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Don Glaser ’74 makes software that makes trouble. Which, he says, is better than having trouble in the real world—in the form of industrial accidents that kill workers and cause damage in the millions. Glaser’s company, Simulation Solutions of Shrewsbury, N.J., creates troubleshooting software that duplicates industrial processes to identify potential problems before they happen.
“The defining characteristic of troubleshooting is uncertainty,” Glaser writes in Hydrocarbon Processing magazine. “(But it) doesn’t end with finding the cause. Its scope extends to successful repair.” The average large property loss in the chemical and refining industry is $80 million, he notes, so prevention offers huge advantages.
A chemical engineering graduate, Glaser founded Simulation Solutions in 1998 as a successor to Atlantic Simulation, a company he founded in 1980. The two companies have provided PC-based simulations to more than 230 locations in 28 countries. Glaser has spent his entire career developing process simulators for operator training. His company was the first to bring dynamic simulation to the personal computer.
Glaser recently worked on a Lafayette chemical engineering project to develop process control kits with which chemical engineering students can conduct level experiments illustrating concepts of simple draining tank dynamics.
“My company is also involved with some of the two-year colleges offering a process-technology degree and I feel that [the] project has application for these students as well,” says Glaser.