Members of the ISCO Council

MEMBERS OF ISCO COUNCIL

AUSTRALIA

John Wardrop (Seer Associates) is specialised in oil spill response, training, impact assessment and rehabilitation. He has been a member of ISCO since 2008. Experience includes acting as consultant to government and industry for over 25 years, emergency and oil spill response planning and training, environmental management, development and implementation of HSE management sysyems. He has work experience in Australia, PR CHINA, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, UK, PR Vietnam, PNG and USA. Seer Associates

AZERBAIJAN

Mr Elkhan Mamedov is the Member of ISCO Council for Azerbaijan. Elkhan has 25 years of experience in oil spill response in the Caspian Region. He joined the Briggs Environmental team in 1996 and gained experience in spill response, leadership, training, and logistics management.  Since 2003 he  has been Deputy Manager of the Baku Oil Spill Response Base responsible for national and international Offshore, Shoreline and Onshore Spills Management and Operations. He has also acted as an oil spill advisory specialist for various global oil and gas companies.

BRAZIL

Mr Flavio P. de Andrade

CANADA

Merv Fingas, M.Sc., Ph.D., has worked for more than 25 years in the field of oil spill technology at Environment Canada’s Environmental Technology Center in Ottawa, Ontario. As head of the Emergencies Science Division at the Centre, he currently conducts and manages research and development projects in the sciences as they relate to spill measurement, evaluation, and control. His specialties include spill dynamics and behaviour, studies of spill-treating agents, in-situ burning of oil spills, and the technology of personal protection equipment. He is called upon to make presentations on these subjects at international conferences around the world. Dr. Fingas earned his doctorate in environmental sciences from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He also holds master’s degrees in science and business administration from the University of Ottawa in Ontario, as well as a bachelor of arts degree and technical training in machining and electronics. Dr. Fingas has authored or co-authored more than 450 technical reports and papers on various aspects of oil spill research. These include writings on the development of new and improved procedures for testing dispersants and extracting solvents, studies of water-in-oil emulsions and dispersants, monitoring oil spill concentrations, identifying the source of oil spills, studies of chemical treating agents and their effectiveness, in-situ burning of oil spills and the emissions from such fires, oil spill remote sensors, and the review and selection of personal protection equipment. Dr. Fingas is on the editorial board of the Journal of Hazardous Materials, the Spill Science and Technology Bulletin, and the Journal of Micro-Column Separations, and has served as guest editor for several special issues of these publications. In 1999, he was appointed to the United States Academy of Sciences and is a member of an eight-person committee to review the sources, fate, and effects of oil in the sea. He is vice-chairman of the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) F-20 Committee on Spill Standards, and chairman of the In-situ Oil Spill Burning Committee.

CHINA

Mr. Wu Yue has more than 20 years experiences about the Safety Training, Environmental protection and accidents response in offshore energy industry, global insight and network.

CEO of Hong Kong Spill Response Technology Ltd. Distinguished Professor -Shandong Maritime Vocational College ;Co-founder of SIOETC and Emtek Canada Inc. 

INDIA

Captain D. C. Sekhar, heading AlphaMERS, is an experienced captain of large seagoing tankers and is a trained and experienced internal auditor of ISM, ISPS, WMS, QMS and PMS. He is a trained and experienced incident investigator. He has completed finance management at Singapore and executive general management at the renowned Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He is a passionate writer on marine technical issues in trade magazines and a speaker at many trade seminars. He heads AlphaMERS and also the sister company from the same promoters, engaged in techno commercial feasibility studies of coastal and inland water projects.

ISRAEL

Major Ben Benny is a former Major in the Israeli navy and currently acts as the Chief Operations Officer of the marine services and spill response company named M.Danchor Ltd.

KENYA

Sanjay Gandhi is a Civil Engineer and qualified OHSAS 18001 Lead Auditor who was born and raised in Kenya. He is Director of Nutek Solutions Ltd., a Nairobi-based company providing HSE consulting and support services for clients in the petroleum, manufacturing and service sectors. Before founding his company, Sanjay worked for Chevron in Africa and the USA for 14 years and became deeply involved in oil spill prevention and control. He was author of the Kenya National Marine Oil Spill Response Contingency Plan which has been adopted as a working document by the IMO for Kenya. Together with Dr Andrew Holmes of Shell/BP he was the co-founder of Kenya’s Oil Spill Mutual Aid Group (OSMAG), a grouping of seven major oil companies who invested in equipment and response preparedness training. As a specialist in incident investigation and root cause analysis, he has delivered lectures in Africa and several overseas countries.

