The Guy Who Could Fix Anything: The Story of Bill Wilhite and Valve Xchanger

Bill Wilhite, an El Paso native, first found a place for himself as a ‘mister-fixit’ working on farm machinery, cranes, cell towers, etc. But after catching a job as an oilfield roustabout, doing the jobs nobody else wanted to touch, Bill would have an encounter that set his pragmatic mind ablaze. After sleepless nights and many false-starts, Bill would eventually invent the Valve Xchanger, a born-from-experience solution to fugitive emissions from valve replacement.

By Payne Harrison

Bill Wilhite makes a strong first impression: a compact, wiry individual wearing jeans and a work-shirt caked with dust, redolent with grime and grease. A typical day would start with him and his colleagues reporting to their company’s shop to receive their marching orders for the workday. This could be anything from plumbing to electrical repairs, setting up a pumping unit on a drilling pad, or doing a spot of welding. Additionally, there were the all-time favorites: cleaning out septic tanks and port-a-potties. As Bill observed, “A restaurant ain’t gonna work without a dishwasher, and oilfields ain’t gonna work without roustabouts.” In his years as a handyman, Bill had earned a reputation as someone who “can fix anything.” But he was a rookie, at least to the roustabout role, when one day he drew a work order entirely novel to him. He was told to report to an oilfield tank storage facility where a “hot valve” needed to be changed out. Never having performed this task before, he arrived at the storage facility, where oil production from the field is stored before it is trucked out. There he was taken to the tank with the “hot valve.” A novice in this regard, he soon learned it was a leaking valve on a tank with oil behind it – a lot of oil.

It is common in this situation for the oilfield manager to call in a “vacuum truck” – a large rig with a mobile storage tank on its back. The truck operator would normally hook a hose onto the leaking valve, open it up, then pump the oil from the storage tank onto the truck’s tank. Once the storage tank is drained, the hose is disconnected, and the valve is changed out. That accomplished, the oil is pumped from the truck and back into the storage tank. “I learned that even with a vacuum truck the process can take hours,” Bill recalled. “You must wait for the truck to show up, and depending on how busy the vacuum truck company is, you might wait one or two days. All the while, the valve is leaking oil and emissions. Once the truck arrives and the job is done, they send a bill that can be over a thousand dollars … to change out a single valve.” But what happens if a vacuum truck is not available, or the operator does not want to cover the expense? Enter the El Pasoan roustabout.

On his inaugural hot valve job, Bill was told a vacuum rig was not available and that he should go ahead and get the old valve off and replace it with a new one. With trepidation, he removed the valve and out spewed the inevitable stream of oil and emissions. As fast as he could, he shoved a new valve into the oily cascade and screwed it on, closing it. But the damage was already done. There was a black stain on the ground, and the emissions had escaped into the atmosphere.

He had to use a backhoe to dig out and dispose of the contaminated soil, but the emissions were irrecoverable. Eventually, Bill would encounter numerous other hot valve situations. The recurring and unmistakable waste of the process would eventually be compounded by a tragedy that shocked the industry. A father and son team were changing out a hot valve on a tank that was leaking hydrogen sulfide gas when they were both suffocated by the fumes and died. That was when Bill decided there had to be a better way to handle leaking hot valve situations. ‘Mr. Fixit’ set his mind to finally solving this vexing problem.

The Birth of a Solution

At this point it should be noted that Bill had no formal education in engineering; over the years his mechanical talent came to the surface as he dealt with real world problems, earning him the moniker of the handyman who “could fix anything.” He never put pencil to paper to sketch out possible solutions to the leaking valve problem. Instead, before he drifted off to sleep at night, he would piece together in his mind’s eye the different elements that would be needed to execute a valve changeout without leaking fluids or emissions.

He knew the first element required to solve the leaky valve conundrum was some kind of stopper in the tank pipe, just upstream of the leaking valve. But how would you get the stopper in place without opening the valve to spills and emission leakage? And even once the stopper was in place, how would you change out the valve and then retrieve the stopper?

In his mind he broke down each component of the overall problem, then thought through the various individual solutions and married them together. He estimates that he worked through about fifteen different iterations of what a workable prototype would look like before trying to fabricate one.

