Bob has been called upon by manufacturers, electric utilities, and end users for the purpose of determining the cause of failures in their electrical equipment and products. This equipment has ranged in size from miniature electronic and residential electrical equipment all the way up to electrical utility substations and industrial electrical distribution equipment. The losses Bob has been involved in have grown in size from hundreds of dollars and a few square feet to hundreds of millions of dollars and in excess of a million square feet of property damage.
As a working electrician and electrical engineer with deep on-the-job experience, Bob is uniquely qualified to interface with electrical workers, maintenance personnel, and others who may be involved in an equipment incident. He can readily establish a discourse with management, the engineer, the electrician, and the worker in the trenches in order to find out what really happened before, during and after an incident.
Svare Professional Engineering’s facilities consist of six buildings located on 82 acres in the countryside of rural Isanti, Minnesota, just north of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. These buildings include laboratories, workshops, test facilities, a secure storage building for artifacts and equipment, and Bob’s residence. The labs and shops are fully equipped for electrical and electronic teardown, testing, welding, machining, and wood/metal working. SPE’s electric shop can generate test fault currents up to 1000 Amperes and voltages to 15,000 Volts. The welding shop is equipped with MIG, TIG, Arc, Oxyacetylene and Plasma cutting machines. The machine shop is equipped with an engine lathe, Bridgeport mill, band saw and metal-working machines. SPE’s woodworking shop has extensive power and hand tools. With these shops, Bob is able to safely disassemble, test, analyze, repair and/or produce the equipment and courtroom displays necessary for teaching, a proper forensic inspection, or the rigors of the courtroom.
Svare Professional Engineering’s electrical, electronics, photographic and tear-down laboratories have a useful mix of modern professional test equipment along with tried and true standards and in-house produced specialty machines which enable Bob to devise and construct unique equipment to be used in his analysis. He is also knowledgeable in electronic and electrical equipment with experience in metrology and calibration.
The Twin Cities area also provides SPE with commercial laboratories where Bob can utilize specialty equipment, such as the industrial x-ray and the Scanning Electron Microscope.
Fire and Explosions
Bob Svare started out scrutinizing alleged electrical fires based on his experience as a master electrician repairing damaged electrical systems. He noticed that very few of the electrical services that he was called upon to repair had resulted in anything close to a fire. Through experimentation, he realized that the cause of many fires was erroneously blamed on electricity, perhaps as a convenience or out of a lack of understanding of electricity’s true capabilities to cause ignition. Bob’s hands-on method of analyzing fires is based on the need to verify the true role that electricity plays in fire and explosion causation by utilizing his practical experience, research and experimentation.
Bob introduced the early usage of Arc Fault Mapping in a bar/restaurant fire in 1981 and in a 90 hour class for fire investigators in 1986. He presented a paper on the topic to the Ministry of Public Security - Peoples Republic of China in 1988, going on to teach this powerful tool to thousands of investigators worldwide, including originating the electrical section of the Bureau of ATF ACOCT course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia. He has subsequently taught this hands-on course at the New York City Fire Academy, the ATF Fire Research Laboratory, the London Fire Brigade, the FBI, the Kentucky Police Academy, insurance companies, manufacturing companies and many more state and local entities. To this day he continues to attend and conduct classes, do laboratory testing, and experiment to increase his and his client’s knowledge about the role electricity plays in fires and explosions.
Svare Professional Engineering’s facilities consist of six buildings located on 82 acres in the countryside of rural Isanti, Minnesota, just north of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. These buildings include laboratories, workshops, test facilities, a secure storage building for artifacts and equipment, and Bob’s residence. The labs and shops are fully equipped for electrical and electronic teardown, testing, welding, machining, and wood/metal working. SPE’s electric shop can generate test fault currents up to 1000 Amperes and voltages to 15,000 Volts. The welding shop is equipped with MIG, TIG, Arc, Oxyacetylene and Plasma cutting machines. The machine shop is equipped with an engine lathe, Bridgeport mill, band saw and metal-working machines. SPE’s woodworking shop has extensive power and hand tools. With these shops, Bob is able to safely disassemble, test, analyze, repair and/or produce the equipment and courtroom displays necessary for teaching, a proper forensic inspection, or the rigors of the courtroom. 
Svare Professional Engineering’s electrical, electronics, photographic and tear-down laboratories have a useful mix of modern professional test equipment along with tried and true standards and in-house produced specialty machines which enable Bob to devise and construct unique equipment to be used in his analysis. He is also knowledgeable in electronic and electrical equipment with experience in metrology and calibration.
The Twin Cities area also provides SPE with commercial laboratories where Bob can utilize specialty equipment, such as the industrial x-ray and the Scanning Electron Microscope.
