ICME is delighted to award Dr John Robertson-Begg CEng FICME with a Silver Pin, celebrating 30 years of dedicated membership.
John was introduced to the cast metals industry in 1976 when he applied to an ad placed in the Daily Telegraph by the British Metal Casting Council looking to sponsor students on courses related to cast metals. He was successful and was accepted onto a degree in Metallurgical Engineering and Management at Loughborough University where he was sponsored by P I castings (Altrincham) Ltd. After graduating John worked for a spell for AICAL (the aluminium investment casting wing of P I Castings) as works metallurgist before continuing his studies at Manchester University and Aston University.
He then got appointed to a post at Napier College in Edinburgh as a lecturer.
Next, he returned to his alma mater to study for a PhD involved with squeeze casting of zinc-aluminium alloys.
On obtaining his PhD John worked for, GKN Squeezeform, then BCIRA, Cast Metals Development and the Institute of British Foundrymen. During his time at IBF John was awarded his CEng and his fellowship of the institute.
Most recently John was employed for nearly 27 and a half years at the University of Derby as an academic. He lectured to a variety of engineering students on degrees and degree apprenticeship programmes. Latterly John ran the Materials Science Technologist Degree Apprenticeship provision.
During his career John has worked with steels, cast irons, aluminium, Stellite, zinc-based alloys and metal matrix composites. He has also lectured in nickel base alloys and supervised many projects in that field.
Although now finished at Derby John maintains interests in machine learning and its application to materials, High Entropy Alloys and TRIZ, a problem-solving technique developed in Russia.
John has described his 30 years with ICME as a rewarding experience.
