Solar Atmospheres Robert Hill, was recently elected president of the Metal Treating Institute, 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. In 2011, Hill was honored to receive the President’s Award, an award given by the then serving president as the one person in the organization that had contributed most to the furtherance of the Institute.

In 2012, Hill’s company, Solar Atmospheres of Western PA, won the Commercial Heat Treater of the Year Award from Industrial Heating magazine and the MTI. Solar Atmospheres of Western PA has been a member of MTI since 2001.

Hill indicated that he was “very happy to serve the MTI in this capacity. I look forward to the challenges ahead and embrace the opportunity to build MTI to be an even more all-encompassing organization for commercial and contract heat treaters around the globe.”

The Metal Treating Institute (MTI) is the world’s largest collection of commercial heat treaters with locations in 40 states, 6 countries, and over $1.2 billion in annual sales. More information can be obtained about MTI by going to www.heattreatonline.com.

Hill, was also recently presented the high honor of ASM Fellow (FASM) in the field of materials at the October 29th ASM’s 100th Anniversary Annual Awards Dinner in Montreal, Canada. Industry professionals and technical leaders alike recognized Hill’s achievements for “expanding the applications and technical knowledge of vacuum heat treating titanium for the future of lightweight and energy efficient commercial and military airframes.”

Hill is a 33-year member of ASM International and in 2000 served as the Chairman of the Philadelphia Liberty Bell Chapter. Most recently, Hill served on the ASM Board of Trustees from 2009-2012. Additionally, Bob served on the ASM Technical Programming Committee for five years culminating as the co-chairman of the Heat Treating Society Conference Programming committee where he coordinated over 100 technical presentations for the Heat Treating Society’s Conference and Exposition, aka The Heat Treat Show.

Hill’s knowledge of the highly technical titanium thermal processing marketplace is demonstrated by his receiving the prestigious Titanium Achievement Award from the International Titanium Association in 2009. At that time, it was well documented by Boeing engineers that the Boeing 787 program was in great peril due to the Ti 555-3 heat treating dilemma. Hill, his team and their equipment were largely responsible for getting the program back on track, trimming the aircrafts weight and avoiding any weight or heat treat related cancellations.