Vancouver, BC, Canada

The Ductile Iron Society Spring Annual meeting was held at the Sheraton Inn Guildford in Surrey, BC, Canada on May 11-13th.    Tuesday was a busy day with committee meetings and the Board of Directors meeting in the afternoon.  On Wednesday the technical presentations consisted of 10 speakers and ended at 5:00pm.  At lunch on Wednesday, Joe Farrar (Farrar Corporation) and President of the Ductile Iron Society, presented his annual report to the members in attendance.  

“The past year has been one that was very similar to the last fiscal year in 2008/09.  We have all suffered one way or another since the downturn of our industry in the fall of 2008.  I understand from speaking with a few of you folks that the foundry industry certainly is not where we would like to be; however there seems to be light at the end of tunnel.  This has also hit the Ductile Iron Society.  Your society has done everything this past year to contain spending and costs associated with running the society.  The society will end the 2009/2010 fiscal year in the black.  Your Board of Directors is very pleased with the results.  However, the society lost a few members since our last meeting in Sharon, PA.  This has not only affected the foundry producers but also our associate members.  We can also see the effect of the times by the turnout at this meeting.  The attendance for this meeting was 93 and I want to thank all of you for taking the time and spending the money to attend.

The proposed budget for the Fiscal Year 2010-2011 is predicting a small loss mainly due to the funding of research but also takes into account that we may lose some members.  The good news is that Ferrosource joined the Ductile Iron Society just last month.  Also there is a good chance that we may have some new members join in the next few months.  Most of the members that did drop out of the DIS have committed to re-join once the economy turns around. 

During this past year we held two general meetings.  The first one was our Annual Meeting held in Lancaster, PA with a tour of Buck Company with 81 folks attending.  The second meeting, last fall was a special meeting because we combined with the ICRI for a joint meeting.  The attendance for that meeting was 142 and we toured Hodge Foundry in Greenville, PA.

The Ductile Iron Society did not offer a Production Seminar back in March 2010 due to the foundry economy.  We hope when things turn around in 2010/11, we will be able to offer the seminar and our members will once again send their employees to this meeting.

At this year’s AFS Cast Expo; the DIS had their first ever display booth.  According to Jim Wood the turnout at the booth was steady for the number of people attending.  He obtained many new leads for new members and he has already followed-up on those leads.  We hope that many of them will join.  He also was approached by a few people wanting to know more about ductile iron and where they could find some producers.  All of them were directed to our website for those names.  Jim feels that this was a very successful venture.  A big thanks goes out to Jerry Call and Al Spada for assisting the DIS in getting a booth set up. 

Also, I want to thank all of those that contributed to our “Hot Topics” publications and those that wrote articles for the “Ductile Iron News”.

Four Keith D. Millis Scholarships were awarded at the 2009 College Industry Conference held on November 19 & 20, 2009 at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.  They went to Patrick Kelso of Pittsburg State, Kory Kruger of the University of Northern Iowa, Joseph Santa Maria of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Steven Williams of the University of Alabama-Birmingham.  Each student received $2000 each.  

Jim Wood attended this past year’s conference.  We also had a booth for the Industry Information session where we distributed the “Show Me Your Nodules” T-shirts.  They were a very popular handout during this session as you would well understand.  Thanks go out to Bill Sorenson for his invitation to the DIS to attend this important conference.

The Research Committee met three times during the past year.  We completed two projects in 2009-2010 and we have currently one fairly large active project.  Last year your Board of Directors approved the funding of $23,500 each year for 2 years on a new DIS Project Number 46.  We are part of a 3 way group of investors consisting of the AFS, DIS and a consortium of foundry companies on a ductile iron structure/property optimization project.  The total cost of this project is $155,000 over the next 2 years.

The Board of Directors has now completed a 2 year project to update the By-Laws of the society to reflect how the society is currently operated.  This was needed as the By-Laws had not been revised for over 20 years.” 

We had a great time during the banquet held on Thursday evening.  First we made the presentations of service plaques to our two retiring directors, Gene Muratore of Rio Tinto and Jim Csonka of Hickman Williams and Company who have served as Directors for the last three years and the society thanks them for their dedicated service.

                          Gene Muratore                                                                Jim Csonka                          

The next event on the program was to announce the “Member of The Year” award.  The Awards Committee voted and named Denny Dotson of Dotson Company as this year’s recipient.  Our President, Joe Farrar called on Jean Bye, President of Dotson Company to roast Denny.  She did an awesome job of entertaining the group on Denny’s past history.  Great job Jean!  

Jean Bye

The society felt that Denny deserved the award this year because of his efforts over the years in marketing ductile iron.  Denny is also a past President of the society.  Following the words by Jean, Joe Farrar the outgoing president of the DIS, offered his own personal comments about Denny.

  Carole & Denny Dotson with DIS President Joe Farrar

Next, Joe Farrar gave a short overview of the Board of Directors meeting held on Tuesday and also the accomplishments of the DIS over the last three years under his watch.  He also said a few words about the future of the DIS and the foundry industry and the need to be willing to change as the industry and the business environment changes.  We should also remember that Joe was asked by the board to remain on as president for an extra year.  Thanks Joe!

With that being said, the next thing on the agenda was to introduce the new President, Vice President, and two new Board Members.  The new President, starting July 1, 2010 for two years, is Scott Gledhill of Thyssenkrupp Waupaca.  The incoming Vice President is Patricio Gil of Blackhawk de Mexico.  Patricio is the first VP from Mexico in the history of the DIS.  Congratulations Patricio!

 Patricio Gil of Blackhawk de Mexico

Joe then announced the two new board members to replace the outgoing members Gene Muratore and Jim Csonka.  They are Andy Adams of Foseco and Fred Linebarger of Miller and Company. 

                                 No Photo Available

                                                   Andy Adams                                           Fred Linebarger

Joe then called on Scott Gledhill to come to the podium to make a presentation to the outgoing President and say a few words about the direction the DIS is heading over the next few years.

 New President Gledhill with Joe & Nancy Farrar

On Thursday morning the group visited two foundries.  Century Pacific Foundry and Robar Industries both hosted a visit by the attendees.  The DIS would like to THANK Eric Hasselmann and his staff at Century Pacific Foundry and Derek Morrison and his staff at Robar Industries for their hospitality.

Century Pacific Foundry

Robar Industries

Our next DIS meeting will be held October 27-29, 2010 in Cleveland, Ohio.  This will be a first time “Heavy Section Ductile Iron Conference” directed towards the Energy and Mining Industries.  For more information, please visit the DIS website at www.ductile.org and click on the link at the top of the page.

The Ductile Iron Society would like to acknowledge a new member.  Ferrosource – a Division of Stemcor USA, Inc. joined in April, 2010 as an Associate Member.

6/15/2010