T he American Foundry Society (AFS) presented several awards at CastExpo in St. Louis, MO as part of the annual event.
The William H. McFadden Gold Medal was awarded to Dwight Barnhard, director at Superior Aluminum Castings Inc. for his “outstanding achievements, contributions, and service to the industry, and for providing inspirational leadership, coaching and personnel development within the AFS.”
The John A. Penton Gold Medal was awarded to Raymond Donahue, senior director — Advanced Materials & Foundry Technology at Mercury Marine (a division of Brunswick Corp.) for “over 40 years of technical and managerial contributions to the metalcasting industry as a researcher, scientist, and educator.”
Theodore Schorn, general manager of Corporate Quality for Enkei America Inc., presented the Hoyt Memorial Lecture. Entitled “Elements of Quality Leadership,” Schorn was selected by the Honorary Lectures and Papers Committee of the Division Council.
Awards of Scientific Merit were presented to David Jablonski, John (Chip) Keough, and Kumar Sadayappan.
Jablonski, technical sales manager for Badger Mining Corp., was recognized for extensive and significant contributions to the advancement and transfer of technology in the area of refractory and lost foam coatings.
Keough, CEO at Applied Process Inc., was honored for pioneering efforts in the commercialization of austempered cast irons and the development of the databases to market the materials.
A research scientist with Canada’s CANMET-Materials Technology Laboratory, Sadayappan was acknowledged for outstanding contributions to the development of a lead-free copper alloy, copper alloy for permanent mold and light metals casting technologies, and technology transfer to nonferrous foundries.
The CMI Directors’ Award was presented to Edgar Hopkins, president of Edgar J. Hopkins Consulting, for his exceptional contributions to CMI as an instructor and member of the facility.
Three AFS Service Citations were presented to Harry Galloway III (technical services manager — Unimin Corp.); Timothy Kreuzer (Six Sigma Process manager — Ford Motor Cleveland Casting Plant); and Ruth Ann Wood (technical services representative — Ashland Specialty Chemical Co.).
Galloway was honored for dedicating his expertise and knowledge for the benefit of the AFS and metalcasting industry.
Kruezer was recognized for his continuous dedication and commitment to expanding the technical knowledge, education, and networking of the AFS chapter organization and metalcasting industry.
Wood was noted for her contributions, to refine the lost foam process into a cost-effective method of manufacturing castings.
The Howard F. Taylor Award, recognizing the research paper having the greatest long-range technical significance in the field of cast metals technology, was presented to “Foam Removal Mechanism in Aluminum Lost Foam Casting,” by Qi Zhao (GM), John Burke (Hitchiner Manufacturing), and Thomas Gustafson (GM). The paper challenged the liquid absorption-based theory of EPS foam removal during the lost foam casting process and proposed a ‘gasification-driven’ model as an alternative theory.
The Ray H.Witt Award was presented to Ruben Bake of Ashland Specialty Chemical-Casting Solutions for his paper, “Tools for Developing a Fact-Based Marketing Plan,” a management- or marketing-oriented paper that exhibits the greatest probability of favorably impacting the metalcasting industry. The paper details a framework for preparing a marketing plan based on facts to help mobilize metalcasting facility management toward new action on the marketing front.
CastExpo ‘05 marked the first teamming of AFS and NADCA to host a congress and exposition.
Exhibitors and attendees alike showed their support of the metalcasting industry. At final count, the exhibitors numbered 470, and spanned nearly 160,000 ft2 of floor space at the America’s Center and Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis.
Over 10,000 people attended CastExpo, hailing from 44 different countries. The congress sessions included around 150 technical presentations given, as were five plant tours of local St. Louis manufacturers.