It is very sad to be writing about Ken when our community, the EPMA EuroHM Group, so recently presented him with a special award at EuroPM2017 in Milan for his highly regarded contributions and association with the Hardmetal and Hard Material community over an extremely long period. For most of his working life Ken took a special interest in promoting the well-being and success of this important industry sector, fundamental to the development of Advanced Manufacturing.
Ken Brookes receiving a EPMA lifetime award in 2017 from Leo Prakash
Ken’s University days were devoted to the study of Metallurgy at London University in the late 40s and soon after he joined a UK company, Teco, based in London; where he learnt much about the relevant hardmetal technologies through his responsibilities to develop high quality and innovative products in the 1950s. Ken was responsible for research and technical innovation aimed at a range of submicrometre hardmetal grades (including special alloys for machining superalloys) with chromium-carbide grain-growth inhibition; highly alloyed, extra tough, heat resistant, solid solution carbides; consistently super-dry hydrogen to minimise grain growth; nanosize cobalt to eliminate binder lakes in sintered hardmetal; and a special purpose ultrahard (2250 HV30) grade with 7% cobalt.
On leaving Teco he put his heart and soul into the conception and delivery of the widely consulted World Directory and Handbook of Hardmetals and Hard Materials, which was first published in 1975. The production of this weighty, timely and informative book ensured that Ken made contact with a fully representative community of companies active in the field, thus providing a thorough overview of their many complementary interests. The 1996 edition is particularly fine with 700 pages of densely packed information of both scientific and technical utility and absolutely saturated with extremely high quality images of a huge number of aspects of the science and technology of Hardmetals. Many of these were taken personally by Ken as you will read below about his photojournalistic skills! Though heavy to handle and not amenable to travel, especially these days when we expect to download everything from the internet, it is a joy to open and peruse. Ken was also Chairman for many years of the British Standards committee MTE/18 Small Tools and Cutting-Tool Materials applying his intimate knowledge of the subject for the benefit of the tooling community.
In March 1982 Ken joined the editorial team of the newly established International Journal of Refractory Metals and Hard Materials as Consulting Editor. The journal had been created by MPR Publishing Services Ltd based in Shrewsbury to succeed the Planseeberichte für Pulvermetallurgie previously published by Metallwerk Plansee AG, and Ken ensured its smooth transition when the journal was sold to Elsevier Ltd in 1990 along with Metal Powder Report. It was the official journal of the International Plansee Society for Powder Metallurgy and also the International Tungsten Industry Association. It is very much still the leading academic journal in its field. For the past 40 years or so Ken has been a regular attendee at most of the hard material communities’ events, such as the Plansee Seminars, Euro and World PM meetings and the International Science of Hard Material conferences. He had a remit to report on progress in the technology and underpinning science through the Elsevier journal – Metal Powder Report. In fact, only a few weeks ago, Ken published a thoughtful article in the September-October edition of Metal Powder Report which we strongly recommend for its historical and technical notes. In recent years the EuroHM group relied heavily on Ken to write well considered summaries for Metal Powder Report of our SUMMEREV/WINTEREV biennial discussion meetings. We will hugely miss this substantial contribution to maintaining our profile in the PM community.
It should be more widely known that Ken pursued a parallel career with senior responsibilities within the discipline of Journalism – for example he was a Past President of the UK Chartered Institute of Journalists. His initial contacts with this community arose when he worked as a freelance technical, travel and aviation photojournalist (Now you know why he was so prominent with his camera skills at PM events!). He got involved with the UK Chartered Institute of Journalists (CIoJ) Freelance Division and eventually became their Chairman. He also took a special interest in copyright issues for CIoJ and was their copyright guru as CIoJ Copyright Representative for over 40y. Ken always supported working journalists and was a founding editor of the ‘International Journalist’. The current CIoJ President, Professor Tim Crook, referred to Ken as ‘a legend in journalism … ’ while the CIoJ Chief Executive, Dominic Cooper, referred to Ken as ‘a dynamo, with a commitment to CIoJ that was second to none’
How did he also find time and energy for the PM community!
Ken was well known in the hardmetal industry for questions from the floor at meetings and conferences, and more informally after organised sessions. It is surely evident that his sound expression of ideas benefitted significantly from his journalistic endeavours; ensuring that Ken’s written compositions regarding the hard material field are so thoughtful – they will long continue to be perused!
Ken at Teco in the 1950s.
EHMG dinner ‘90 years of hardmetals’, Hamburg, 2016.
SUMMEREV 2016 at HILTI, Liechtenstein.
Bryan Roebuck, Steven Moseley, Luis Llanes, Susanne Norgren, Bernard Williams