John Merrill, manager of application engineering at EagleBurgmann U.S. (www.eagleburgmann.us), was elected chairman of the Hydraulic Institute”s Seals Committee.John Merrill, manager of application engineering at EagleBurgmann U.S. (www.eagleburgmann.us), was elected chairman of the Seals Committee at the Hydraulic Institute (www.pumps.org) during the organization’s annual meeting last month. The Seals Committee has 17 active individual members. Last year this committee authored Mechanical Seals for Pumps: Application Guidelines, a 300-page comprehensive and authoritative reference book that provides pump and seal professionals, end-users and consulting engineers with useful and current pump mechanical seal knowledge. The committee also just finished a detailed seal and packing recommendation matrix for the Condensing Combined Cycle Power Plant Pump Guideline, which should be published by the end of 2009. John is also a member of the MTBR (Mean Time Between Repair) Committee and the Vibration Committee. John holds BSME and JD degrees from the University of Tulsa (www.utulsa.edu) and a MSME degree from Western Michigan (www.wmich.edu).