Intermet Corp.'s vice president of technical services, Thomas E. Prucha, was honored with the North American Die Casting Assn.'s Nyselius Award at NADCA's 22nd International Die Casting Congress and Expo last month in Indianapolis. The Nyselius Award recognizes exceptional technical contributions to diecasting.

Gary F. Ruff, president and CEO of Intermet, said, "It is a great honor for Tom to receive this prestigious recognition as it highlights his important contributions not only to the casting industry, but also to Intermet's engineering and research group. This award also further enhances Intermet's growing international reputation in the field of metallurgical research and development. Most importantly, it demonstrates that Tom and his technical team at Intermet are producing real-world applications from such scientific research. Tom's pioneering work in aluminum and magnesium metal casting has led to many improvements in die-casting design and manufacturing, and has helped place light-metal casting center stage again for the production of automotive components."

Prucha is active metalcasting technical groups, including NADCA's Die Material Committee and NADCA's Technical Advisory Group. He is a member of the steering committee of the CORMAG (Cost- Reduced Magnesium Die Casting) program, sponsored by the U.S. National Institute of Science and Technology, which is developing low-cost magnesium technology for high-ductility automotive applications. Also, he is on the steering committee of the Advanced Casting Research Center (ACRC) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.