Jeff Sharman

I was born in the UK, Educated in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. I am married with 1 daughter, also married and I now have 2 grandchildren.   

I studied at Chesterfield College of Technology up to National Certificate level in electrical engineering as well as serving a full 5-year apprenticeship as an Instrument Mechanic. This was followed by an extensive UK career where I was involved in maintenance and commissioning as a Commissioning Engineer travelling to different companies all over the UK. This involved exposure to many different production facilities.

In 1981, I was offered a position as Instrument Foreman with Sasol, Secunda, and this is when I emigrated with my family to South Africa. I was responsible for all instrumentation issues on 5 Sasol units.  Sasol is a major PetroChem facility within South Africa

After Sasol, in 1991, I moved to Johannesburg where I was employed at Babcock Engineering and Davy International as Senior Instrument Engineer, overseeing projects in Botswana and in the steel industry.   

I obtained my first full-time training position at Fisher Rosemount as Training Manager. presenting courses on the DeltaV and RS3 DCS systems.  I was also involved in many commissioning projects involving DeltaV and RS3 DCS systems.

I was then offered a position as Training Consultant with Rockwell Automation with whom I have been associated 18 years even since official retirement. I recently completed a long-term commissioning assignment for Rockwell USA in Nigeria, commissioning a power management system for a gas to liquid project at Escravos.   

In 2005, I spent time in Germany at Hirschmann who are one of the world leaders in Ethernet technology. I was the first certified Hirschmann trainer in the whole of Africa.   

I have completed many courses over the years on Instrumentation, Fisher Control Valves, All the Rockwell systems and networks. In addition, I have received training on Compressor Control, DeltaV DCS and RS3 DCS systems.   

My experience is very extensive across many instrumentation and control system fields, particularly PLC’s, Networks and HMI’s.   

Throughout my career, I have travelled extensively mainly in Sub Saharan Africa and the Middle East, specifically Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. In Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Botswana. In 2019, I was on assignment in Eritrea giving training on Hirschmann technology. I have also spent some time in Egypt. 

I am always available for any short to medium term projects either in a Training or Commissioning capacity.