Amoco Oil Company Hammond, IN - Computer Applications Engineer
Work location was Whiting Refinery.

• Interfaced process analyzers to computers using single-board A/D converters via RS-232. Also interfaced lab equipment with RS-232 communications with computer and wrote code for the computer. Wrote the code to communicate to the equipment. MODCOMP computers were used, and the programming languages were FORTRAN and MODCOMP assembly language.
• Set up system to compare and store laboratory and process gas chromatograph analyses and to issue reports.
• Helped in software development for a refinery-wide data-acquisition system, including flow conversions based on line pressure, differential pressure, and temperature.
• Engineered and supervised process analyzer installations. Some projects included process gas chromatographs and conductivity analyzers (to monitor mineral content in water). A major consideration was following the standards for potentially explosive environments.
• Reconfigured gas chromatographs (software and columns) to analyze a different set of components in process streams. In most cases the process engineers wanted the analysis of more compounds based on molecular weight and structure.