Ductile Iron News-Issue 1, 2011

The spring Ductile Iron Society Annual Meeting was held June 1-3, 2011 in Dallas, Texas in conjunction with a plant tour of Oil City Iron Works in Corsicana, Texas.  The first day included the Research Committee meeting in the morning and in the afternoon was the other DIS operating committee meetings and concluded with the Board of Directors meeting.  On Thursday, the attendees enjoyed the technical presentations from 10 quality speakers.  At noon, Scott Gledhill of TK Waupaca presented this year’s Annual Report to the DIS Members in attendance.

 
Scott Gledhill (DIS President) of TK Waupaca

Here is Scott’s address;

“At this time I will recap the society’s activities during this past year before proceeding with the annual business meeting and the election of new officers.

The past year has been one where the foundry industry seems to have rebounded where the U.S. economy is showing a much slower pace.  Your society has rebounded very slowly and there seems to be a chance to regain some lost members and even add some new members to the society.  We have continued to keep our costs low like we did in previous years.  The society will end the 2010/2011 fiscal year in the black.  Your board of directors is very pleased with the results.  

We can also see the effect of the times by just looking at the turnout at this meeting. 

The proposed budget for the fiscal year 2011-2012 is once again projecting a small gain mainly due to the increase in the number of members.  This past fiscal year we gained a few new members.   

PRIMETRADE, INC.                        (ASSOCIATE)
TRIGG BROTHERS FOUNDRY      (OVERSEAS MEMBER – AUSTRALIA)
ABP INDUCTION                             (ASSOCIATE)
HOFMANN CERAMIC                    (ASSOCIATE – GERMANY)
SINTERCAST INC.                            (ASSOCIATE)
LETHBRIDGE IRON WORKS         (FOUNDRY – CANADA)
REJOINING MEMBER GREDE HOLDINGS, LLC (FOUNDRY)

During this past year we held two general meetings.  The first one was our Annual Meeting held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada with a tour of Robar Industries Inc. and Century Pacific Foundry in Surrey, B.C. with 92 attending including 13 spouses.  The second meeting last fall, was a special meeting as we held our first ever Heavy Section Ductile Iron Conference in Cleveland, Ohio.  The attendance for that conference was 152.

The Ductile Iron Society did hold a Production Seminar on March 15 & 16, 2011 in Rolling Meadows, Illinois.  The attendance was 25 for this seminar.  As most of you may know we had to cancel 2009 and 2010 due to the economy.  We were very delighted to see so many register for the seminar.  Thanks go out to our very special instructors, Kathy Hayrynen of Applied Process, Fred Linebarger of Miller & Company and Gene Muratore of Rio Tinto.  

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 2010 College Industry Conference held on November 18 & 19, 2010 at the Westin Hotel in Chicago.  I would like to thank John Keough of Applied Process and Gary Gigante of TK Waupaca for selecting this year’s students.  They are Rhiannon Bragg of the University of Alabama – Birmingham, Alexander Hoimes of Penn State, Scott Giese of the University of Northern Iowa and Russ Rosmait of Pittsburg State.  Each student received $2000.  Your DIS Board has agreed once again this year to make up whatever short fall amount so that we can continue to hand out $8000.00 in scholarships at the next FEF CIC Conference.  

Your society continues to make a donation to the Keith Millis scholarship fund every year so it will continue to grow.  Jim wood attended this past year’s conference.  We also had a booth for the industry information session where we distributed the “Spheres of Influence” t-shirts.  They were a very popular handout during this session as you would well understand.  Once again thanks to the members that sponsored these t-shirts.  They are Elkem, Bremen Castings, Foseco, Buck company, Dotson Foundry, Betz Industries, Applied Process, Farrar Corporation, Hitachi Automotive, Benton Foundry, Hickman Williams & Company, Penticton Foundry, Emsco, Seneca Foundry, Superior Graphite, Blackhawk de Mexico, and Thyssen Krupp Waupaca.  Also I should mention the hard work by your University Relations Committee members.  Thanks go out to Bill Sorensen 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 2010-2011 and we have currently one fairly large active project.  Two years ago your Board of Directors approved the funding of $47,000 to be spent over 2 years on a new DIS project number #46.  We are part of a group of investors consisting of 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.  Last year Stork Climax Research completed phase #1 and are well into phase #2.  This project should be completed by the end of 2011.

We will now proceed with the annual business meeting. 

We have 3 foundry member directors retiring from the Board of Directors as of June 30th.  They are Jean Bye of Dotson Company, Richard Hicks of Farrar Corporation, and Bill Juergens of TB Woods.  We also have 1 associate board member retiring this year.  He is Rich Nelson of Superior Graphite Company.  We would like to thank all four board members for their participation and dedication to the society over the past 3 years.   

