Katie Matticks, Senior Project Manager
Katie Matticks is Senior Project Manager at the American Foundry Society. She serves as the community manager for AFS’ private social network CastingConnection as well as staff liaison to Women in Metalcasting and the Management Council. Her 10-year career at AFS has focused on developing and delivering technical, educational, library and online community services to association members and customers. Katie has a master’s degree from Dominican University in library and information science, and a Bachelor of Arts from DePaul University.
Sue Thomas, Senior Technical Editor
Sue Thomas has been part of the AFS staff for 28 years. Originally a student member of AFS, Sue’s inspiration for entering metallurgy came after a foundry tour sparked her interest. Sue earned a degree in materials engineering with a metallurgy specialty from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her career in metalcasting has ranged from metallurgy research and failure analysis, to machine shop technical sales, to a past AFS/CMI instructor, to former executive editor of Modern Casting, to her current role as Senior Technical Editor for AFS Special Publications and Marketing. She also has represented AFS at various trade shows.
Ryan Davis, Technical Research Assistant
Ryan Davis joined AFS in August 2018. As the Technical Research Assistant, Ryan plays an integral role in promoting the metalcasting industry’s valuable research. Ryan is the glue between AFS and corporations, academic institutions, and government agencies conducting research. With the new AFS digital library launching the past year, Ryan is there to assist AFS members in finding any of the 15,000 articles available online. Ryan has a degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Valerie Stramaglia, Accounting Manager
Valerie Stramaglia started with AFS in June of 1989 after graduating from Bradley University. Before her current role as Accounting Manager, Valerie originally served as the registrar for CMI (now known as the AFS Institute). She plays an integral role for Metalcasting Congress and CastExpo and feels honored to have been part of the 100th Metalcasting Congress celebration in Philadelphia. What Valerie finds the most rewarding about working at AFS is being able to work closely with other members of the staff and contribute to a lot of diverse projects.
This is a periodic feature in Member Connections.