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Electric Power Engineers Names Stephanie Badr as CEO; Hala Ballouz to Become Chief Vision Officer and Board Chair

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AUSTIN, Texas, April 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Electric Power Engineers (EPE), a global leader in power systems engineering, announced today that Stephanie Badr has been appointed Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Badr succeeds Hala Ballouz, EPE’s co-founder and longtime CEO, who is transitioning to the role of Chief Vision Officer and Chair of the company’s board of directors.

Badr brings over two decades of industry experience, most recently serving as EPE’s Chief Operating Officer. As one of the company’s original 10 employees, Badr has played a pivotal role in EPE’s global growth since 2007 and has led operations and strategic planning since 2017. Badr will continue to lead with passion, fostering a people-first culture that empowers and enables the team as a unified brain trust around EPE’s mission and vision, working together to solve the challenges of the grid of the future. Badr holds an Executive MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the Lebanese University.

“We work at the center of solving the grid’s most complex problems,” Badr said. “We take pride in how clients turn to us with their biggest challenges. No power-systems problem is too hard for EPE.”

“Stephanie’s appointment marks an exciting new chapter for our company,” said Ballouz. “Her talent as a global business leader, fluency across stakeholders, and gift for team leadership make her an exceptional choice. I am very excited for EPE’s legacy to continue in such great hands, for the rest of our team, and for the industry.”

A Pivotal Moment of Growth 

This leadership transition comes during a time of record expansion for EPE, fueled by rising global demand for electricity and AI-driven infrastructure. Under Ballouz’s leadership, the company has grown from a three-person consultancy in 2007 to more than 400 employees in 2025, with a footprint spanning the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Ballouz spearheaded the company’s expansion into new markets and led the development of EPE’s proprietary SaaS technology platform, which delivers real-time interconnection data and power market insights to renewable energy developers and utilities and setting the stage for the first-of-its-kind “consulting + software” platform in power systems to enable solutions in a complex industry transformation.

“Passing the CEO torch to Stephanie is a full-circle moment – she’s been an integral part of EPE’s business and culture since day-one,” said Ballouz.  “She is exactly the right leader to deliver the rapid growth our industry is demanding from EPE.”

A Global Strategy for the Grid of the Future 

In 2025, EPE will continue to expand its global presence with additions to its teams in Latin America and new offices in Toronto and Waterloo, Canada. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the firm also has established offices in Champaign, Illinois; Panama City, Panama; and Beirut, Lebanon.

“As electricity demand skyrockets, the industry is in hyper-growth mode. EPE is expanding at pace, staying true to its culture and purpose,” said Badr. “Our partnership with Berkshire Partners enables us to grow strategically – with the talent, global footprint, and end-to-end services to help clients lead during this period of transformation.” 

As CEO, Badr will lead the company to execute EPE’s 2030 Vision – a forward-looking strategy to support the power sector through a new era of grid design and holistic energy delivery. In her new role as Chief Vision Officer, Ballouz will focus on broad industry initiatives, in collaboration with industry-wide stakeholders, to solve an increasingly complex energy transition and remove roadblocks for AI-infrastructure development. At the same time, Ballouz will continue to amplify EPE’s impact and advancing its mission to innovate on delivering reliable, resilient, affordable, and sustainable energy to communities around the world.

About Electric Power Engineers   

A leader in grid reliability and resilience, Electric Power Engineers (EPE) is a global advisory firm providing world-class consulting, engineering services and software innovations shaping the grid of the future. With the mission to harness world-class expertise and innovative power systems technology to engineer a successful energy transition, EPE delivers solutions to support the integration of renewable energy resources and shape a more affordable, reliable, resilient electricity system. Since its founding, EPE has empowered clients to address comprehensive engineering and grid modeling challenges, delivering solutions to evolving energy systems demands. With expertise in renewables generation, energy storage, transmission, distribution, grid modernization and digital transformation, EPE provides full-spectrum consulting and proprietary software solutions. EPE’s clients comprise world-leading energy developers, utilities, data center operators, and cross-sector enterprise partners. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, USA with offices in Canada, Panama, and Lebanon, EPE’s global operations span North America, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa. For more information, visit www.epeconsulting.com.

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SOURCE Electric Power Engineers

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

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