Enabling your success with data-driven, strategic insight.
HSB Solomon Associates LLC (Solomon) provides data-driven, strategic insight across the energy industry, leading to greater efficiency, reliability, and profitability for our clients.
We use the only global, proprietary, extensive database of historical and today’s operational performance data combined with industry best practices and experts to deliver benchmarking studies and consulting services across the oil and gas value chain. This combination allows us to identify operational gaps, deliver insights and propose solutions to close operational gaps resulting in sustained performance excellence.
Solomon is part of the HSB family of companies and serves clients in nearly 80 countries, with global headquarters in Dallas and regional offices in Houston, London, Manama, and Singapore.
Our People
Helping our clients improve performance is a team of Solomon experts that have deep and extensive hands-on industry experience. Our consultants have walked in your shoes and understand your business. Each of our consultants average 25+ years of experience in operational roles with some of the top energy companies in the world. This high-level of experience helps to ensure that we deliver practical and actionable insight, and insight that you can trust.
Our Executive Team
Charlie is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Solomon, a position he has held since January 2017. He is responsible for applying his experience to helping Solomon’s energy clients around the world improve their performance, overseeing the company’s business transformation and its continued geographic expansion.
Prior to this position, Charlie led Solomon's Middle East business expansion, opening the firm’s two Middle East offices in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. With more than 35 years’ overall experience, Charlie has served in management and leadership positions within Solomon in consulting services, and marketing and business development.
Charlie joined Solomon in 2004 as Vice President of Consulting Services based in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in Civil Engineering.
David is the Executive Vice President of IP and Methodology at Solomon. In this role, he is responsible for methodology development and intellectual property in all of Solomon’s comparative performance analyses and economic evaluations for refineries, petrochemical plants, petroleum pipelines and terminals, natural gas transmission systems and processing plants, liquefied natural gas plants, power generation facilities, and upstream operations throughout the world.
He first joined Solomon in 1995. From 1998 to 2008, David led Solomon’s worldwide refining studies, revamping project methodology to increase Solomon’s productivity while increasing the value of the deliverables to study participants. He has 38 years’ experience in engineering, operations, and management in the petrochemical and refining industry in both line and staff positions, including 13 years at Dow Chemical Company.
David earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University.
David is the Chief Commercial Officer of Solomon. In this role, he oversees strategy and execution of the company’s business development. He is responsible for global sales for all Solomon products and services as well as the development of professional sales methodologies and infrastructure. He joined Solomon in 2019 as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
Prior to joining Solomon, David served in executive positions with several companies including Senior Vice President of Sales for Aquilon Energy, Senior Vice President of Sales for PAS, and Chief Operating Officer for SunGard Energy. He has more than 35 years’ experience as a sales and marketing professional with extensive experience in the global refining, chemical processing, oil and gas, and utility markets. David has proven expertise in growing and leading sales organizations engaged in the marketing of software, technology, and business offerings encompassing process simulation, process automation, human reliability solutions, and energy-trading platforms. He has successfully managed all customer-facing activities involved in the sale and delivery of customer-specific solutions.
David is a graduate of Texas A&M University with a degree in Chemical Engineering.
Eric Kaufman is the Chief Operating Officer at Solomon. In this newly appointed role, Eric is responsible for global operations for all Solomon products and services, including product management and marketing.
Eric joined Solomon in 2018 where his prior roles at Solomon included Vice President Chemicals, Olefin Study Manager, and Senior Consultant. Eric’s chemical industry career was with ExxonMobil, where he served in a variety of manufacturing, engineering, and planning roles in ExxonMobil’s basic chemicals and polymers businesses. Following ExxonMobil, Eric joined Aspen Technology, where he worked with chemical companies on a global basis to improve business performance via the application of advanced technologies.
Eric earned a degree in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University, and he completed the Executive Development Program at Babson College.
Joseph is the Chief Administrative Officer at Solomon. In this role, he leads the finance and accounting functions and provides support for the other administrative areas of the business. Joseph joined Solomon in 2018 as the Vice President (VP) of Administrative Services.
Prior to joining Solomon, Joseph was VP and Corporate Controller for Alsbridge, Inc., an IT and business process outsourcing and advisory firm. During his 20-year career, he has held various finance and accounting leadership positions with business services, consulting, and technology companies including Information Services Group, Affiliated Computer Services, and Fannie Mae. Joseph has expertise leading the growth and development of accounting and other administrative departments and supporting business leaders with sound and timely financial information.
Joseph earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Illinois and is a licensed Texas Certified Public Accountant.
Jeanne Simmons joined Solomon in January 2022 as the Senior Director of Human Resources. In this role, she is responsible for leading all aspects of Human Resources and creating, integrating, and aligning the HR strategy with the enterprise strategy. She partners with Solomon leadership to transform the culture in support of Solomon’s core values and fundamental behaviors.
Prior to joining Solomon, Jeanne was with L3Harris Technologies and Mustang Technology Group where she held the roles of Director of Talent Management and Director of Human Resources in a Segment and Division capacity. In her 20+ years career, she has held various Human Resources positions in the technology products and services, government contracting, consumer products, and healthcare industries.
Jeanne has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Maryland University College in College Park, Maryland, with a concentration in Human Resources Management. She is a member of the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) and the Dallas Chapter of SHRM.
Our Story
During his employment with Exxon (now ExxonMobil), Mr. Lee Henry Solomon conducted statistical analysis and research for a method that would allow direct operating performance comparisons of oil refineries with different configurations, equipment, and auxiliary process units. His work was an extension of earlier work by Dr. W. L. Nelson, who had developed refinery “complexity factors” based on capital expenditure that were published in a series of articles in The Oil & Gas Journal in the early 1960s.
Lee later ventured out on his own with his method of “equivalency factors.” He first joined forces with Turner & Mason (now known as Turner, Mason & Company), which briefly became Turner, Mason & Solomon. He left Turner, Mason & Solomon and founded his own company, Solomon Associates, in 1981. The following history of the early days of Solomon was taken from the “Refinery Study Perspectives” paper issued in April, 1997 entitled “The Basic Elements of Refinery Performance Measurement”:
“In the late 1970s, the principals at Solomon Associates conducted a small survey of refineries in the United States to identify the range of performance currently experienced within the group. That effort led to the development of Comparative Performance Analysis™ (CPA™) techniques based on the concept of EDC®. EDC® was defined as a standardizing dimension which incorporated capacity, the effect of multiple units,
and, in the absence of actual industry data, approximated process complexity based on early Nelson factors.
As industry participation in the CPA™ studies grew, it became evident that more advanced refinery processing units employing higher-pressure catalytic facilities, unique electronic instrumentation, computer control, and more sophisticated construction materials identified shortcomings in the early complexity factors. In early 1983, we examined our industry database of more than 100 refineries (primarily in the USA) and addressed some of these deficiencies. By testing the old capital-based complexity factors against performance parameters for energy use, unit staffing, maintenance practices, and overall cash operating expenses, we produced a set of ‘improved’ complexity factors."
The development of these improved complexity factors established a methodology for which Solomon Associates has been awarded patents, and many of Solomon’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been trademarked and registered with the U.S. government and other government entities worldwide. This methodology would prove to be a solid base from which Solomon Associates launched a full portfolio of multi-client CPA™ studies covering the oil and gas industries from upstream wellhead, through midstream pipelines and terminals, to downstream fuels, chemicals, and polymers.
Tribute to Our Founders
Lee Solomon, founder of Solomon Associates, and Paul Ziff, founder of Ziff Energy Group, both prominent
figures in our company's history.