• William R. Jones, CEO of Solar Atmospheres, Inc. received the Heritage Award at the Metal Treating Institute (MTI) Fall Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 12th. This prestigious award is given in recognition of the individual’s lifetime commitment to the betterment of the commercial heat treating industry with one or more notable accomplishments. Only nine people in the 78-year history of MTI have ever received this award.
MTI 2011-2013 president Buster Crossley presented the award by introducing Jones as an “icon in the world of heat treating.” He went on to say, “When you hear his last name, you know who is being talked about. He is a graduate of Penn State with a degree in electrical technology, with more than 40 years of experience developing vacuum furnace and processing technology. He is a Fellow of ASM International (FASM), and received the national Eisenman Award for applications of vacuum technology for outstanding contributions in practical industry applications. He served as president of Abar Corporation for five years, and in 1978 founded the Vacuum Furnace Systems Corporation (VFS) to engineer and build vacuum furnaces. In 1983, he and his son, Roger, formed their own company, Solar Atmospheres, to make use of the technology advancements they had discovered. Mr. Jones holds numerous patents related to vacuum furnace design and application. He has authored numerous technical articles and papers for ASM, the Metal Treating Institute, and Industrial Heating magazine.
• Solar Atmospheres of Western PA president Robert Hill was recently elected president of the Metal Treating Institute in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Hill becomes the Institute’s 70th president. Hill has served on the Institute’s Board of Governors since 2008. He was instrumental in establishing the organization’s Technical Standards Committee in 2011 and has served on a variety of different committees, including the programming committee, the executive committee, a benchmarking committee, and the strategic planning committee.
• Dr. Dianne Chong, Ph.D., FASM, recently toured the Solar Atmospheres headquarters in Souderton, PA. Dr. Chong is the vice president, Materials, Manufacturing, Structures, & Support in the Operations & Technology department of Boeing Engineering. Prior to her role as vice president, Dianne was director of Materials and Process Technology for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. She is a past president of ASM International 2007-2008, and the recipient of the 2012-13 ASM Liberty Bell Chapter William Hunt Eisenman Award. Senior executives and sales management from both Solar Atmospheres and Solar Atmospheres of Western Pennsylvania escorted Dr. Chong throughout her tour of Plant “A.” “We were honored to host Dr. Chong and give her an in-depth look at our thermal processing operations,” said Roger Jones, corporate president of Solar Atmospheres.
Dr. Chong’s visit consisted of an extended tour of Plant “A,” lunch, and further discussions about Solar’s capabilities. The topics of the discussions included Solar’s vacuum carburizing and vacuum gas nitriding processes, annealing services, heat treating of tooling, brazing, sintering, and special processing.
For more information, please visit their website www.solaratm.com.
