Chuck Hansen, Chairman & CEO

Chuck Hansen is a public sector information technology pioneer with over 25 years of experience advising and deploying a wide range of public sector solutions. As co-founder and majority shareholder of Hansen Information Technologies, Chuck was instrumental in building Hansen Information Technologies to become the first major international IT solutions provider dedicated solely to streamlining the operations of government.

In 1988, Chuck was responsible for designing & developing the first of its kind field-to-office integrated solution to manage the inventory, data collection, and inspection of city-wide Sewer Survey Evaluation Study (SSES). Working with the City of Houston to inventory and rate the condition of its 5,000-mile sanitary sewer system while operating under an EPA consent decree, Chuck worked with the City of Houston’s Henry Gregory to define industry inspection standards to be used by city personnel and outside contractors, including standards followed by over 120 television inspection crews. Other major inspections included Manhole Inspections, Smoke Testing, and Dye Flood Testing, all part of the largest public works inspection project of its kind.

Spearheading the design, development, and deployment of industry-specific work management solutions for the water & sewer, plant, highway, and transit market, Chuck Hansen was responsible for leading his offshore development team to create the first ever web service applications for Asset Valuation, Utility Billing, Property Tax, Business & Consumer Licensing, Planning, and Permitting solutions. Chuck was also responsible for developing the first asset-based accounting system for local governments in Australia in accordance with AAS27. In addition, he developed the first Asset Valuation system in accordance with GASB 34 requirements which are used for Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR).

Chuck’s former clients have included some of the largest cities in the United States, Canada, England, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, including strategic alliances in the Middle East, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea.

In 2006, Chuck partnered with private equity firm Golden Gate Capital. As majority shareholder, he sold Hansen Information Technologies to Atlanta-based Infor Global in 2007.

Since selling his company, Chuck has been involved in the start-up, management, and investment of several high-tech companies, including his decision to make an early stage investment in Facebook. An avid musician, Chuck played Baritone & Bass Sax with various artists, including Eddy Money, Huey Lewis, Micky Dolans (“The Monkees”), Mickey Thomas (Starship), Prairie Prince (“The Tubes”), Todd Rundgren, and Tower of Power. Earning his General Aviation Pilot’s license and Instrument Rating in less than a year, Chuck began investigating innovative technologies that would fundamentally change the way municipal utilities can identify critical sewer pipes, which led to Chuck’s founding of Electro Scan Inc.

Chuck & Bob Hansen

Prior to co-founding Hansen Information Technologies with his father and brother, Chuck worked with several Silicon Valley venture capital firms as a senior executive for troubled high-tech companies. Chuck was also the youngest corporate Vice President and Corporate Officer for a $20 billion NYSE bank holding company. Chuck started his career in Finance as a Senior Accountant for Arthur Andersen & Co. in their San Francisco and Oakland offices, where he worked on several SEC registration statements including a brief tenure as a merger & acquisition consultant and Director of Strategic Planning at cement pipe maker, Ameron, Inc.

Chuck received his MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management (1982) and BS from the University of California, Berkeley (1978). Chuck also rowed Cal Crew during their 1977 championship season and played in the U.C. Berkeley Jazz Band.  Chuck was the recipient of the prestigious Robert Gordon Sproul & Ida W. Sproul Award, U.C. Berkeley’s highest student honor. For over ten (10) years, Chuck was a Visiting Lecturer with the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Graduate School of Engineering, where he taught courses on Upgrading Your Sanitary Sewer Maintenance Program.

Rob Harris, Chief Scientist

Rob Harris is arguably the leading worldwide expert on sewer electro-scanning. Responsible for the development of key aspects of the system, Rob Harris has scanned more than 100,000-ft of sewer pipe, published or co-published numerous white papers on sewer electro-scan, and participated in the establishment of the ASTM standard.

Rob Harris joined Australia-based, Melbourne Water, as a geophysicist in 1972. At that time Melbourne Water employed 1,200 civil engineers and was the largest civil engineering organization in Australia; designing, constructing, and maintaining the water supply and sewer system for metropolitan Melbourne (population: 3,000,000). During the 12 years that Rob Harris was with the Scientific Services Division of Melbourne Water he developed and applied geophysical methods to the investigation of a wide variety of civil engineering projects, including a number of large tunnels and dams. He also developed an innovative ground vibration measurement system that was adopted throughout Melbourne Water

In 1984, Rob Harris left Melbourne Water and formed Micro Innovations Pty Ltd, specializing in the design and manufacture of ground vibration monitors. A large number of these monitors were sold in Australia and overseas, with a US company purchasing the company in 1988. Later, Rob Harris formed GVM Ground Vibration Monitors Pty Ltd, to sell and service ground vibration monitors and provide geophysical consulting services.

In 1993 Rob Harris became a Senior Geophysicist at Coffey Geosciences Pty Ltd, one of the largest geotechnical engineering companies in Australia. Over a six year period Rob Harris carried out geophysical testing for a variety of geotechnical projects around the world, including the Sea Cliff Sewer Collapse, in San Francisco, California. During this time Rob Harris was involved in sewer condition assessment of more than 50 miles of sewers and obtained unique experience in utilising geophysical testing methods including radar, sonar, seismic imaging, electromagnetic sensing for testing the condition of sewers and the surrounding soils.

In 1998, Rob Harris left Coffey and began investigating the market potential of geophysical testing services for sewer condition assessment in the US. Shortly after becoming a US-resident, he became aware of the sewer electro-scan system.

Being aware of the sewer electro-scan methodology’s effectiveness as a geophysical well logging tool Rob Harris recognized its potential for identifying defects in sewer pipes that leak. He already knew leaky defects were a major concern in the industry and that they were far from adequately addressed with the existing sewer assessment technologies. Initially sewer electro-scan had a number of shortcomings that limited its effectiveness, specifically its sensitivity to the variations of sewer pipe materials that masked the occurrence of leaky defects and the requirement that the pipe be full of water over a manhole to manhole section. In response, he created proprietary methods to overcome these problems so that now sewer electro-scan has become a readily accepted technique for cost effectively identifying all defects that can cause leaks in a sewer pipe.

Today, Rob Harris serves Electro Scan as its Chief Scientist, bringing the Electro Scan’s ES-38™, ES-660™, Smartphone app, and Critical Sewers™ Cloud Computing app to market.