Industry Experts

Ken Kugler

Pump Industry Association - Executive Officer for Standards

Ken holds a Graduate of Engineering from Swinburne and began his involvement in the industry on the factory floor as an apprentice Fitter and Turner. Since the 1980's his employment has been entirely in the fire protection pump industry.

His roles have included Production, Contracts, Product and Engineering Management of many pump types ranging from small fractional kilowatt to megawatt centrifugal pumps, positive displacement pumps.

Ken currently represents the Pump Industry Australia on a number of Standard Australia committees; these committees are ME-030 Pumps, EL058 Energy consumption of swimming pool pumps and FP008 Stationary fire protection pump installations.

Presenting in VIC & NSW.

Jeff Greely

Kelair Pumps

Started with Australian pump manufacturer Davey Pumps in 1978 as an internal sales clerk and later progressed to a Regional Sales Representative servicing Davey’s rural and metropolitan dealer network.

In 1986 left Davey and commenced employment with Nossiter Pump Services in Sydney. At this time Nossiter was the major supplier of pumpsets and associated equipment to fire sprinkler and plumbing contactors in NSW. During the time with Nossiter served in sales as well as roles as Workshop Manager, Service Manager and Operations Manager. In 1987 became a member of Australian Standards committee FP-008 Fire Pumps and Tanks and have continued to serve on this committee since that date.

In 1994 joined Kelair Pumps Australia Pty Ltd as a sales representative and founding member of their newly formed building and fire division. Prior to this Kelair was primarily an industrial pump company servicing the petrochemical, industrial, food and beverage and mining sectors. During my time at Kelair have had the positions of Sales Manager, Service Manager and currently National Technical Manager.

Presenting in VIC & NSW.

Bill Davis

Prime Pumps - Sales Manager

Bill Davis started in pumps in 1990 at Nossiter Pump Services in Sydney after completing his toolmaking apprenticeship and studying mechanical engineering at TAFE.

After 4 years at Nossiter’s he had short stints at Malcolm Thompson Pumps and McEwan Pumps in Auckland NZ before 3 years at Kelair Pumps and now 20 years at Prime Pumps.

The first 10 years in pumps were spent working with building services pumps before he specialised in fire pumpsets. Rather than learning from the office Bill spent a lot of time in the field doing commissionings and fault finding which have given him a more practical experience than most.

Bill joined the FP008 Australian Standards committee for the AS2941 “Fixed fire protection installations – Pumpset systems” standard in 2005 and still sits on the committee.

Bill has been heavily involved in fire booster testing with Prime Pumps’ three fire appliances and this has given him further insight into the practical side of wet fire systems and the problems with on-site pumps and pressures.

Presenting in VIC & NSW.

Bala Thuraisingam

Kotta38 Fire - Director

Bala Thuraisingam is a Mechanical Engineer graduate from Monash University with over 35 years of pump system knowledge and experience. Bala began his career at Ajax Pumps, and after 8 years started his own company BKB Pumps and Tanks, which he ran for 24 years, and developed into one of the largest pump companies in Australia. In 2013, following the acquisition of BKB by Grundfos Pumps, Bala supported the transition for another 4 years working for BKB Building Solutions as General Manager & Technical Director.

Semi-retired now Bala is focusing his knowledge and passion for pump systems through Kotta38 Fire, and serves on the FPA Australia Technical committee for FP-008, AS 2941 Fire Pump Standards, AS 2304 Fire Tank Standards and ME-030, AS 2417 Pump Performance Testing Standards.

Presenting in VIC