Hifi Team

We offer state-of-the-art, next generation fiber optic sensing systems

Founded 2007, in Calgary, Alberta. We are an advanced fiber optic sensing technology service provider with high end electrical, software and mechanical engineering experience.

Hifi develops turn key distributed fiber optic sensing systems sensors, hardware & visualization software, and artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning data algorithms focused on pipeline and downhole applications. We use best-in-class sensor technology, hardware and software platforms to focus on one key goal – high quality data for our customers. Hifi’s technology is backed by over 100 patents, and includes the strategic investors of Enbridge, Cenovus and BDC.

When it comes to asset integrity through preventative monitoring, reliability is paramount and our experience in new and existing pipelines, downhole and reservoir monitoring is unparalleled.

Hifi’s technology has been, or is currently being deployed across over 3,000,000 meters of pipeline assets and over 1000 downhole wells globally.

Our Leadership Excels at Fiber Optic Monitoring

John Hull
CTO & Founder

John Hull

Steven Koles, ICD.D
President & CEO

Steven Koles, ICD.D

Kevin Nugent, CPA, CA
Director, Chairman

Kevin Nugent

Doug Haughey
Director

Doug Haughey

Derek Logan
Director

Derek Logan

Meena Sankaran
Director

Meena Sankaran

Cheri Corbett
Director

Cheri Corbett

David Burns
Director

David Burns

Eldon Rawleigh
Finance

Eldon Rawleigh

Ehsan Jalilian, P.Eng
Systems

Ehsan Jalilian, P.Eng

Neil Gulewicz
Deployment

Neil Gulewicz

Michael Hooper
Business Development

Michael Hooper

CTO & Founder

John Hull

CTO & Founder

John Hull has over two decades of experience working globally with sensor systems for the oil and gas industry. He previously worked for Schlumberger on/offshore performing open and cased hole logging services in Canada, US, and the North Sea. He founded Hifi Engineering in 2007, and is currently the CTO overseeing innovation and measurement validation. John holds a bachelor of electrical engineering from lakehead university in Ontario.

President & CEO

Steven Koles, ICD.D

Steven Koles has over 30 years of operational and executive experience in various technology sectors. He has been involved as an executive and corporate director with a  number of organizations and is currently President & CEO of Hifi Engineering.

Prior to Hifi, Steven was acting CFO at Steeper Energy, an alternative energy company, President & CEO of Hemisphere GPS, which provided GPS based machine control / automation applications, Vice President & General Manager at AOL (Time Warner) Canada, where he headed up the Service businesses for Canada, and Group Telecom as Senior Vice President Marketing & Sales.  Steven has also held several management positions at TELUS Corporation.

Steven has served on boards and in advisory capacities with such organizations as Hifi Engineering, Energy Connections Canada (formerly the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association Foundation), Fiber Optic Sensing Association (FOSA), Village Brewery, VentMeter Technologies, and Hemisphere GPS. 

Steven is a graduate from the Faculty of Business at the University of Alberta, and the Executive Management Program at the University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business. Steven has also received his ICD designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors through the University of Toronto and University of Calgary.

Director, Chairman

Kevin Nugent

Kevin Nugent is an independent businessman with more than 30 years of broad-based management experience in the oil and gas industry. In addition to Hifi, Kevin is a member of the board of Trican Well Service Ltd., Secure Energy Services Inc., Nauticol Energy Ltd., VentMeter Technologies Inc., RGL Reservoir Management Inc., the Pacific Salmon Foundation and the Banff Sport Medicine Foundation.

Kevin holds a B.Mgt. (Bachelor of Management) from the University of Lethbridge and a Chartered Professional Accountant, CA (honors) designation from the Institute of Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta.

Director

Doug Haughey

Doug Haughey currently serves as the lead director at Keyera Corp., a major energy midstream company. He also chairs the board of Fortis Alberta and chairs the human resources and compensation committee at Fortis Inc., a leading North American electric and gas utility company. He is currently a director of MMM Group, a private OMERS-controlled transportation and infrastructure engineering firm, serving on the company’s special committee leading its sale to WSP Global.

Mr. Haughey’s executive experience includes CEO of Calgary-based Stuart Olson Inc., President & CEO of Provident Energy Ltd., President & CEO of Spectra Energy Income Fund, and President of Spectra Energy’s western Canadian gas processing and pipeline business. Mr. Haughey has been a director of Pembina Pipeline, Saskferco Products, and Enerflex Systems. He has been chair of Cimarron Engineering, chair of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, founding chair of Encore Energy, and co-chair of the 2007 Calgary United Way campaign.

Director

Derek Logan

Director

Throughout his career, Mr. Logan has had significant success in developing and commercializing oil and gas technology.

In 2001, Mr. Logan co-founded Extreme Engineering Ltd. Under his leadership as President and CEO, Extreme Engineering designed, developed, manufactured and commercialized:

  • XPulse, the world’s first and most advanced Unmanned mud pulse MWD tool
  • XEM, a fourth generation Electromagnetic MWD tool and the world’s first unmanned EM MWD tool
  • XACT, the world’s first and only acoustic telemetry MWD system.

