Staff Qualifications
President
B.S., Mechanical Engineering; University of Southern California
M.S., Mechanical Engineering; University of Southern California
REGISTRATION
Professional Engineer, State of California, 1990
Certified Permitting Professional (CPP), South Coast AQMD, 1993
ACADEMICS
Instructor/Adjunct Faculty Member, West Coast University; Los Angeles, California (1993-1996)
Taught environmental courses with emphasis in air quality management, in the Environmental Management Graduate Program.
BACKGROUND
In addition to his industry experience as a Design/Manufacturing engineer, Mr. Eshraghi has over 36 years of environmental and regulatory experience as an engineer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and later on as the President of ATI. His experience is quite diversified as he has worked at various capacities in different sections of that agency. The extent of his experience covers the Source Testing section of the Technical Services Division as well as the Chemical Unit, Mechanical Unit, Metallurgical Unit and Printing & Coating Unit of the AQMD’s Engineering Division.
In 1991, Mr. Eshraghi was selected by the SCAQMD Engineering Division management as one of the agency’s top four engineers with unique experience and backgrounds to work on a temporary assignment in a specially formed unit, to process older, more difficult applications for permits.
Mr. Eshraghi resigned his position at the SCAQMD to form ATI in 1993. As the President of ATI he has been involved with many environmental projects for a number of small and large companies. As a Certified Permitting Professional with the AQMD, he has successfully helped companies obtain permits for various types of equipment, in an expeditious manner. He has assisted companies file other required reports and plans with the SCAQMD, BAY Area AQMD, California Air Resources Board, Sacramento Metropolitan AQMD, San Joaquin Valley APCD, and other local and state environmental regulatory agencies in California.
As an instructor at West Coast University (WCU), Mr. Eshraghi occasionally got involved with environmental studies and research projects contracted to WCU by the government agencies and the private sector.
Mr. Eshraghi speaks on a number of environmental related issues at gatherings of technical groups, industry associations, and environmental and technical societies. He frequently writes articles for technical journals and newsletters.
Mr. Eshraghi is a well known expert in the areas of particulate emissions from solid materials handling and transfer systems, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) emissions from printing/coating operations and emissions resulting from internal combustion engines and boilers.
Kevin is amongst a small group of individuals that have been trained by California Air Resources Board (CARB) as Greenhouse Gas Verifiers (AB32). In the past few years he has been involved in greenhouse gas emissions reporting and verifications in compliance with CARB and EPA requirements.
Project Engineer
B.S., Chemical Engineering, 1989
University of California, Los Angeles
REGISTRATION
Certified Permitting Professional (CPP), South Coast AQMD, 1995
BACKGROUND
Ms. Rita Loof has 34 years of experience in the field of air quality compliance. She has more than 4 years of experience as a permit processing engineer for the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and over 30 years of consulting experience for private industry.
While at the SCAQMD Ms. Loof worked as an Air Quality Engineer, processing air quality permit applications and solving complex problems involving advanced processes and control equipment.
She specialized in semiconductor applications and was recognized by the District as a resident expert on the subject. Ms. Loof has authored a Technical Guidance Document on permit processing of semiconductor operations for SCAQMD engineers. She conducted training seminars for SCAQMD engineers on permit processing. She has also served as an SCAQMD speaker for industry on SCAQMD regulatory requirements. Additionally, Ms. Loof gave expert testimony as an SCAQMD permit processing engineer to the SCAQMD Hearing Board.
Ms. Loof was part of the SCAQMD team working on consolidating equipment-based permits into the facility-based permitting system. She has also performed health risk assessments for a variety of industries while at the SCAQMD. Ms. Loof was certified by the SCAQMD as a bilingual employee, fluent in Spanish and assisted minority permit applicants.
As a legislative consultant, Ms. Loof represents the trade association for Ultraviolet and Electron Beam curing technologies comprised of over 800 members. She has also consulted for government agencies such as the United States Postal Service.
Ms. Loof has worked with the Department of Environmental Quality in Portland, Oregon to educate the industry about pollution prevention strategies. She has extensive air quality permitting experience in a wide range of industries including, but not limited to, semiconductors, aerospace, graphic arts, plastics, incineration equipment, internal combustion engines, metal melting, crematories, wood coatings, electronics, film cleaning, and air pollution control strategies.