The Asia Turbomachinery and Pump Advisory Committee is a group of dedicated industry experts who volunteer their time to oversee the success of the symposium. Advisors are respected leaders in their companies and fields who select the technical program for ATPS each year.
Dag O. Calafell, II is the Chair of ATPS. He has 40 years of experience in management, engineering, and operations in the oil and gas industry with end-users, namely Exxon, ExxonMobil, and Koch Industries, and with machinery manufacturers. Before retiring earlier this year, Calafell was chief machinery engineer at ExxonMobil Upstream. He has published multiple papers on machinery and flow phenomena and holds several patents. Calafell earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Clarkson University and continued studies at Columbia University. He sat on Texas A&M University’s Multi-Phase Pump User’s Group Advisory Board and on American Petroleum Institute (API) committees for machinery standards. Calafell has served as associate editor for the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE) and as a member of the Hydraulic Institute, the Society of Reliability Engineers, the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He was be a keynote panelist in the 2017 ASME Turbo-Expo in Charlotte. He is also the ATPS chair.
Manoj Gupta is Vice Chair of ATPS and the Manager of Proposal Development Engineering for Asia Pacific at Dresser-Rand in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In this role, Manoj is responsible for leading his team to develop complete technical and commercial bids for all engineered turbo products such as centrifugal compressors, gas turbines and steam turbines. Manoj is also responsible for new product marketing, market intelligence, and risk management. Manoj has authored and co-authored several technical papers including work on very high pressure CO2 compression, and holds two patents. Mr. Gupta received a B.Tech degree in Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University and an M.S. degree in Finance from University of Houston.
Hussain Ali Mohamed Hassan Al-Baloshi graduated in 1990 from Oxford Air Training College as CAA licensed Aeronautical Engineer for pressurized airframes and gas turbines. Through his career he worked as Mechanical Engineer in Aviation Industry. Joined oil industry in 1992 as Mechanical Engineer, through his career with Qatar Petroleum (QP) he worked as a Rotating Equipment Engineer and currently as Head of Reliability for the past 12 years. In 2011 he receive his Master’s Degree from University of Huddersfield in Engineering Management. Hussainc is one of the founders and the Chairman of Qatar Reliability Forum, also he is a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Middle East Turbo-machinery Symposium (METS). With QP he is leading management’s systems improvements projects for Offshore Assets’ Mechanical Reliability, Process Safety Management and Enterprise Risk Management systems. He received the Qatar Process Safety 1st award in March 2014.
Daniel Alvarez has a M.Sc. in Engineering Acoustics from the Technical University of Denmark and 10 years of experience as consultant in the oil & gas sector. With Lloyd’s Register Consulting from 2006, Mr. Alvarez is a member of the engineering dynamics group within the organisation and currently holds the position of Principal Consultant in this field as well as Operations Manager for Singapore. The team delivers technical assessments in regards to the dynamic behaviour of mechanical disturbances travelling on structures and fluids. Mr. Alvarez built expertise through the years on the mechanical excitations generated by reciprocating and screw-type machinery, including machine stability, vibration on structural components, dynamic pressure pulsations and the associated noise that impacts working environments on oil & gas facilities.
S. P. Asokan is graduate Mechanical Engineer, has 30 years of vast industrial experience, worked in large petrochemical industry for 15 years in the field of design & development, equipment erection & commissioning of large process plants then become specialized in Mechanical seals and systems for another 15 over years in seal industries. His passion and innovative solutions counted more than 300 dry gas seal systems engineering & executions until today for wide range compressor seal applications. Asokan currently heading Compressor Seals & Systems, engineering, manufacturing and technical service for Flowserve Asia pacific and located in Singapore.
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Urs Baumann is the Manager of the Calculation and Development department of MAN Diesel & Turbo Schweiz AG, in Zurich, Switzerland.
