14-06-2018

John Gugel named as president of Honeywell UOP business

Honeywell has announced the appointment of John Gugel as president of Honeywell UOP, a leading supplier of process technology, catalysts, engineered systems, and technical and engineering services to the global petroleum refining, petrochemical, chemical and gas processing industries. 
 
With more than 25 years serving in numerous roles at Honeywell UOP, Gugel is an established leader in the oil and gas processing industries. He succeeds Rebecca Liebert, who had been president of Honeywell UOP since 2016. Gugel reports to Rajeev Gautam, president of Honeywell’s Performance Materials and Technologies division, and who also served as president of Honeywell UOP from 2009 to 2016.
 
Prior to his current role, Gugel served as vice president and general manager Honeywell UOP’s Process Technology and Equipment business, and prior to that, held the same role as head of the Gas Processing and Hydrogen business. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
 
UOP was founded in Chicago in 1914 to commercialize the first process technology for the mass production of gasoline. The company introduced catalysis to the refining industry in 1933, and it later created the core technologies for the modern petrochemicals industry. 
 
Honeywell UOP led the development of cleaner-burning fuels, including unleaded gasoline, and the catalytic converter. It also developed linear alkylbenzene, which is the basis for biodegradable detergents. It also pioneered the development of technologies that produce diesel and jet fuel from renewable sources, and that processes natural gas so it can be safely transported and stored.

Honeywell UOP’s adsorbent technologies separate chemical compounds and are the primary technologies used to remediate contamination at sites such as the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. More recently, Honeywell UOP developed the technologies to convert coal into plastics, and use ionic liquids instead of acids to produce high-octane fuels. Today, 31 of the 36 refining technologies commonly in use around the world were developed by Honeywell UOP.
 
In 2016, Honeywell UOP introduced the first connected plant services that combine UOP’s proprietary process knowledge and fault models with Honeywell controls experience to provide a software-based service that significantly improves the operation of refineries and petrochemical and gas plants.
 
Based in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois, Honeywell UOP has 29 offices and other facilities around the world and has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Honeywell since 2005.