Robert Madding

Bob holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He began the first infrared thermography seminar at the University of Wisconsin Extension in 1978. He co-founded the Thermosense Conference in 1978 with two other colleagues from the UW. He has presented and published numerous technical papers on infrared thermography applications, as well as contributing chapters to textbooks such as Applied Thermal Design and the Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering. In 2000 he founded the InfraMation Conference, the largest commercial IR thermography applications conference.

Bob has over 35 years experience in infrared thermography applications and training. With several years of practical experience at a large electric utility and at a large aerospace defense company, Dr. Madding has a unique combination of both technical product and applications knowledge and a “school of hard knocks” understanding of IR thermographer issues.

While at Maintenance and Diagnostics, an EPRI contractor, he developed advanced applications of IR thermography for condition monitoring of power plants, substations and switchyards. While Director of the Infrared Training Center, Bob taught classes, developed training course materials for all the ITC course offerings, wrote software for electrical load correction of hot spot temperature rise, a power loss calculator that estimates electrical resistance on problematic operating equipment such as oil-filled circuit breakers, and other IR applications software to make the professional thermographers’ life more rewarding.

Currently, Bob is President of RPM Energy Associates, LLC doing thermal infrared imaging consulting work. Part of this work includes Director of the Electric IR Program for United Infrared.