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Vasanth Bhat is a Reliability Manager at Singapore Refining Company (a joint venture refinery between Chevron & Petro China). During his last 6 years with SRC, his main role has been support all technical and asset management issues with regards to rotating machinery in the refinery. Prior to this, Mr.Vasanth has over 19 years of experience in various roles as consultant , Sales , Reliability & Maintenance engineer in organizations in India , Middle east and Singapore. Mr. Vasanth has a B.E. degree (Mechanical Engineering, 1989) from Manipal Institute of technology – India and is a certified Category IV Vibration specialist by Vibration Institute USA .
Klaus Brun, Dr. Brun is the Machinery Program Director at Southwest Research Institute where he leads an organization of more than 60 that focuses on R&D for the energy industry. His past experience includes positions in engineering, project management, and management at Solar Turbines, General Electric, and Alstom. He holds eight patents, authored over 350 papers, and published three textbooks on energy systems and turbomachinery. Dr. Brun is a Fellow of the ASME and won an R&D 100 award in 2007 for his Semi-Active Valve invention. He also won the ASME Industrial Gas Turbine Award in 2016 and ASME Oil & Gas Committee Best Paper/Tutorial awards in 1998, 2000, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017. Dr. Brun is the past chair of the ASME-IGTI Board of Directors, the ASME Oil & Gas Applications Committee, and ASME sCO2 Power Cycle Committee. He is also a member of the API 616 Task Force, the ASME PTC-10 task force, the Asia Turbomachinery Symposiums Committee, the Fan Conference Advisory Committee, and the Supercritical CO2 Symposium Advisory Committee. Dr. Brun is the past Editor of Gas Turbine News and currently the Executive Correspondent of Turbomachinery International Magazine and Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Gas Turbines for Power.
James Bryan: After graduating from Univ. of Ark. 1979 with BScME, James began career with Brown in Root in 1980 in marine engineering. This led to a long career focused mainly on offshore turbomachinery evolving to large and high pressure pumping and compression equipment. James has worked for various contractors in many countries with the later part of his career with Technip Malaysia. His current role is an acting general expert for centrifugal compressors and rotating equipment advisor.
D.K. Cho has a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Yonsei University (1997) in South Korea. He has worked since then at GS Caltex Co. being responsible for maintaining and improving the reliability of over 15,000 pieces of rotating equipment including pumps, centrifugal/reciprocating compressors, steam/gas turbines, and blowers. Since 2014 D.K. Cho is the Rotating Equipment Reliability Team Manager at GS Caltex Co. He is also a certified Black Belt Leader and Instructor for Six Sigma RCA (Root Cause Analysis).
Peter Collins is the Principal Rotating Equipment Engineer and Technical Authority for Inpex Australia. He has over 30 years of experience in Engineering within the Oil and Gas industry. Mr Collins received a B.Eng. Hons degree in Mechanical Engineering from Liverpool John Moores University in 1992. He joined Shell UK in 1981 and his experience includes testing fuels and lubricants, offshore support for testing elastomers for explosive decompression, reciprocating compressor high-pressure packing designs, and analysing gas turbine & centrifugal compressor failures. He has provided commissioning, operations, and maintenance support in Australia and Oman as well as other projects in Russia and China. In 2006 Mr Collins joined Woodside, providing technical support for their onshore and offshore rotating machinery before moving to Inpex in 2013. His responsibilities now include leading the rotating equipment discipline across the project and operate phases with responsibilities in the areas of Technical Integrity, Management of Change, Standards/specifications, external representation and Mentoring.