To replace those retiring board members, the nominating committee recommends the following slate to serve on the board of directors for a 3 year term effective July 1, 2011;

TIM BROWN OF BENTON FOUNDRY
ANDY FRANKS OF HITACHI METALS AUTOMOTIVE COMPANY
GREG SELIP OF ELLWOOD ENGINEERED CASTINGS
ALEX GYARMATY OF COORSTEK – FORMERLY SAINT GOBAIN CERAMICS (ASSOCIATE MEMBER)

The attendees approved the slate.

I declare that this Annual Meeting is now adjourned.”   

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On Thursday evening the attendees, as always, enjoyed the banquet with entertainment.  Scott Gledhill again took the podium and was in charge of the proceedings.  He acknowledged the 3 year service by the retiring Board members.                    

   Jean Bye with President Gledhill   

Jean Bye of Dotson Foundry  

  Richard Hicks with President Gledhill  

 Richard Hicks of Farrar Corporation  

 Bill Juergens with President Gledhill  

 Bill Juergens of TB Woods  

   Richard Nelson with President Gledhill  

 Richard Nelson of Superior Graphite

Scott then called upon each new member of the Ductile Iron Society that joined since October 2010 to come to the front to receive their membership certificates.  They are;                                            

Mark Fritz with President Gledhill

 Mark Fritz of Ferrosource, A Division of Stemcor USA, Inc.  

 David Petry with President Gledhill

 David Petry of Primetrade, Inc.  

 Tim Herring with President Gledhill

Tim Herring of ABP Induction  

 Thorsten Reuther with President Gledhill

 Thorsten Reuther of Hofmann Ceramic GmbH, Germany  

 John Davies with President Gledhill

 John Davies of Lethbridge Iron Works – Alberta, Canada

Missing are;

Trigg Brothers Ltd. From Australia
Oshkosh Corporation

We also acknowledged our new members who were absent at our last fall 2010 meeting.  

Bill Travis with President Gledhill

 Bill Travis of FasCast, Inc.  

 Fernando Morales with President Gledhill  

Fernando Morales of Fundicion Aguilas of Santa Catarina, Mexico

Scott then handed out the Ductile Iron Society’s Service Citations to those who served on the Research Committee.  

John McGoldrick with President Gledhill

 John McGoldrick of Hodge Manufacturing
Retiring Research Committee Chairman  

Mike Galvin with President Gledhill  

Mike Galvin of Buck Company
Retiring Process Sub-Committee Chairman Research Committee

 Absent

Carlos Leon of Pure Power Technologies Metalcastings Group
 Retiring Properties Sub-Committee Chairman Research Committee

The Ductile Iron Society then celebrated the Annual Service Award.  This year the “Member of the Year” award went to Pete Guidi of Hitachi Metals Automotive Group USA, LLC.  Dick McMinn of Buck Company made the introductions and then proceeded to roast Pete in good fun.    

 Dick McMinn(L) with Pete Guidi(R)

Pete Guidi is a native Texan, born in Pasadena, Texas, Growing up in a small east Texas town of Lufkin.

At the age of 16 during summer breaks he started working for a sub-contractor that did the brick work (ovens & furnaces) for Texas Foundries. He was already familiar with the foundry industry; his father was Vice-President of Manufacturing at Texas foundries for 35 years.  

He went on to Texas A&M and co-op at Texas Foundries and was an FEF scholarship recipient. After college he worked at Texas Foundries working in all departments eventually becoming Superintendent of the Steel Division. He moved on to Moline Corp, St Charles, Ill then to Grinnell corp. in Columbia, Pa and in 1993 moved to Ward Manu- facturing in Blossburg, Pa.

He is currently President/CEO of Ward Manufacturing and Executive VP of Hitachi Metals Automotive Components USA in Lawrenceville, Pa.

He has been associated with ductile iron foundries his whole career, he is a board member and past President of the Pennsylvania Foundry Association , past board member and past President of the DIS from 2005 – 2007, and currently the  Treasurer of the Ductile Iron Society.   

He has been involved with the DIS since 1989 and was intimately involved with the society during the restructuring time to help steer the society to recovery.  He also claims to have only missed three meetings since 1989.

The banquet concluded by Rodrigo Alpizar and Felipe Valdes making a presentation on next year’s 70th World Foundry Congress & 18th Fundiexpo to be held in Monterrey, Mexico from April 25 to 27, 2012.  

                     Rodrigo Alpizar                                                                                          Felipe Valdes

To end the banquet, Scott introduced Eric Meyers, the President of Oil City Iron Works, to give everyone a brief history of the foundry and also let everyone know what they were going to see on the tour on Friday morning.  Thanks go out to Eric, Bill Riley, VP of Manufacturing, Bill Knuerr, Quality Manager, and the rest of the helpful staff at Oil City for the great tour they put on for our attendees.

             Picture of the front of Oil City                                Picture  of the Oil City Furnaces    

Please mark your calendars now for the DIS fall T & O meeting to be held at the Wyndham Hotel in Gettysburg, PA from October 26-28, 2011 and in conjunction with a tour of TB Woods in Chambersburg, PA.

Jim Wood
DIS Executive Director