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January 23, 2025

Heat Treat Today is privileged to oversee the 40 Under 40 recognition awards highlighting a group of rising young leaders in the North American heat treat industry every year. The Class of 2024 is a high-achieving, motivated, and heart-felt group of significant contributors to the heat treat market. Here are two highlights from this year’s class.  

Aaron Moyer, research and development technician II at Solar Atmospheres, is dedicated to becoming an expert in vacuum heat treating and metallography. His career trajectory points towards a leadership position, with expectations for him to become either the manager of the Metallurgical Lab or assume a significant role in the Quality Department. Aaron has specialized in ion nitriding, solution nitriding, and gas nitriding. His roles have spanned from metallurgical technician to research assistant and furnace operator and has completed internal heat treat and quality courses offered by the company, as well as external ASM metallurgical courses and the MTI YES leadership program. He has also benefited from the mentorship of Trevor Jones and other corporate metallurgists, transitioning seamlessly from operator to lab technician and currently to research technician. He authored the current Solar Atmospheres' Quality Assurance manual for its Nadcap-approved metallurgical laboratory, leading the team in metallurgical failure analysis, and is on track to become the lab manager at the metallography laboratory as their Souderton facility continues to expand. Aaron has also become a leader in SEM fractography, collaborating with various clients to resolve product issues and enhance their manufacturing and heat treatment processes for better service life. Read more about Aaron here.

Levi Pietila’s heat treat experience has grown leaps and bounds from his time as a heat treat engineer at Dexter Fastener Technology to his last four years as a mechanical project engineer at AFC-Holcroft. His diligent and methodical approach has proven valuable with successfully designing heat treat equipment. Because he is a team player, he can often be found collaborating with manufacturing, project management, and field service to verify continuity, consistency, and clarity on projects. In the field, he supervises equipment installations, troubleshoots field issues, and assists with refractory guidance on client equipment. In addition to capital project work, Levi has completed training courses on process heating and metallurgy, along with teaching furnace classes on furnace applications, furnace sizing, and furnace design internally at AFC-Holcroft. He has taken on some very large rebuild and retrofit projects as well. One in particular is a 50-year-old piece of equipment with a total of three automated lines. Despite all the rebuild challenges — as most of these components are obsolete — he has made it look easy, creating details and keeping up with refractory and mechanical installation crews so there are no delays. Every day there seems to be a new hurdle, but with consistency and clarity, he strategizes a plan of attack. The combination of technical, organizational, and leadership skills displayed by Levi are key indicators of the current and future value this “furnace engineer” brings to his company and his industry. Read more about Levi here.

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