Peter Lucon, Scientific Director

PhD Mech. Eng, P.E

Peter Lucon is Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Montana Technological University in Butte, MT, USA.

He worked on various applications of resonant devices across a wide range of industries. In 2006 he was commissioned by the Department of Energy (DOE) to work on the sonic drilling technology where he established the wave equations governing the sonic drilling vibratory regimes and resolved them numerically, Final Report . He continued the modeling work for his PhD.

In 2019 he was hired on a development project for a deep-water seabed-based geotechnical sonic rig, where he delivered resonant frequencies, max achievable drill depth, fatigue assessment on critical components, and resulting guidance on drilling protocol. Peter holds a number of patents for various resonant devices.

Martin Hammann, Managing Director

MSc Civil, Exec-MBA  

Martin is a seasoned executive in construction and consulting, primarily for the offshore oil & gas, and offshore wind industries.

His technical background is geotechnical drilling - both sonic and conventional - as well as pile driving, where he was looking at the soil-pile interface during driving. He was a visiting lecturer on pile driving and pile testing at ESITC-Caen University.

He co-founded and managed a number of successful companies. Before joining the Sonic Drilling Institute, he was Chief Geo at a company developing a deep-water seabed-based geotechnical sonic rig, where he was in particular looking after the quality of the collected geotechnical samples and data, the sonic drilling processes, as well as other aspects of the business such as strategy and digitalization.  

Adam Schlecht, Intellectual Property Lawyer

J.D. Law, PhD Chem

Adam Schlecht joined the Sonic Drilling Institute at its inception as a partner, to look after the patents and Intellectual Property matters.

Dr. C. Adam Schlecht is a patent attorney and a consultant. He has prepared and prosecuted patents in a diverse range of technical fields including chemistry, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, nanotechnology, petrochemistry, material science, and mechanical engineering.

Additionally, Dr. Schlecht assists clients corporate formation and related business concerns, in
freedom-to-operate, patentability, and due diligence assessments. He assists foreign associates in prosecuting international patent applications. He also has experience in providing technical assistance in litigation support.

Robert J. Hall, Controls Engineer

BSc Mech

Bob joined the Sonic Drilling Institute to take
responsibility of the development of controls and
electronic systems.

Bob has a broad experience ranging from project
management on a pipe laying project, welding and
manufacturing Aerospace parts, drilling for Oil & Gas, maintenance & repair for the US navy, and firefighting.

Ingvar Kulseng-Hansen, MATLAB Programmer

MSc Mech

Ingvar joined the Sonic Drilling Institute in its earliest days to progress and finalize U-Sonic, the in-house sonic drilling modeling software used to map out all sonic vibratory modes of any sonic drill rig.