Stefan S. Florjancic graduated 1982 the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and joined Sulzer Brothers Ltd in Switzerland in 1983. He received a Ph.D. degree from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich for a combined experimental and theoretical research thesis executed at Sulzer until 1990. Dr.Florjancic then joined Sulzer Bingham Pumps, Inc., in Portland Oregon. As a Senior Field Engineer he covered general consulting on design, and troubleshooting of field issue. In 1993 he joined ABB Power Generation Ltd, today Alstom Power, in Switzerland to work in various managerial roles in the area of Gas Turbine R&D. 2001, he took over the technical responsibility for the entire installed fleet of gas turbine fleet GT24 and GT26. When the responsabiliy for this product was moved to Customer Service, Dr.Florjancic moved along in 2004, to become the Engineering Responsible, eventually for the entire installed fleet of newer Alstom IGTs. This period ended in summer 2010, when Dr.Florjancic moved back into new equipment development at Alstom to work as Director of R&D Execution for gas turbines. With the transfer to Ansaldo Energia, he became CTO of the company in the summer of 2016. Dr. S.Florjancic also served in the Advisory Committee for the Middle-Eastern Turbomachinery Symposium (METS) (2011-2015)
Venkatesan Gopalakrishnan is a lead rotating equipment engineer with KBR Singapore. With 27 years of experience he has handled API 617, API 618 & API 619 process compressors, gas & steam turbines and pumps from major suppliers in oil and gas industry including petrochemical, refinery, power, chemical and pharmaceutical projects. He has handled projects for BP, Chevron, Maersk, ADMA, ONGC in the upstream offshore; and SABIC, Oil & Energy majors in India in the downstream area. Chevron, ADMA.have extended appreciations to Venkat for his excellence in technical work and leadership.
Armando Guerrero is currently the Managing Director of Petronasia Energy based in Singapore. His position includes for providing consulting services to both process machinery users as well as governmental bodies involved in the importation of specialty cryogenic liquids and gasses. He has over 30 years of experience within the turbomachinery industry including senior positions within Atlas Copco, Mafi-Trench and Philadelphia Gear. Mr. Guerrero managed both the sales and service operations for a major turbomachinery supplier where he successfully executed field assignments in more than 25 countries. He presented at the first METS conference, published in Turbomachinery International, and is actively involved as an international member of the Gas Processors Suppliers Association.
Takeshi Hataya is a group manager of application engineering group at Mitsubishi heavy industries compressor corporation in Hiroshima, Japan. He has experienced development, engineering and detailed design for API centrifugal compressors on various oil and gas projects (including LNG, Natural gas booster, Gas injection, Petrochemical, Refinery etc.).
Minhui He is a Machinery Specialist with BRG Machinery Consulting LLC, in Charlottesville, Virginia. His responsibilities include vibration troubleshooting, rotordynamic analysis, as well as bearing and seal analysis and design. He is also conducting research on rotordynamics, hydrodynamic bearings and annular seals. Dr. He received his B.S. degree (Chemical Machinery Engineering, 1994) from Sichuan University in China. From 1996 to 2003, he conducted research on fluid film journal bearings in the ROMAC Laboratories at the University of Virginia, receiving his Ph.D. (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, 2003). He is a member of ASME and STLE.
Dr. Masanobu Ito is the Chief Engineer of EagleBurgmann Japan since 2007 and currently manages the Application Engineering Group and the State-of-the-Art R&D Centre in Saitama, Japan. He received his BSc Mech Engineering from Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1977 and attained his PhD in 1993 from Okayama University, majoring in Dry Gas Seal. In his earlier employment at Eagle Industry Co Ltd, a career which spans more than 30 years, he was involved in the design and development of mechanical seal for pumps and agitators, dry gas seal for turbomachinery, water turbine, etc. He has extensive seal application experience in the chemical process, refining and oil & gas industry on both pump mechanical seals and compressor dry gas seals. He is also a registered professional engineer with the Japanese Government (Mechanical Engineering / Turbomachinery). He joins the inaugural Asia Turbomachinery and Pump Symposium Advisory Committee in August, 2014.
Zhu Jie is the Chief engineer of Hunan SUND Industrial and Technological Co.,LTD, a leading manufacturer of hydrodynamic bearings for rotating machinery, in Hunan Province, China. He is responsible for all requisition, standardization and detailed design of new hydrodynamic bearing for motor, generator, centrifugal compressors, pump, turbo expanders and gear box. Zhu Jie received his B.S degree (Mechanical Engineering)from Chang’an Universtiy in 2004 and M.S degree (mechanical Engineering) from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2007. He has over 8 years’ experience with hydrodynamic bearings and seals., and own more than 10 patents. Zhu jie is a member of TC 236 and joined the Turbomachinery Symposium Advisory Committee in 2014.
