Steam Expert Profile

With many changes in the steam landscape, including an aging workforce and fewer facility engineers, steam experts can be difficult to find. That’s why customers who need proven expertise rely on Russ Wilfong—a 17-year veteran with knowledge of the entire steam loop and extensive experience in outage management.

With a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Russ specializes in advanced steam generation design while maintaining and optimizing these systems for safety, reliability, and efficiency. Having worked in field engineering for Babcock & Wilcox and Babcock Power and as a power plant engineer for NRG Energy, Russ became an expert in boilers, their ancillary equipment, and environmental technologies, early on in his career. While employed at these power companies, there was one vendor Russ could always trust—ECI! His long-standing relationship with the ECI team ultimately led to his role today as a valuable steam resource who advocates for the customer and heads ECI’s growing steam business.

With his knowledge of how steam systems affect the operation and efficiency of a process plant, Russ can diagnose steam issues and devise solutions that achieve his customers' specific goals. Whether helping his customers save money, reduce manpower, implement automation measures, or make plants more environmentally compliant, Russ is equipped with the experience and tools to best assess the issues and recommend appropriate solutions. He also trains and mentors his entire team—and ECI’s entire sales force and engineers—to continually expand their steam knowledge.

When Russ goes out to customer sites, he first evaluates the reliability, safety, and efficiency of their steam systems—whether for a single boiler or the entire plant. Based on this assessment, he and his team develop a plan that includes opportunities for improvement, an implementation schedule, and values for risk, ROI, and other important outcomes—ultimately creating the project roadmap. Throughout the entire process, Russ works with his customer’s goals top-of-mind, which is something that allows him to be so successful in his field.

The ECI steam team has been involved in projects such as full boiler house automation, which includes tasks like providing technical advice and management of the manpower involved. They can also perform system reviews for troubleshooting, energy audits, combustion and system tuning, safety inspections and testing, steam trap testing, and other steam services.

ECI’s commitment to the steam industry has developed into an entire group focused on addressing the challenges around steam applications. With our expanding portfolio of products and services catered to steam applications, the future looks bright for steam customers.

Meet Your Trusted Steam Advisor

“A reason why I’m able to truly understand what the customer needs is because I think of myself as part of the customer, first and foremost. I am on their side, and I want to use my knowledge of their steam systems to figure this out together.”