40 Under 40 Class of 2022 Alums Take the Stage

Since 2018, Heat Treat Today has been striving to honor young people in the industry. The 40 Under 40 award gives names, faces, and words to the rising generation of industry professionals.

Catch up with exemplary classmates from the past year to hear where they are now and what comments they have about the industry. Pour a cup of coffee while you dig into the resource list that’s full of research and commentary from Heat Treat Today‘s 40 Under 40 alumni.

This original content article is released on the final day to nominate someone to Heat Treat Today‘s 40 Under 40 Class of 2023.

Aniket Maske

Aniket provided an update: “Currently, I’m the Chief Metallurgist and Director of Quality and Launch (program management) at ASPC. In addition, I’m now part of the Executive Leadership Team (ELT).”

At Automatic Spring Products Corp., heat treating processes have significantly improved with Aniket as a member of the Senior Leadership Team. Long-term strategic planning, reducing customer complaints, improving customer relationships, and implementing corrective actions to improve processes are all areas that see his influence. He has been an integral part in helping ASPC transition to the latest technology in heat treat controls and fuel injection which will result in significant gas savings and increased quality and control.

This recognition in Heat Treat Today‘s 40 Under 40, Aniket explains, “[has] helped me in networking as I focus on future sustainability – which is important as a heat treat professional. The professionals in the heat treat industry are provided a platform to collaborate and know about the progress – which was not readily available on a mass scale – with larger scope and scale.”

This Class of 2022 alum closes with the fact that he “enjoy[s] reading Doug’s editorial page in Heat Treat Today magazine.”

Read more about Aniket here.

Sarah Lombardo

With a bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Penn State, Sarah worked as a metallurgist, and has been gaining experience in aerospace industry quality systems in the heat treat industry for 18 years, beginning with an internship at Sikorsky Aircraft.

“Things continuously improve,” she explained. “Even though we’ve been heat treating steel for decades, there’s always something new coming out: new material, new processing methodology, etc.”

Sarah has this advice for future leaders in the industry: “Get involved. Join and organization such as MTI; explore the NADCAP program; look into AMEC and writing standards we use everyday. Get involved, and do the networking. It will take you farther than you can imagine.”

Read more about Sarah here.

Casey O’Neill

During this past year, Casey has completed his MBA from University of Michigan in April. He shares gratitude for those who helped him along the way: “First and foremost I could not have done it without the unwavering support of my wife Anna O’Neill, MBA. I also sincerely appreciate Bob Roth’s encouragement to pursue this degree. It was both a challenging and rewarding experience. Thank you Nelson Sanchez, Kurt Hofman and everyone at RoMan Manufacturing for your guidance, support and and patience as I did my best to juggle all the work we are doing at RoMan along with successfully completing this program.”

Prior to managing RoMan’s sales effort to the heat treating industry, Casey played a pivotal role in growing RoMan’s non-ferrous foundry business. He has proven himself to be a quick technical learner as well as a customer-focused representative of the RoMan values. Casey has contributed very much to his company, and they have appreciated his work. Heat Treat Today especially enjoyed meeting Casey last year at FNA. While at the event, Casey picked up five Heat Treat Kids t-shirts for his crew!

Read more about Casey here.

Jessica Rittwage

On a normal day at Cleveland Electric Laboratories, Jessica often balances multiple expedited requests to assure customer equipment is up and running. Finding ways to creatively beat industry standard lead times has become her norm.

Jessica shares that her life is about to change, as the future holds excitement for her and her husband: “I have been having a very busy year so far! My husband and I bought and renovated a new home, and I’m currently pregnant with our first child! I have been training a temporary replacement to take the reins while I am out on maternity leave. And even though I have been mostly preoccupied with baby stuff, I can say that here at CEL we are on track to have a record year! Acquiring new accounts and expanding our reach within existing accounts has required some creative scheduling on my part! I’m excited to see what the future holds both professionally and personally!”

Read more about Jessica here.

Ben Isaak

Since receiving Heat Treat Today‘s 40 Under 40 award, Ben has filled us in on some updates: “The past year was full of exciting developments at Solar Manufacturing and I am proud to be part of the team working on improving our business every day to provide our customers with high quality vacuum furnaces and hot zones.”

An MTI YES Management Training Program graduate, Ben has worked on standardization for vacuum furnace hot zones across Solar Manufacturing’s product line and worked to create designs for improved thermal efficiency, leading to two U.S. patents. He shares, “In the past year, I have focused on providing support to customers with difficult process requirements by assisting in hot zone material selections. I have also worked on vertical integration of several manufactured assemblies to bring more work in house resulting in shorter lead times and lower prices for our customer base. And lastly, I have continued to work on standardizing our existing product lines to increase our efficiency and lower our costs.”

Read more about Ben here.