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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6 3 8 W e love campfires and enjoy them regularly in our back- yard in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Using our usual Friday night setting, let me share some tales told by my husband and your president. Often these tales are in response to questions posed by our children or neighbors, es- pecially since we are “from off,” which means we are transplants, in South Car- olina jargon. THE FORMATIVE YEARS Jon’s Slovak father, Leslie, and JON D. TIRPAK Angie Tirpak, Mount Pleasant, S.C. 2015 – 2016 PRESIDENT OF ASM INTERNATIONAL

his high school English teacher, Frances Buys, who suggested he write from a different perspective, and Al Taylor, his chemistry teacher, who taught him to ensure that calculated values are asso- ciated with units. While in high school, Jon was first exposed to the metals in- dustry while working on a junk metal truck hauling barrels of scrap and also while working for a jeweler fashioning gold, silver, and platinum rings. During these early years, Jon unknowingly be- came hooked on metals. Other influences came from Scout Troop 56 in Millington, N.J., with whom Jon spent Monday nights and countless weekends. In particular, Scoutmaster David Taylor and assistant Scoutmaster Gerry Harris were two who mentored and inspired him. Jon still corresponds with David, who influenced his early ideas about engineering, civic duty, and leadership. It was Gerry who point- ed Jon to the Appalachian Trail (AT). In 1974, while visiting the trail in Pennsyl- vania, Jon put thru-hiking the AT on his bucket list before bucket list was even a thing. THE COLLEGE YEARS Jon and his brothers were given the option of going to work or college and knew this from an early age. Their

parents also made it clear that they would be responsible for half of their tuition if they chose college. Jon was fortunate enough to earn a four-year Air Force ROTC scholarship. While at Lafay- ette College, he met two new inspira- tions: Bennie Ward and Professor Chet Van Tyne. Working as a river guide in Northern Maine between his freshman and sophomore years, Jon met Bennie, a metallurgist from Reynolds Alumi- num. Sometime during a week of hiking, fishing, and camping, the topic of Jon’s future was sparked around the camp- fire. Bennie suggested that Jon consider metallurgical engineering as a career. Toward the end of his sophomore year— with Bennie’s comments ringing in his ears like a blacksmith’s hammer work- ing iron on an anvil—Jon chose metal- lurgical engineering over mechanical. In his junior year, he plunged into met- allurgy with Professors Van Tyne, McGe- ady, Gill, and Jones. The next two years flew by, including a summer internship in a copper refinery. Upon graduation and commissioning as a Second Lieu- tenant, Jon launched for his first assign- ment at the Air Force Materials Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. EMERGING PROFESSIONAL PART I While in the Birthplace of Aviation, Jon worked on premium aluminum castings, durability and damage toler- ance, design allowables, composites, carbon-carbon, and emerging mate- rials property databases. He was wel- comed into the Dayton Chapter of the American Society for Metals by David Lewis, Chapter Chair. This launched Jon into the Society’s volunteer ranks at the Chapter level. In 1985, he served

second-generation Italian mother, Ma- ria, raised Jon and his two older broth- ers to be hardworking and self-suffi- cient. In Basking Ridge, N.J., where the boys grew up, they studied hard, played sports, explored the nearby woods, joined Scouts, worked around the house, got after-school jobs, and led the National Honor Society. They also learned a lot from family mem- bers including their grandfather Carl, a German sailor who came to America in 1922, their uncle Dominic, a pattern- maker for Liberty Ship engine castings, and their aunt Angie, a guidance coun- selor’s secretary who had an early in- sight that typing would be required for college papers. Jon met other inspira- tions along the way as well, including

The Tirpaks enjoy a backyard campfire in Mount Pleasant, S.C.