By Mary Ruth Johnsen Feature Tips for Working Overseas This advice may help you cope when working in countries with different cultures and languages Some CWIs spend their careers working for one company in one place or at least in a limited geographic area; others are vagabonds who practice their profession all over the world. Inspection Trends sought advice from some inspectors with extensive experience working outside the United States on how to make the best of an overseas assignment. Following is an introduction to each of these men and a quick rundown of where they have worked overseas. Ken Erickson is an AWS SCWI. You know him as one of the authors of The Answer Is. . . department of Inspection Trends. He is manager of quality for National Inspection & Consultants, Inc., Ft. Myers, Fla. From 1990 to the present, Erickson has worked in the following countries: Spain, Brazil, Italy, Sweden, Korea, Loas, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Japan, Venezuela, Turkey, Canada, Mexico, Holland, Scotland, and Poland. Most of this work was involved with offshore structures, electric power generation, and aircraft. He mostly performed quality control, nondestructive examination, and project management overseeing local contractors. Jim Merrill, a CWI based in California and a member of the AWS D1 Structural Welding Committee, has worked in many countries throughout Asia, Europe, and South America, as well as in Canada. “The first project I had would have been around 1990 or so in Lima, Peru, and that was a boiler deaerator for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.,” Merrill noted. “Since then I have been involved in a number of bridge and electrical transmission projects that have taken me overseas.” Jon Lambert, a former AWS SCWI and advisor to a number of committees related to the International Steve Snyder and coworker Saravana performing ultrasonic testing on buttjoint welds of the low- and high-pressure housing to pipe welds in Fakfak, Indonesia. The temperature was about 110°F that day. The low-pressure housing (typically 30 or 36 in.) provides a location point for the drilling guide base, and provides an interface for the 183⁄4-in. high-pressure housing. It is important for this first string to be jetted or cemented in place correctly because it is the foundation for the rest of the well. Snyder is shown at the “laydown” yard in Fakfak inspecting subsea wellhead drilling equipment prior to it being shipped offshore to an exploratory well site. Inspection Trends / Spring 2013 15
Inspection Trends | April 2013
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