Girish Kamal is the Principal Rotating Equipment Engineer with Centre of Excellence Division of Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd in Kuala Lumpur. He has more than 26 years of extensive and diversified experience in the Oil and Gas Industry in the field of rotating equipment management for onshore and offshore applications including specifications, design approvals, witness testing, inspection, commissioning, installation, maintenance and technical services. Prior to joining Petronas Carigali, he worked with Dolphin Energy Gas Plant in Qatar as Head of Machinery Reliability, with Petronas Carigali in PMO-Malaysia as Unit Head for the Condition Based Maintenance department, with Engineers India Limited as Deputy Manager (Rotating Equipment) and also with Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited in India as Executive Mechanical Engineer. He holds a BE degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA qualification. He is also a Certified Reliability Professional.
Pankaj Karia is Working with SBM Offshore, Malaysia office as a Department Manager- Mechanical Equipment. He is graduated in Mechanical Engineering and has more than 24 years of experience in the field of Upstream, Midstream and Downstream projects in various countries such as India, Middle East, Thailand and Malaysia. His main experience is the selection of the Rotating equipment, Technical bid evaluation, negotiations with vendors, vendor documents review, inspection and testing. Also providing technical support during the construction, commissioning and root cause analysis of the Rotating Equipment failure.
Alan Fuhai Koh is a research engineer at Lloyd’s Register Global Technology Centre. He is currently responsible for investigating the effect of ingested flammable gas on ignition risk for a gas turbine as well as undertaking various tasks to support consultancy projects under the Risk Theme at Lloyd’s Register Global Technology Centre. He obtained a BEng Mechanical Engineering from Nanyang Technological University in 2005 with a Final Year Specialisation in Aerospace. After a 4 year stint as a field engineer in support of helicopter operations undertaking search and rescue flights, he returned to School obtain a MEng, Mechanical Engineering from National University of Singapore in 2013. His thesis was about a lift generating body in Wing in Ground effect. He is presently also a PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering , Nanyang Technological University.
Shin Konomi has been the Director of Compressor Engineering for Elliott Group in Sodegaura, Chiba, Japan since 2010. He has more than 17 years of experience in centrifugal compressor engineering at Elliott Group. After earning both B. S. (Mechanical Engineering) and M. S. (Mechanical Engineering) degrees from Keio University, Kanagawa, Japan, Mr. Konomi began his career in the Aerodynamics Machinery Division of Ebara Research Company, Ltd.
Igor Kulchitskiy, Ph.D., Associate Professor is Mechanical and Rotating Equipment engineering manager for Shell Bukom manufacturing site in Singapore. He graduated from Odessa National Marine University in 1975 (MSE), Admiral Makarov State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping in 1987 (PhD). He got vast engineering, scientific and lecturing experience through 39 years. He started with Odessa shipyard as mechanical inspection engineer, joined Odessa National Marine University and was working as associate professor and faculty dean. Igor is working in Singapore since 1995. He supported plant commissioning and maintenance projects for Kellogg Brown and Root at Jurong Island, Singapore. He joined Shell as rotating equipment engineer in 2002. His current responsibilities include full spectrum of rotating equipment engineering tasks on run and maintain, turnarounds, margin growth and production unit revamp projects.
Arun Kumar is working with HPCL- Mittal Energy Ltd., India, as Head of Maintenance & Reliability and is responsible for Maintenance & Reliability of a 9 MMTPA high complexity Refinery complex, Guru Gobind Singh Refinery at Bathinda, India. Arun has over 29 years of experience in the areas of erection, commissioning, maintenance, equipment reliability, turnaround planning and execution, troubleshooting and performance improvement of Rotating Equipment, in Process Plant/ World Class Oil Refinery, with best practices in Maintenance Management, Operation & Safety systems. He managed a wide spectrum of Machinery & utilities.Arun is mechanical engineering graduate with post-graduation in business management. He has presented number of technical papers at international venues and lectured at the Turbomachinery and Pump Symposia, including both tutorial and case studies.
Rainer Kurz is the Manager, Systems Analysis at Solar Turbines Incorporated, in San Diego, California. His organization is responsible for predicting compressor and gas turbine performance, for conducting application studies, and for field performance testing. Dr. Kurz attended the Universitaet der Bundeswehr in Hamburg Germany, where he received the degree of a Dr.-Ing. in 1991. He joined Solar Turbines in 1993, and holds his current position since 1995.Dr. Kurz is the chair of the ASME/IGTI Oil and Gas Applications Committee, a member of the Gas Machinery Research Council Project Supervisory Committee, the Texas A&M Turbomachinery Symposium Advisory Committee, the Middle East Turbomachinery Symposium Advisory Committee, and the SDSU Aerospace Engineering Advisory Committee. He was elected ASME Fellow in 2003He has authored numerous publications about turbomachinery related topics, with an emphasis on compressor applications, dynamic behavior, and gas turbine operation and degradation. Many of his publications were considered of archive quality and were accepted for publications in Engineering Journals. He has received several ‘Best Paper’ and ‘Best Tutorial’ Awards at the ASME TurboExpo Conferences and is the recipient of the 2013 Industrial Gas Turbine Technology award.
Wai Lam LOH, PhD, is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of National University of Singapore and also the Programme Manager (Subsea Systems and Transportation) for the Centre of Offshore Research & Engineering (CORE). He has been involved in the oil & gas industry for more than 25 years. Before joining NUS in 2006, Prof Loh has worked for more than 16 years in the UK for several Oil & Gas and related companies, in the capacities of Senior Project Engineer, Project Manager, Consultant and Head of R&D. During this time he has led and managed numerous multi-disciplinary consortium R&D projects for the Oil & Gas Industry relating to Oil & Gas production, processing and transportation, etc. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. He has also successfully invented, patented and developed numerous novel devices and systems for the Oil & Gas Industry. Through his innovative work, Prof Loh has received several prestigious international awards including THE ROYAL SOCIETY Esso Energy Award and Gold Medal in 1998 and the Special Meritorious Award for Engineering Innovation at the OTC 1999 from Hart’s Petroleum International, USA, in 1999. Prof Loh graduated from University of Manchester in UK, for his BEng, MSc and PhD. His research areas are Subsea Processing, Multiphase jet pumps, Multiphase pumping, Multiphase flow metering and Multiphase oil/water/gas separation.
Hideaki Maeda is presently the general manager of pump engineering 1st department, engineering division with Torishima Pump Mfg. Co., Ltd. in Osaka, Japan. He joined Torishima in 1993 and has been worked in R&D department until 2015, and mainly researched in regard to the improvement of pump performance, the vibration issue due to cavitation in mixed flow pump and the impulse turbine performance improvement for wave power energy conversion. He received Dr. Engineering degree for the research result of the improvement of impulse turbine performance for wave energy conversion in 2002. From 2009 to 2015, He organized R&D department as general manager and developed several the high performance pumps.
Gaspare Maragioglio serves GE Oil & Gas as Shaft Line Integration COE Engineering Manager. The SLI Centre of Excellence has the responsibility to define the optimum shaft line architecture, based on the specified duty, for turbo-compressor, motor-compressors and turbo-generators. The SLI global Team is also responsible for technical selection and design verification of flexible and rigid couplings, load gears and auxiliary equipment (like torque converters – clutch – turning gear – GT starting system), with particular focus on the train rotor-dynamic behavior, torsional and lateral. The responsibility includes also support to NPI, manufacturing and test department for full speed full load string test, site support for commissioning, trouble shooting and RCA. Mr. Maragioglio joins the inaugural ATAC in July, 2014.
