2023 George C. Wheeler Excellence in Personnel Certification Recognition Recipients

Mohammed Abufour

Mohammad A. Abufour has been with Saudi Aramco since January 1984. He is a Lifetime Member of ASNT and has over 35 years of nondestructive testing (NDT) experience in oil and energy industry, where he has served in several positions, including NDT Inspector, NDT Supervisor, NDT Consultant and Engineering Specialist. Abufour is an avid mentor who has served Saudi Aramco as an ASNT NDT Level III for over fifteen years, providing technical guidance to field engineers and technicians. He holds ASNT NDT Level III certification in magnetic particle testing, ultrasonic testing, and visual testing.

Abufour led advanced inspection teams as the ANDT Unit Head to provide services to Saudi Aramco's upstream and downstream facilities, developed and improved numerous NDT techniques, reviewed procedures, and certified/qualified company and contractor technicians. In addition, he provided and managed advanced inspection services in compliance with Aramco and international industry codes and standards.

Abufour served on ASNT’s Board of Directors for one term ending in 2018 and currently serves as Regional Director for Region 19, committee member on ASNT Certification Management Committees (including Industry Sector Qualification), and Vice Chair of the ASNT Saudi Arabian Section. Abufour has been recognized as ASNT’s Lou DiValerio Technician of the Year (2006) and an ASNT Fellow (class of 2012) and has received ASNT’s Mentoring Award (2018) and Charles N. Sherlock Meritorious Service Recognition (2022).

Azhar Vain

Azhar Iqbal Vains is a consultant, trainer, and examiner with The South West School of NDT (a division of Minton, Treharne & Davies Group) in Cardiff, United Kingdom. He began his NDT career in 1988 and worked as an NDT, quality control, and welding inspector in his native country until 2000. He moved to United Arab Emirates in 2001 and was managing operations of lifting equipment inspection, vendors inspection, NDT, and third-party inspection for almost 20 years in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with MEITI, KTI, VINCOTTE International, and TÜV Nord Middle East. He has conducted NDT trainings all over the globe and has worked in the oil and gas, petrochemicals, manufacturing, power plants, and cross country pipelines industry, including construction and in-service. He has worked in the aerospace sector since 2021.

Vains has maintained ASNT NDT Level III certification in ultrasonic testing (UT), radiographic testing (RT), magnetic particle testing (MT), and liquid penetrant testing (PT) since 2003. He has also held PCN Level 2 and 3 certification since 2013, AWS Certified Welding Inspector certification since 2005, and API Source Inspector Fixed Equipment certification for the last six years. He has been qualified and certified in UT, RT, MT and PT as per EN4179 and NAS410 requirements in 2021, as well as per SNT-TC-1A.

Vains has contributed to Society mentoring and has trained hundreds of individuals who are delivering their services to the NDT and quality control community. He has also participated in many tasks of failure investigations.

He is life time member of PSNDT, ASNT since 2003, AWS since 2005, CINDT for about 5 years and BINDT since 2013 and actively participating and conferences and seminars.