partners Consulting Group based in Westchester County, New York. Kevin specializes in strategy implementation, complex organizational change, leadership team effectiveness and international/cross-cultural development. He has more than 30 years of consulting experience in many industries and over 20 years of direct energy experience. 

Kevin has a PhD degree and significant experience with ExxonMobil Chemical Company at the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, operating site. 

Mr.Sidney Laurent is a Senior Consultant with The Quaker Group. Sid has over 34 years of Oil and Gas Refinery experience includes utilities, pipelines, contract management, project management, distillation, sour gas treating, fractionation, heavy ends products, alkylation, ethylene cracking, compression and refrigeration. Sid has 28 years experience of coordinating and improving the operations and maintenance interface in refineries and petrochemical plants. Sid directly supervised an average of 12 to 15 first line field supervisors throughout most of his career at Shell Oil, US. Sid also conducted Operations and Maintenance interface audits at multiple locations within Shell. 

Sid has over 600 hours of training in interpersonal relationships, leadership and supervision topics such as: proactive thinking; motivational techniques; communications; leadership principles; supervisory skills development; problem solving; decision making; and solution implementation. Sid was a member of the Shell Norco diversity council and was individually recognized for quality leadership. Sid was a member of the Shell Norco refinery and chemical plant site Safety Committee and was selected for Shell facilitator training to develop site operating teams. Sid also facilitated many operations Root Cause Analysis workshops and presentations.  

Han de Min - Senior Consultant

Mr. Han de Min is a senior consultant with The Quaker Group. Han has over 35 years of experience in Exploration & Production with Shell International at various worldwide locations. Han has been an international consultant since 2000. Han specializes in the development of Corporate Management Systems and E&P business process models. These models provided a step-out in integrated information management and resulted in the rationalization of existing IT portfolios. Han has proven management leadership skills and problem solving capabilities. In Oman Han gained extensive oilfield experience at the supervisory and managerial level implementing production improvements and managing the unmanned operations of large, complex production systems. As Head Technical Projects for Shell Petroleum Company Nigeria, Han commissioned and managed the first unmanned offshore platform as well as a major un-associated gas plant. Han has also Implemented supervisory control and data acquisition systems to that led to reduced manning levels. 

As a consultant Han initiated and completed procedures to involve senior operations staff in the development of engineering projects. This process resulted in less design changes and considerable savings. Han was also a Director at Aspen Technology where he developed requirements for an Intelligent Production Business & Data Management System for a large upstream development project in Qatar. Han developed the Digital Oilfield of the Future for Kuwait Oil Company. Han has consulted to several companies to improve their production systems and integrate production assets from wells to sales points involving all relevant functions. Han has led and delivered rationalization and development of Production Business Process Models leading to improved Information Systems functionality. 

Han holds an Honors Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering.