On October 6 during the ASM Annual Business Meeting in Pittsburgh, Roger J. Fabian was elected President of ASM International, The Materials Information Society. Roger is Business Development Manager for Bodycote Thermal Processing in Berlin, Conn.
Roger is a past President of the ASM Heat Treating Society, an Affiliate Society of ASM, and a long-time member of both societies. He is also a past President of the Metal Treating Institute (MTI), an ASM Fellow and a past chair of the ASM Technical Programming Board.
He received his B.S. in metallurgical engineering and his MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He began his career with Lindberg Corporation in 1962 as a plant manager at Lindberg’s Boston Division, and in 1964 transferred to the Berlin Division, where he was named chief metallurgist and quality control manager. He was promoted to division manager at Berlin in 1979. In 1985, he was named Vice President of Lindberg Heat Treating Company, and in 1992, manager of the Lindberg Heat Treating Divisions in Berlin and Waterbury, Conn. When Lindberg was purchased by Bodycote Thermal Processing in 2001, Roger was named Eastern Region Sales Manager.
Roger has participated in ASM and HTS conferences and chapter meetings, and organized sessions and presented papers on vacuum heat treating, vacuum brazing and other areas of heat treating and metal joining. He also edited a book, Vacuum Technologies, for ASM. He’s currently a director-at-large industrial liaison for the Center for Heat Treating Excellence (CHTE).
Roger is the first heat treater to serve as President of ASM in 25 years, the previous being George Bodeen, former CEO of Lindberg Heat Treating, who was President in 1983.
ASM has been a leading authority on materials for nearly a century. “We were founded in 1913 as the Steel Treaters Club in Detroit – a group of heat treaters, engineers and salesmen who felt that sharing information was the best way to stay ahead of industry’s increasing demand for metallurgical advances,” Roger explained.
The society moved to Cleveland in 1920 and became American Society for Metals in 1933, reflecting its membership’s widening interests in all metals and processes. By 1985, the society’s international and materials scope resulted in a new name, ASM International.
Today, the 38,000 members of ASM are involved in “Everything Material,” gathering and distributing information and expertise on metals and other engineering materials, particularly with respect to the manufacture, processing, characterization, selection, understanding, use and lifecycle of engineered materials. “For a guy who has spent his entire career in the heat treating and metals joining business, becoming President of ASM is a real honor,” Roger said