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Chua Leok Poh
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Srithar Rajoo is an associate professor at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). His research interest is in the areas of turbocharging, internal combustion engines and waste heat recovery – with specific focus on low carbon technologies for transport applications. He works closely with Imperial College London and major turbocharger industry leaders on research collaborations and publications. More information can be found at www.utm.my/locartic
Gary Richardson is Principal Rotating Equipment Engineer with ConocoPhillips based in Australia. He is directly responsible for all aspects of rotating equipment in the Australia West Business Unit, which comprises a number of mainly aero derivative gas turbines and associated turbo machinery. Gary started out in the automotive industry attending Grimsby College of Technology before moving into the oil and gas industry early in his career.Gary spent 18 years with Rolls Royce as a field commissioning engineer with periods back in the Liverpool packaging facility as a gas turbine test engineer.He has been with Conoco Phillips for 8 years and has sat on the core team of the Global Turbo-machinery Network of Excellence for all of that time.
Dr. Luis San Andrés is the Mast-Childs Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He conducts research in fluid film bearings and seals for turbomachinery, gas foil bearings for high temperature oil-free turbomachinery, hybrid fluid film bearings for turbopumps and squeeze film dampers for aircraft jet engines. His computational codes, benchmarked against test data, are standards in the rotating machinery industry. San Andrés and his students have authored over 160 journal papers and 80 conference papers, several of which have earned Best Paper awards. San Andrés is a fellow of ASME and STLE.
Naohiko Takahashi is the chief engineer in Turbomachinery R&D Center of Hitachi, Ltd., in Japan. His research interests are in the areas of rotordynamics, magnetic bearing and control system. He has been a member of the ISO TC108/SC2/WG7 committee for magnetic bearing standards since 2005.
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Ashutosh Vengurlekar works as Discipline Technology Lead (Machinery) in ExxonMobil covering Asia Pacific region. He has over 30 years of experience in Engineering within the Oil and Gas industry. Mr Vengurlekar received a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from Vikram University India and has Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from SIM Singapore. He has previous experience of working with EPC consultant, pump OEM’s and Oil and gas refinery in India and Kuwait. Vengurlekar has experience in the areas of plant design, installation, commissioning, turnaround planning/ execution, equipment reliability and performance improvement of Rotating Equipment. His present responsibilities include specialist support to various plants in Asia Pacific Region, Plant reliability improvements, technology development and mentoring of young engineers.
Mark Weatherwax is a Consulting Machinery Engineer with Chevron Energy Technology Company in Perth, Australia. His current duties involve providing technical assistance and services associated with the selection, design, specification, procurement, testing, installation and commissioning of rotating equipment. Mark has more than 20 years of varied experience with rotating equipment, with specific focus in upstream and LNG processing. Prior to joining Chevron, he was employed by MW Kellogg (KBR) and Ingersoll-Rand. Mr. Weatherwax has B.S. and M.S. degrees (Mechanical Engineering) from the University of Texas A&M at College Station, and is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas.
Christian Wolford is the Global Sales Director for Altra Industrial Motion Company’s Ameridrives and Bibby-Turboflex turbomachinery couplings. He has over 30 years of experience and is considered an expert in the selection, specification and application of flexible couplings. Chris has lectured around the world for many years, authored several papers, sits on the API-671 Task Force and is a member of ASME.
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Karl Wygant is Vice President of Engineering for Samsung Techwin and Director of the Turbomachinery Research and Development Center located in Houston, TX. He has been with Samsung Techwin since 2012 leading the design of new engineered product lines including: LNG compressors, high-pressure-high temperature compressors, and the SE compressor line. Previously he was Director of Mechanical Engineering for Concepts NREC where he lead the development of turbomachinery for: rocket turbo-pumps, gas turbines, industrial compressors, and turbochargers. Dr. Wygant holds an MBA (2005) from Norwich University and Ph.D. (2001) and M.S. (1993) from University of Virginia. He has co-authored 12 technical papers related to bearings and turbomachinery and has taught turbomachinery design courses in US, India, Europe, and Asia.
Jihoon Yoon is sales director of Dongyang Chemical Pump Co., Ltd. He has 20 years experiences in pump industries. His main area in DYCP is oversea sales, market research, and product development.
