Edward W. Merrow is the Founder and President of Independent Project Analysis, Inc. Over the 12 years of its existence, IPA has grown from a one-person consultancy to become the preeminent global consulting organization for capital investment projects for the capital intensive manufacturing industries around the world. After starting his career as an Assistant Professor at UCLA, Ed spent 14 years at the RAND Corporation where he developed and directed RAND’s analyses of new process technology development and commercialization. Ed served as Director of RAND’s Energy and the Process Industries Programs.

Since founding IPA in 1987, Ed has devoted most of his research time for further development of the Project Evaluation System (PES), the original research for which he started in 1977. Over the past 12 years, the PES methodology has been applied to over 4,000 major projects for chemical, minerals, petroleum production and refining, pharmaceutical and paper manufacturing firms, around the world. In addition, over $600 billion of completed capital facilities have been added to the IPA databases under Ed’s guidance and several major validation studies have been conducted.

Like all members of the IPA professional staff, Ed continues to publish actively and participates in activities and meetings for the American Chemical Society and the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and recently authored the Business Round Table’s publication, The Business Stake in Effective Engineering. Ed has testified before the US Congress in matters pertaining to overruns in major capital projects and served as a panel member for the National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering on the analysis of project risks. Ed was the 1998 recipient of the Construction Industry Institute’s highest honor, the Carrol H. Dunn Award of Excellence.