NETHERLANDS

Dennis Van der Veen graduated in 2007 from the Open University in Environmental Sciences, specialising in environmental risks in the marine transport of hazardous goods. He has 20 years of professional experience in environmental sciences, of which 10 years with the Dutch Institute for Applied Sciences TNO and 12 years at the Dutch governmental agency Rijkswaterstaat. In both the positions at Rijkswaterstaat and at ASCC Mr. Van der Veen is international recognized as expert on remote sensing and bioremediation. Dennis Van der Veen has executed and managed a number of projects, including EU-projects and EU-workshops on topics dealing with oil spill response, law enforcement and remote sensing of spills. He is co-author of the IMO Guidelines on Bioremediation. Currently Mr. Van der Veen is crisis manager at Rijkswaterstaat and as such involved in oil spill preparation and response in the Dutch Wadden Sea.

NIGERIA

To be appointed

PANAMA

Carlos Sagrera works in Panama as specialist in oil spill prevention and response for the public and private sector. He is a former LCDR (Uruguayan Navy) and Environmental Geographer (UCL, Belgium). He has been a member of ISCO since 2011. Experience includes acting as operational manager with the principal OSRO in Panama OPC until 2008 including offshore and onshore spills level Tier 2 and 3. After this he had worked as consultant to several OSRO in the Central America region and Mexico. He had supported the last 20 years the Latin America Oil & Gas industry, several governments and regional specialized organizations with their NCP and the regional cooperation in emergency and oil spill response, planning and training. As environmental consultant he had managed several national and regional projects for international funding organizations and the NU environmental system, working actually for IMC Panama as external advisor. He has work experience in Panama, Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Aruba, Mexico, USA, Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

SOUTH AFRICA

Mrs Fatima B Shaik is the South Africal Petroleum Industry Association’s Head of Health, Safety, Security and Environment. Fatima has been involved in environment matters since 1996. She holds a Masters in Business leadership, Masters in Science: Environmental Management (cum laude), B-Tech: Environmental Health, and N.Dip: in Environmental Health. Prior to joining SAPIA she was Country HSSE manager for Shell South Africa where she worked with various Industry members, SAPIA committees and other business fora.She currently plays a key role in working with a range of internal and external stakeholders (Government, Business, International, etc.) in promoting HSSE within the sector; co-creating the countries HSSE legislative frameworks; co-ordinating industry initiatives, including oil spill response preparedness and was recently appointed to the Advisory Council of Occupational Health and Safety.

TURKEY

Mr Kerem Kemerli

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Dr Ali Saeed Al Ameri is Chairman and Managing Director of a number of companies in the UAE and GCC countries. His wide-ranging business interests include oil and gas services, management consultancy, training and development. His PhD is in Management and Organizational Culture and he is a qualified specialist in adult training, combining theoretical and practical aspects of management. He has been extensively involved in the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies Research and has arranged conferences, symposia and lectures, generally concerned with promoting educational and scientific development of the UAE. Dr Ali has a special interest in pollution control and strongly believes in the aims and values of ISCO.

USA

Dr Tim Gunter is Director, National Spill Control School, Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, Texas. With a focus on emergency preparedness and response in the offshore, coastal, and inland oil and gas industry to ensure compliance with governmental regulations he has over 20 years of Coast Guard and 4 years of pipeline and gas storage industry experience, totaling 24 years.In his role as Director of the Nationalo Spill Control School (NSCS) he is responsible for leading the efforts of NSCS which provides training, research, and consultation in the safe and effective handling of oil and hazardous material spills. The NSCS is recognized in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (33 USCA, Sec. 2761.c.2.D) and serves as a resource for consulting, training, and research in oil spill prevention, planning and response. The Director develops and coordinates initiatives with a wide range of local, state, national and international stakeholders, including industry, TAMU-CC faculty, staff, and students, governmental agencies (including the military), and NGOs. He ensures core course offerings include the following: hazardous waste operations and emergency response (HAZWOPER), hazmat and oil spill awareness, spill management, spill response and safety, oiled wildlife rehabilitation, hazardous materials transportation, geographic information systems for environmental response, and environmental information management systems as well as contingency planning and spill response exercise development.

His experience includes routine engagement with Regional USCG Incident Management and Preparedness Senior Advisors to USCG Regional Admirals on spill preparedness and response. Routine communications with Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Office of Pipeline Safety, Emergency Preparedness, Support and Security Division on incidents, audits, and oil spill conference committees, 2003-2021. He has significant experience with senior interagency, international, and federal officials, including extensive experience in Congressional hearing written and oral testimony prep for U.S. Coast Guard Admirals and senior government executives post Deepwater and Tsunami incidents, 2011-2015 at Headquarters. He acted as Senior advisor in national and regional oil and hazardous substance spills, vessel and facility plan review, preparedness, and response, 2011-2015 at U. S. Coast Guard Office of Marine Environmental Response Policy (CG-MER)

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