Geffrey Mitchell

My professional story began as a Mechanical Engineer at a Navy contractor in Norwich, CT designing and analyzing mounting arrangements for new or temporary systems being deployed within the nuclear submarine fleet. It was very interesting and a great experience but sitting behind a computer all day doing math and CAD wasn’t for me.

I wound up finding a System Design Engineer position within a niche department in a massive corporation outside of Boston, MA providing explosion suppression systems to manufacturing facilities handling combustible dusts and vapors. I was able to travel around North America learning all about different manufacturing processes and meeting lots of interesting people along the way. Early on, soon after commissioning a new system I got a call from the end-user after their system had discharged. They captured video of an explosion igniting within a piece of equipment, then a flash of white powder surrounded the flame and extinguished it. The customer was just calling to say that our system had saved the facility and that everyone was going to be going home that night because of it. I was HOOKED.

After a few years I was asked to take my technical, business and social acumen out west to San Jose, CA and then Sparks, NV to build the business as a Regional Sales Manager covering the western US, Canada and Mexico. I was able to continue help end-users protect themselves from combustible dust hazard, but also teach engineering firms, OEMs, OSHA inspectors, Fire Marshals, insurers and end-users about combustible dust safety.

My Hallam ICS story began at a Biomass conference where Chris Giusto and I presented together on a panel about combustible dust protection. We would see each other on the conference tour and always take a minute to say hi and catch up. Just when I was looking to slow down on the travel to better care for my young family I got a message from Chris wondering if I knew anyone that would be interested in joining a combustible dust safety team. I was very intrigued by the employee-owned culture and jumped at the opportunity. I can’t wait to help keep facilities safe and promote combustible dust safety with Hallam ICS!