And it was just at that moment his roustabout company stood down for a break over the Christmas holidays. Having rare time to himself, Bill went into the company shop and, using some scrap parts, a drill press, and a couple of trips to the hardware store, he cobbled together the initial prototype of what would become the Valve Xchanger.

He first figured an inflatable bladder would be the best stopper in the tank’s pipe, upstream of the valve. A deflated bladder could get through the gate of the valve, then increase in size to seal off the oil in the tank. To inflate the bladder he would need it connected to a hollow metal inflation tube. But that still left the problem of opening the hot valve to insert the bladder. To trap any leakage of fluid and fumes, he decided to put the inflation tube inside of a collection pipe that screwed into the valve. This was made possible by attaching a diaphragm seal on the back-end of the collection pipe.

But then, how do you achieve a controlled drain of the fluid in the pipe? To solve this, he added two valves, one on the bottom side of the pipe to connect to a drain hose, and one on top to allow air pressure to come in and force the fluid down into the drain hose.

After he finished fabricating the prototype, he was left with a contraption in which form truly followed function.

He went to a storage facility that let him test it on a 15,000 gallon tank filled with water; if the experiment went sideways they would only be losing H2O.

With great trepidation he commenced his experiment and followed exactly the change-out protocol he had developed:

1. Retract the bladder into the collection pipe.
2. Screw the collection pipe into the valve.
3. Open the valve and allow the collection pipe to fill up.
4. Insert the bladder upstream of the valve.
5. Inflate the bladder by pumping air through the hollow insertion tube to dam up the contents of the tank.
6. Attach a drain hose to the bottom valve of the collection pipe.
7. Open the bottom valve, then open the top air valve on the collection pipe.
8. Drain the contents of the collection pipe into a separate container.
9. Disconnect the drain hose, close the drain and air valves, then unscrew the collection pipe.
10. Slide the collection pipe off the insertion tube (the diaphragm seal on the back of the collection pipe holds the fluid inside before draining, but also allows the pipe to slide off).
11. Remove the faulty valve.
12. With its gate open, insert the new valve over the insertion tube and screw it in place.
13. Slide the collection pipe back into place over the insertion tube and screw it into the new valve.
14. Deflate and retract the bladder into the collection pipe.
15. Close the new valve.
16. Drain the collection pipe fluid into the separate container as before.
17. Unscrew the and remove the collection pipe and you’re done.

Time expended… about ten minutes

Getting to Market

Bill was overwhelmed when the invention worked on his first attempt. “I guess I felt a little like the Wright Brothers when their aircraft lifted off at Kitty Hawk for the first time.”

He realized oilfield safety would increase with deployment of his invention, and instead of waiting on a vacuum truck for hours, or even days, a roustabout could execute the valve change and be on his way inside of ten minutes, short-stopping leaks and emissions.

After the inventor’s euphoria passed, Bill realized he had no clue how to bring his invention to market. What followed was a string of frustrating false starts until he linked up with a boyhood friend who brought the situation under his management. A patent attorney and licensing agent were retained, contacts were made within the industry, a patent was secured, trade shows were attended and, although the pandemic slowed things down, a contact was made with Crawford Supply Company, a central U.S. oilfield equipment distributor headquartered in Plainville, Kansas.

“I took one look at the Valve Xchanger and immediately understood its impact,” recalled John Crawford, president of the company. “The EPA has conducted studies showing that upwards of ninety percent of fugitive emissions are caused by faulty valves and connectors. This device – so simple in its design – could have a huge impact on reducing emissions if deployed widely. And compared to the expense of vacuum trucks, the cost is peanuts.”

After seeing the prototype, Crawford made a swift decision. A deal was struck, and Crawford Supply became the exclusive distributor for the Valve Xchanger in the U.S. and Canada. Prototypes were produced and tested, and a production run was made to fill out the supply chain. For Bill, seeing his invention become reality was not unlike seeing a child grow up and head off for college. “We deal with a lot of negatives in this business, so it has been rewarding to see a positive idea take root and become real.”