Extreme Engineering’s XPulse and XEM product lines (including engineering and manufacturing) were acquired by Schlumberger in 2008.

Earlier, in 1993, Mr. Logan co-Founded Ryan Energy Technologies. Under his guidance as Senior VP and CTO, Ryan Energy designed, developed and commercialized several new technologies ranging from mud pulse MWD, ElectroMagnetic MWD, Electronic Drill Recorders (EDR) and LWD systems. Ryan Energy was sold in2000 to Nabors International, where Ryan Energy continues to operate as a full service Directional Drilling company and the EDR system is integrated into CanRig (a division of Nabors).

Director

Meena Sankaran

Meena Sankaran is currently the Founder and CEO of KETOS, a vertically integrated IoT solution to deliver water intelligence to the industry.  She is an entrepreneur, change maker and a technologist excelling across Fortune 100 companies or startups over the last 23 years of her career. She has been recognized by Forbes, Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq, E&Y, Accenture and most recently by UBS as a global visionary for her work with KETOS over the last 8 years. She has made significant contributions through her non-profits and several board role participations while mentoring girls to solve the leading challenges of our future generations. As an engineer and creative artist, her love for problem solving, building teams and innovative solutions that transform the world, is of utmost importance.

Meena has a BE in Electronics Engineering from India and MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. She has also completed Foreign Policy studies through continuing education at Stanford University.

Director

Cheri Corbett

Cheri Corbett is Director, Cleantech Practice, at BDC and joined Hifi’s board in 2019. With over 13 years of experience in corporate finance, mergers & acquisitions and financing transactions, Cheri is dedicated to helping early-stage, high-potential, growth-oriented Canadian cleantech companies scale and expand. In her role as Director at BDC, Cheri is involved in the full investment cycle, from deal origination, structuring and risk analysis to governance and portfolio management.

Cheri holds a Bachelor of Business Management and a Master of Commerce from the University of Queensland, Australia. She is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand and CPA Alberta. A committed leader, Cheri is passionate about taking Canada’s cleantech industry to the next level in the global marketplace.

Director

David Burns

David Burns is an energy industry professional leading technical development in new energy technologies for the pipeline industry. He has over 15 years engineering and project management experience acquired Internationally and in North America by developing and executing pipeline projects for the oil and gas sector. He Joined Enbridge in 2013, spending the majority of his time working on major projects and project development before being appointed Manager Pipeline Engineering and Materials for New Energy Technologies at Enbridge in November 2022. This current role focuses on the developing greenfield projects as well as assessing redeployment opportunities of existing assets to support new energy strategies.   David lives in Calgary and holds a Professional Engineer license of Alberta and a MEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. 

Finance

Eldon Rawleigh

Eldon Rawleigh joined Hifi Engineering in 2014 and currently holds the position of Director, Finance and Administration.   Eldon attended the University of Lethbridge and subsequently graduated from the University of Alberta with an LLB.  After practicing law for a decade, Eldon moved to a career in financial and estate planning.  Eldon migrated to accounting and held roles with several companies including Brews Supply.  Prior to joining Hifi Engineering, Eldon was Finance Manager for the Prairies with Wesco Distribution Canada.

Systems

Ehsan Jalilian, P.Eng

Systems

Ehsan is a professional engineer with 20 years of industry experience and leads the Systems Engineering team at Hif. Ehsan joined Hifi in 2010 and currently holds the position of Vice President and CIO at the company. The Systems Engineering team is responsible for the design and development of Hifi’s fiber optic sensing platform, including hardware, firmware, and software, along with Machine Learning-based algorithms, and cloud-based computing and data visualization. Prior to joining Hifi, Ehsan was a senior Design Engineer at Garmin.


Ehsan holds an M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Calgary. He is a member of APEGA, IEEE, and SPE.

Deployment

Neil Gulewicz

Neil Gulewicz is a petroleum engineering technologist with 6 years of working experience in the oil and gas industry.  Neil also has training and courses pertaining to Machinist Technician, Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks and Business Administration. His role as a systems engineering Technologist at Hifi involves working with a team to research new optic technologies and develop them into commercialized products. Previously, Neil worked his way to the position of wireline field supervisor conducting work throughout North America.  He has strong experience with prototype acquisition systems and unconventional deployment methods. His strong field experience with specialty logging and design skills are a strong key to bridging the gap between product conceptualization and commercialization at HIFI.

Neil Graduated from Petroleum Engineering Technology at SAIT Polytechnic. 

Business Development

Michael Hooper

Mike Hooper brings two decades of industry experience spanning the innovation and development spectrum in both conventional and emerging energy.  Over 13 years with DuPont, Mike progressed from roles in fundamental R&D for hydrogen fuel cells to technical and business development roles supporting global oil & gas initiatives.  More recently, Mike focused on management of corporate strategic growth initiatives over his 5 years with Newalta & Tervita.

Mike holds a B.Eng (Chemical) and M.ASc from the Royal Military College of Canada.