Our Team

Alison Cole

Alison was born and raised in the beautiful pacific northwest east of Seattle, WA. She attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA where she earned degrees in financial economics and accounting. after graduation, she moved back to the seattle area and gained 7+ years of experience in finance and operations at a financial firm. once she became a parent, alison looked for a new opportunity that would allow her to work from home. this led to conversations with her dad, richard styles, who had worked from home since alison was a young child. in 2015, he offered her the opportunity to run office operations for him at the company he started in 1987, the company now known as fluid process engineering. as her knowledge, understanding and experience grew, so did the desire to want to take over the family business once richard was ready to step into (semi-)retired life. in march 2021, alison took over ownership and operations of fluid process engineering, llc.

Richard Styles

as an engineer by trade, richard has broad experience in process industries. richard moved to the greater seattle, wa area in 1980. he started his company, richard styles & associates in 1987, and later renamed the company to fluid process engineering, llc in 2009. richard successfully owned and operated the company on his own until 2015 when he brought on two new employees. his wife, rowena, had recently retired from her career and started working for the family business as the business manager. his daughter, alison, was looking for a new opportunity and he brought her on to be his operations manager. this allowed richard to move into a place where he excels — focusing on customer relationships and finding better solutions for their process applications. as richard approached retirement, he and alison worked closely to develop a succession plan where alison would take over the day-to-day operations of the business, and richard would move into a consulting role. this became a reality in march 2021. richard is currently a consultant for fluid process engineering, and continues to share his vast experience, wisdom and knowledge with alison with each new project opportunity that arises.