Our beloved colleague, Conrad R. St. Pierre, of Rotterdam, NY passed away on August 10, 2014. Born in Bath, Maine, Conrad received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Maine, later earning his second Masters degree from Union College. Conrad owned and operated his own business, Electrical Power Consultants, from 1996 until present. Previously he worked as managing electrical engineer at the General Electric Company for 26 years. Conrad also worked for Power Technologies, Inc (PTI) for several years.
At the General Electric Company. Mr. St. Pierre’s work included design and application engineering for GE’s Medium Voltage Switchgear Department. This work involved the application, selection, and design of relay control circuits for switchgear to industrial and utility customers. Mr. St. Pierre joined the Industrial Power Systems Engineering Operation and worked in the field of conceptual design and system analysis of power systems for industries. He performed electrical power system studies for plants in the steel, chemical, automotive, paper, and aircraft industries, as well as commercial buildings, hospitals, and electric utilities. His particular emphasis was on short circuit, load flow, motor starting, harmonics, impact loading, stability, and load shedding analysis of electric power systems. He wrote and updated many computer programs used by GE on the above subjects. In 1986 he became Manager of IPSEO where he directed the activity of other engineers and was an instructor in the field of power system engineering. While at GE, he received several managerial and customer service awards, including the Industrial and Power System Engineering Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution to GE Industry Sales and Service.
Mr. St. Pierre joined Power Technologies, Inc (PTI) in 1991 as Manager of Industrial Power Systems performing similar analytical studies as he have done with GE. In addition, he increased PTI’s exposure and sales to the industrial market.
He was a member of IEEE and of several subcommittees, and was the Chairman of the Violet Book Working Group which deals with short circuit calculations. Mr. St. Pierre was a member of the U.S. National Committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission Technical Advisory Group for TC73/WG1 and WG2 concerning short circuit currents and calculation methods.
In 1997, Mr. St. Pierre formed his own analytical business known as Electric Power Consultants, LLC that provides analytical engineering services to his clients and clients of GE, ABB, PTI, Hanson Engineers, and ANNA, Inc.
Selected Publications:
“Economic Selection of Voltages for Refineries”, IEEE – Petroleum and Chemical Industry Conference, San Francisco, CA, 1974.
“Loss-of-Excitation Protection for Synchronous Generators on Isolated Systems”, IEEE – IAS Transactions, Vol. 1A-21, No. 1, Jan./Feb. 1985. Received Honorable Mention Prize.
“Standardization of Benchmarks for Protective Device Time-current Curves”, IEEE – IAS Transactions, Vol. 1A-22, No. 4, July/Aug. 1986 (co-author, T. Wolny).
“Microprocessor-Based Load Shedding Keeps Industry Systems in Balance,” IEEE Computer Applications in Power, January 1992, Vol. 5, No.1, pp. 21-24.
“Harmonic Control in Steel Mills,” Iron and Steel Engineer, July 1992, pp. 25-28.
“Why Arc Furnaces Worry Utilities”; Electrical World Magazine, Aug. 1993.
Designing or Specifying Harmonic Filters,” Plant Engineering, March 6, 1995, pp. 68-72.
“The Effect of Demand Side Management Programs on Magnetic Field Exposure,” presented at the 28th Annual Frontiers of Power Conference, Stillwater, OK, October 30-31, 1995, (co-author: L.J. Oppel).
“Destructive Harmonic Distortion is Byproduct of High Power Drives,” New York State Facilities Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 12-13, February 1996.
“Harmonic not always the culprit say power engineers”, New York State Facilities Journal, Vol. 6, No. 8, pp. 1, 10,11, July 1996. (Co-author Paul Steciuk)
“Shifting or Impeding Adjustable Speed Drive Harmonics,” Plant Engineering, June 1997, pp. 78-79.
“Don’t let power sags stop your motors”, Plant Engineering, Sept 1999, pp.76-80.
“Combine Variable Frequency and Fixed-Speed Drives for Better Economy”, Plant Engineering, April 2000, pp. 66-69.
“A Practical Guide to Short-Circuit Calculations” , Conrad St. Pierre, Aug. 2001 (self published book) Printer Thomson-Shore, Dexter MI.
Conrad was a member of the IEEE, GE Quarter Century Club and the GE Elfun Society.