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An expert on edible oils, Expert is well known in the industry for his studies of oil-related issues. During his 16 years at Proctor & Gamble, he served in various capacities on oil refining, quality assurance, and product manufacturing. He helped a former employer, Frito Lay Inc. with a rancidity by offering a solution that included upgrading the oil quality from the suppliers by educating them on quality and oil processing, upgrading the operating practices at Frito Lay, specifying and providing the design for the oil handling equipment in Frito Lay, and providing the operating criteria for achieving maximum life for the oil. He can answer in-depth questions on corn oil, cottonseed oil, palm oil, soybean oil, and sunflower oil. He is familiar with new oilseeds, including the genetically modified seeds and their oil traits. He keeps abreast of the world oil production and supply and follows new and non-food application of vegetable oils.

Expert understands how soybean oil develops a flavor that is undesirable to most consumers. The presence of soybean oil, even at a 10% level can make the soybean oil product flavor unacceptable to consumers. He was able to improve the flavor stability of soybean oil by studying the fundamental causes for the flavor reversion found in soybean oil and developing a logical correlation between the basic research data and their applicability in real life soybean crushing and oil refining. He involved several leading oil producers in the United States to follow the proposed procedure to produce soybean oil. It was possible to use as much as 50% of the specially processed soybean oil in cottonseed oil to produce potato chips. He has been engaged in training Latin American soybean processors to produce better quality soybean oil.


Sunflower oil is used only in limited supplies domestically, with nearly 70%-90% of the oil exported. The oil cannot be used in frying of food because of the lack of autoxidative stability due to high linoleic acid content. In 1995, Expert noticed that the USDA had developed a certain germplasm that was much lower than the standard 55% and had a significantly higher oleic acid content. The seed also looked attractive from agronomic point of view. He teamed up with a member of a leading oil processing company and approached the National Sunflower Association to commercialize this new variety as a commodity to replace the existing sunflower variety. This made such an industry wide impact that this variety is on its way for full commercialization by year 2001. The oil has been named "NuSun." This will bring the following benefits to the sunflower industry: increase domestic use of the oil by providing a non-hydrogenated oil with low saturated fat content at a commodity price; decrease the dependency of the sunflower industry on exports; provide a challenge to cottonseed oil, corn oil, and low-linolenic acid canola oil in the frying industry; and, provide a low-cost answer to the upcoming "trans fat" issue.

Expert has had responsibility for designing and rebuilding oil processing plants at numerous locations. He worked to improve the operations at an oil processing plant in Monterrey, Mexico, which was operating at 60%-70% of its capacity. He improved the productivity to a sustained 100 % by assessing the human-related and equipment-related issues, training the plant personnel to learn to operate the equipment to its maximum capability, repairing or renovating the repairable equipment, replacing the obsolete equipment with new ones, training the personnel to operate the new equipment, establishing a process operating procedure, establishing a quality control procedure, and training plant management on process cost control. At present Expert is engaged in upgrading several oil processing plants to improve the productivity and cost.


Expert has extensive experience in formulating various fats and oils and can provide technical support for developing new products or improve performance. He has provided process analysis to various clients on continuous packed bed deodorizers, reaction hydrogenation converters, continuous acidulation reactor for soapstock, as well as complete oil and fat refining processes.

OIL PROCESSING PLANT TROUBLESHOOTING. Expert helps oil and fat manufacturing plants to correct any product or process issue or implement new product manufacturing capability in an innovative manner. One plant was experiencing very short shelf-life stability of their frozen baked goods. Expert identified several areas where they needed improvements. This included replacement of some of the ingredients, reformulation of some of the products and modification of their operating standards. In another example, a plant was experiencing poor flavor in soybean oil. The oil had high levels of trace impurities. A major piece of equipment was missing. However, the plant did not have the capital to purchase one immediately. Expert helped them build the unit, using their own manpower and solved the problem.

Through Expert's guidance, one manufacturer was able to improve productivity and achieve a 100% production level. Expert helped a client to get a patent that was initially rejected by the patent examiner. In another situation, he provided an analysis and offered an expert opinion on a certain frying installation at the client's plant after the system failed to produce results. The opinion has helped the client to receive financial compensation from the vendor.