Bechtel announced today that Wayne Bergstrom and John Minichiello have been elected Fellows. The Bechtel Fellows are a select group of 19 experts in engineering and technology who have made outstanding contributions to the company and their profession through innovation and application of advanced technologies. They are industry experts in key technologies including rail systems, turbomachinery, mineral processing, process engineering, material science and welding, steel and concrete structures, earthquake engineering, geotechnical engineering, fluid flow and transport, and environmental engineering. The Bechtel Fellows play a key role in contributing to professional societies, code committees, advisory councils, and national and international conferences, as well as providing significant support and expertise to Bechtel customers on most complex technical challenges.
"Fellows help keep us and the industry at the forefront of technical innovation, and serve as technical advisors to our customers and our leadership team," said Mary McLaughlin, a Bechtel director and the manager of EPC Functions. "The expertise Wayne and John bring to some of our most complex projects helps us address key challenges our industry faces today – enhancing the pipeline of engineering talent, and creatively adapting new technologies to solve our customers’ challenges."
Bergstrom, the Assistant Chief Engineer for the Civil-Structural Engineering group at Bechtel’s Infrastructure business unit, has more than 40 years of experience in civil, geotechnical, and geoenvironmental design projects. He has helped develop innovative solutions on many of Bechtel’s signature projects, including Vogtle Nuclear Electric Generating Plant, Riyadh Metro, and Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System.
Bergstrom holds a doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. He is active on various American Society of Civil Engineers’ national committees and has served as president of ABET, which accredits some 4,000 college programs in engineering and related scientific/technical fields in more than 30 countries around the world. He has published and presented nearly 20 papers at key industry conferences and in related publications. Bergstrom is a Fellow of ASCE and ABET and is a licensed professional engineer in five U.S. states.
John Minichiello is a technical leader for the Plant Design & Piping Engineering group at Bechtel’s Nuclear, Security & Environmental business unit. In this role, he has helped resolve challenges related to waste processing plants, including developing methods to evaluate hydrogen detonation in piping systems. He has worked in the commercial nuclear industry and at the U.S. Department of Energy for nearly 50 years, developing technical processes and training teams to resolve seismic and pressure issues in equipment, including pressure vessels and piping. He has developed methods to perform elastic-plastic evaluations of nuclear facility piping subjected to severe overpressure loading as well as led a team of experts to perform critical path piping modifications to a nuclear power facility for containment isolation valves. Minichiello has helped developed innovative solutions for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, which will process and stabilize much of the 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste currently stored at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site.
Minichiello earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Tufts University and his master’s degree in applied mechanics from Harvard University. He has made significant contributions to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers codes that govern the design of pressure vessels and piping for nuclear facilities, leading development of complete rules for using high-density polyethylene material for buried piping. Minichiello is serving as vice-chair for the Nuclear Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Committee. He has co-authored nearly 20 conference papers and publications related to pressure vessels and piping, primarily in the area of hydrogen detonation. He was selected as an ASME Fellow based on his contributions to ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel committee on construction of nuclear facilities. Minichiello is a licensed professional engineer in Illinois and Massachusetts.
