Rommel Oates is currently Business Director of Hydrogen and CO Product Management at Praxair, Inc. Praxair, Inc. is a fortune 250 company and is one of the world’s largest industrial gas companies. Oates is no stranger to the challenging landscape of engineering, sales, business development, product/supply chain management and business management.

As a seasoned value creator, his career spans over 15 years in which, he has held profit and loss responsibilities for multi-million dollar businesses, led and managed world scale capital projects in excess of 50 million dollars, successfully started up and sold a small business and implemented several game changing strategies that have substantially increased the profitability for the stake holders he served.

Recognized as an industry expert in the area of hydrogen storage and production technologies, Oates played a major role in helping Praxair commercialize the industry’s first high purity underground 2.5 BCF hydrogen storage facility. He has produced two patents in the area of hydrogen storage technology for himself and his colleagues and has several additional patents pending.

Prior to his current role, Oates served as General Manager for Praxair’s Electronics business, in which he led a 20+ person team that was able to increase profitability by nearly 50% over the prior year, with 0% employee turnover. Oates also held various positions in Sales Account Management and Product Management. During his tenure in sales he brokered multi-million dollar pipeline and on-site deals with top players in the Oil and Gas business (Chevron USA, Total Petrochemicals, Valero Energy Corporation and Kinder Morgan). As product manager Oates used his creativity to create the industry’s first on-line hydrogen market place that indirectly led to improved product pricing over 300%. Oates also served in various engineering and operations roles over his career where he improved efficiency, safety and reliability of various chemical plant processes and equipment, which led to over 50 million dollars in productivity savings.

Oates currently serves on the Advisory Board for the International Association of Hydrogen Energy (IAHE). IAHE is committed to transitioning the world from fossil fuels to clean burning renewable fuels, such as hydrogen.

In addition, Oates values education and learning, for he holds an MBA and Master of Finance Degrees from Tulane University and he holds a Bachelor of Science Degree and Masters of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Miami, Florida.

Lastly Oates resides in the Houston, Texas area with his wife Natalia and two children Nathan and Sidney.