1.    Costco – Seattle, Jan. 14th, 2009.

2.    EPRI Weathering Steel - Orlando, Feb. 5th, 2009.

3.    Valmont Newmark – Alabama, February 10th - 12th, 2009.

4.    ICRI (Petrographic Technical Society), Pittsburgh, April 11th, 2009

5.    ASM presentation on April 16th, 2009

6.    Appalachian Underground Corrosion Short Course (AUCSC) - West Virginia, May 
21, 2009

7.    NACE Eastern Conference – Pittsburgh, 6th - 8th, 2009.

8.    NACE 2009 Conference on Aging Infrastructure - TBD

For the past 25 years Dr. Zee has given numerous presentations, Short Courses and Training programs for many different industries, technical societies, and at various universities.  He is well-known for his expertise in the fields of coatings, corrosion, cathodic protection and failure analysis.   He has performed and reviewed literally thousands of failure analyses investigations involving corrosion and materials damage investigations including roofing, siding, aging aircraft components, accident and explosion cases involving materials failures, human implants, electronic circuitry devices, automobile and fire engine components, industrial, manufacturing, process and construction failures, and more.

MATCO presentations, Short Courses and Training Programs are designed to meet the needs of the intended audience. Specific topics of concern are adressed in a manner that presents basic information first and then progresses to more technical concepts. Scientific fundamental applications, design, monitoring, case histories, problem solving, and in some cases, “hands on” experiments are explored and elaborated on depending on the client's needs. Typical programs include:

• Basic Corrosion & Cathodic Protection
• Advanced Corrosion & Cathodic Protection
• Basic Paint & Coatings and Inspection
• Advanced Paint & Coatings (for those who have completed Basic P&C's)
• Metallurgy for Non-Metallurgists
• Failure Analysis Methodology and Root Cause Determination
• Corrosion Monitoring in the Process Industry
• Steel Making from Iron Ore to Finished Product
• Heat Treating Basic
• Heat Treating Advanced

At the completion of each course, a Certificate of Attendance is awarded to those who complete a training course. Training courses are provided as either a ½ day or full day event.

Instructors:

Dr. Zamanzadeh (Zee), MATCO’s primary scientist and a NACE Certified Corrosion, Coatings, Materials Selection, Cathodic Protection Specialist. Dr. Zee is a well-known speaker, investigator, and writer in the fields of corrosion and failure analysis investigations. Currently, Dr. Zee holds 21 patents, and is the author of 58 papers involving failure analysis, corrosion testing, and protective coatings. He is also Past Trustee for the Pittsburgh Section of NACE and Past Chairman for ASM Pittsburgh Chapter. He was also recently awarded the ASM Fellow Award, 2006 and the NACE Fellow Award in 2007.

Walter Gretz, P.E., Senior Manager. Walter has over 30 years of experience in failure analysis, materials testing and analysis, provisioning, pouring, heating and rolling of steel ingots to billets, blooms, slabs and rounds in various grades of carbon steel, alloy steel, silicon steel and stainless steel. He has extensive experience in conditioning steel, rolling of steel to bars, inspection, ultrasonic testing and heat treatment of steel in electric, gas-fired and induction furnaces as well as air, oil and water quenching.

Ed Larkin, Senior Manager. Ed has over twenty years of experience performing failure analyses. He has examined a wide variety of product failures and has extensive experience with metallography and scanning electron microscopy of materials. His projection have included metallurgical investigation of jet engines and landing gears, coatings, PVC pipe, human implants, transmission towers, and computer components. Ed is also a Petrographic Specialist, and is an expert in concrete evaluation. He has also served as Chariman of the Pittsburgh section of NACE, as well as the Vice Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary.

Geoffrey O. Rhodes, Technical Manager - Corrosion. Geoff has over 20 years of experience involving and research and development and production aspects of specialty steels with particular emphasis on powder metals and high performance stainless steels. His experience is inclusive of process and product improvement, mechanical and corrosion assisted failure analysis, alloy development and materials characterization. He holds 6 U.S. Patents, has authored 11 technical papers, and is a NACE Certified CP Technologist.

George Bayer, Ph.D., Technical Manager - Paint & Coatings. Dr. Bayer has 20 years of experience in materials, coatings, corrosion, and chemistry. He holds 5 patents, and has authored 25 papers. Dr. Bayer is a member of ASM International and the American Chemical Society.

Donald Gibbon has a Ph.D. in geochemistry/mineralogy from Rice University and over 35 years of industrial materials microcharacterization experience. Don’s major scientific interest has been in the production of high-quality images, whether that be in photographs, scanning or  transmission electron micrographs or electron diffraction patterns. He is fortunate to have entered the field of electron-beam instrumentation near the very beginning and has been forced by circumstances to become intimately familiar with the physics and optics of both light and electron microscopes of many kinds. Don brings a knowledge of such fields as transmitted cross-polarized light microscopy to Matco, extending the boundaries of what we can offer our clients beyond that of the usual testing lab. After teaching optical crystallography and electron microscopy at Penn State for five years, Don first worked in industry for Ferro Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio. Following that he returned to undergraduate college teaching in geology. Then he spent the next 20 years as manager of the materials characterization lab at Calgon Corporation, applying the full gamut of light and electron microscope-based analytical techniques to the solution of materials problems. These very special techniques covered the full range of Calgon’s product applications in industry, including power, automotive, paper, surface finishing, food processing and dozens of others. This broad background enriches his contribution to Matco.

Kevin Groll, Mechanical Engineer. Kevin has extensive experience performing a variety of failure investigations. Kevin is proficient in scanning electron microscopy, electro chemistry, metallographic microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Mr. Groll is a NACE certified corrosion technician, and has performed studies on microbiologically induced corrosion, galvanic corrosion resistance of coatings, and chloride and sulfate induced types of corrosion on different metals.

Martin Latona, Materials Engineer, came to MATCO with over 20 years’ experience in specialty steels, primarily stainless and non-oriented electrical steels, both in production and applied research. He is also familiar with the cast irons, carbon steels, superalloys, and powder metallurgy (PM) products. Martin obtained a BS and MS in Metallurgy & Materials Science from Case Western Reserve University, and an MS in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.