David Bate is well known in the heat transfer community as an expert on fired heaters although, modestly, he describes himself as an amateur in heat transfer.
David is Manager of the Process Engineering Team for ICI's Petrochemicals Division. He graduated from UMIST in 1965 with a BSc in Chemical Engineering and joined ICI on Teesside. He first became seriously involved with heat transfer in 1972 whilst investigating a failure in a fired process heater. In his words one thing led to another, and he became ICI's acknowledged expert on fired process equipment and a member of the company's Heat Transfer Panel.
David has been a member of the HTFS Review Panel on Fired Heaters for over 20 years, and has also become involved in the design, operation and trouble shooting of other heat exchange equipment. David also has many years of experience in general process design, primarily in Petrochemicals.
Looking back over the years, David sees his greatest achievement as having built up a team of people with the right mix of practical skill and theoretical know-how. This has included the important task training and motivating the younger members of the team.
