INDUSTRY FACES Hunter President: Capital Purchase Rebound Is Gradual


Metalcasters are starting to increase spending on machinery and spare parts, but the growth has been slow, according to Bill Hunter, president of Hunter Automated Machinery, Schaumburg, Ill. “We are seeing a slight increase in


proposal and quotation requests and a slight upward trend in the number of new machine orders for new capital equipment, but it is very gradual,” Hunter said.


Hunter is no stranger to down-


turns and rebounds. He has worked in the metalcasting industry since graduating from Northern Illinois University in 1973, when he earned a degree from the school’s college of business. Once installed at Hunter Automated after graduation, he began making the rounds of odd jobs. He built machines, worked in engineering, and did field service installing and performing mainte- nance on machines. In 1974, Hunter was instrumen- tal in installing the first computer system used at Hunter Automated. He also created an option-coded bill


PERSONALS Bernard Potts, owner of Village


Castings Inc., Caseville, Mich., was presented the ASTM Award of Merit, the highest award the society gives to individual members.


NovaCast Foundry Solutions,


Ronneby, Sweden, appointed Hakan Fransson chief executive officer of the newly independent company, which will operate under the name Nova- Cast Systems AB.


Stork Technimet, New Berlin,


Wis., added Chris Monson as a new composites engineer.


Synchro32, Bar-


mouth, Gwynedd, U.K., has hired Jean-Marie Darchi- court as a partner- ship/agent liaison manager.


Paolo Nazari will Paolo Nazari 14 | MODERN CASTING June 2011 Quentin Mehrkam, Valley Forge,


Pa., died Nov. 9, 2010, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer. He was 89. Mehrkam began his career as a metallurgist for an aircraft parts maker in Ohio before joining Ajax Electric Co., Philadelphia, in 1946. He became vice president of sales and research in 1964 and senior vice president in 1979. He was made president and elected chairman of the board in 1984 and the next year established an Ajax subsidiary. Mehrkam was active in several industry associations, wrote papers for technical journals and taught a


lead the new Hunter Automated Ma- chinery office in Legnano, Italy.


OBITUARIES


metallurgy class at Temple Univ., Philadelphia.


Harry Phillips Sr. died Nov.


10, 2010. An active member of the Texas Chapter of the American Foundry Society, Phillips started his career with Vulcan Iron Works, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He then went to work as a sales manager for Royer Foundry and Machine Co., Kings- ton, Pa. He then moved to John Brandt Foundry Supply and Equip- ment Co. before starting his own business and eventually retiring after 42 years in the industry.


Ronald Lee Amador Sr., Manawa,


Wis., died Nov. 14, 2010, according to the Appleton Post Crescent. He was 58. Amador worked for Tyssen- Krupp Waupaca, Waupaca, Wis., for more than 38 years and retired in 2010.


eliminated the previous card-based system of predicting order quantities and dates, which was labor intensive and error prone. “When you’re dealing with thousands of parts in a machine, can you imagine doing that manually?” Hunter said. “Tat is when we had 5,000-10,000 part numbers. Now we have almost 100,000 different compo- nent parts.” In 1980, Hunter settled into his


current role as president of Hunter Automated. And while the most recent recession wasn’t the first in his tenure, it was unique, according to Kevin Purdy, the company’s vice presi- dent of sales and service. “What we experienced in this


Bill Hunter is president of Hunter Automated Machinery, a company his father started from his garage.


of material system to support the new computerized material require- ments planning system for the company’s production and inven- tory control. The computer system


[recession], we had never seen before,” Purdy said. “Many of our customers have multiple molding lines, and as quick as the drop was, customers would shut down the molding line and then cannibalize parts from the other lines. So we saw not only a halt in sales of new equipment, but a severe downturn in the sales of spare parts.”


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