Chad Felch – ‘90 

Chad Felch, a chemist with Siemens Water Technologies in Rothschild for eight year, was chosen from among Siemens' 57,000 research and development employees worldwide to receive the Inventor of the Year award from the Munich, Germany based company that spends about $8 billion in research and development every year. The award is Siemens' top honor in innovation and he is one of 12 Siemens inventors to receive the award, and the only American recognized. 

His invention, "Use of Wet Oxidation to Treat a Soot Slurry from a Gasification Process," is used to treat waste generated by a gasification process used in the tar sands fields of Alberta, Canada. The new invention allows customers to significantly reduce solid waste, recover rare metals for resale and make the gasification process more economically viable. His new process combines Zimpro wet-air oxidation, separation and dewatering to reduce ash volume by 90 percent.  

Felch's work helped Siemens Water Technologies book a contract worth $60 million, one of the largest single contracts in Siemens Water Technologies history. He has nine patents in progress and 27 inventions in his name. 

"I was very surprised and honored to be chosen as one of Siemens' inventors of the year," Felch said. "I give a lot of credit to my colleagues in Rothschild and within other parts of Siemens who helped make this idea become a reality, but more importantly, I'm proud of our ability to solve the customers' difficult problem with an environmentally friendly solution."