Francisco R. Castro (Paco) was born in what at some point was the world’s largest city, Mexico City, which meant that the world was always going to appear small to him. He was born in the mid-1950s but was not a man who did things by halves – it was all or nothing, a matter of doing things in depth. He has left us at a relatively young age, albeit having lived life at the intensity of two.
A physics graduate from the National Autonomous University of Mexico where he worked as a lecturer in Differential Equations at the Faculty of Physics, and researcher at the National Nuclear Sciences Institute of Mexico, Paco took the leap forward to Metallurgy in 1983 by obtaining a master’s degree in Metallurgy at one of the cradles of that specialist field – the University of Sheffield (UK) – and ended up obtaining a PhD from the same university in 1985. He was awarded the extraordinary prize of a Bruton Medal in metallurgical research, for the best PhD thesis of the year.
Having recently completed his PhD, he arrived at Ceit in San Sebastian in July 1985 to run the new ceramic materials group (one doctor (him) and two PhD students), the seeds of what would become the Ceramic and Metal Powder Consolidation Group at Ceit and is now the Advanced Powder Metallurgy and Laser Manufacturing Group (54 people, 26 of them doctors). Moreover, he was an assistant lecturer at Tecnun, which was then known as the Industrial Engineering School of the University of Navarra in San Sebastián, teaching Materials Science to third-year students and Sintering Theory within the PhD programme run by the same university.
Paco had always been characterised by his energy, enthusiasm, devotion and drive. As a student, quite apart from studying and giving football classes at the Pumas, he had also been a sprinter, an American football player and a quite outstanding chess player – a pastime he maintained throughout his life.
With the energy he gave to all his activities, within three years of starting from scratch at Ceit with ceramic materials, he was getting published in Q1 journals, with one of those papers still being often cited even today, 30 years later. Within 5 years he was rubbing shoulders with the gurus in the subject such as F.F. Lange and R. Brooks and, with a grand vision of the future, trained doctors who would go on to continue their work in the group. Alongside the ceramic activity, by the early 90s he was fostering activity in PM, cermet, hard metal, diamond tools, titanium, intermetallic, aluminium and HIP alloys and, later on, the design of Calphad-assisted powders, master alloys, the design of sintering atmospheres, gas and water atomisation, recovery of metals, functional dyes and additive manufacturing. He oriented his work towards combining a major applied component (in his desire to serve industry) based on knowledge created through more basic research. Special mention should also be made of the fact that Paco was a driving force behind the setting-up of four spin-offs: Metallied (focusing on powder atomisation); Likuid, centred on liquid filtering via membranes produced from powder; Tekmetal, set up with the aim of providing metallurgy services to companies and Metal 78, devoted to the recovery of precious metals (Pt), mainly from catalytic converters in cars.
All this activity gave rise to 120 publications in international indexed journals (a number that continues growing thanks to his legacy), 1740 citations, over 15,000 readers, 8 patents, over 100 contributions to congresses, supervision of over 30 PhD theses and participation in over 100 projects both public and privately funded. This constitutes an immense legacy that goes beyond mere figures and continues growing through researchers who he helped to train and to whom he often gave his ideas.
Apart from the above-mentioned Brunton Medal (1985), Paco also received the following: the Schunk Award ‘for outstanding developments in PM’ for supervision of the PhD thesis by Miren Sarasola (2005); Distinguished Services Award 2011 bestowed by the European Powder Metallurgy Association (EPMA) (2011), recognition by the Basque Government for his research work in 2018 and the EPMA Fellowship Award in 2019.
Paco was a member of numerous technical committees at different congresses (PIM, EuroPM, World PM Congress, AMPT, MPIF, PM National, Materials National), technical committees at the EPMA, organiser of two summer schools run by the EPMA in San Sebastian and co-chairman at the EuroPM 2011 in Barcelona and EuroPM 2018 in Bilbao. For many years he was a very active member in the Editorial Board of ‘Powder Metallurgy’. He was also a lecturer at the PM Summer School, where he enjoyed being in contact with students and young researchers both from academia and industry, in whom he entrusted the future of PM.
Yet his greatest prize was recognition by his colleagues who had also become friends after so many years expanding the frontiers of knowledge in powders and processes associated with the production of both ceramic and metal components: atomisation, compacting, sintering, characterisation of microstructural mechanical properties, etc. so many years generously sharing ideas, enjoying and ensuring others enjoyed too and battling, to then go on and laugh about it over a beer or a fine wine. He trained several generations of researchers at Ceit but also influenced many others from other institutions.
Furthermore, he was the greatest fan of his family, starting with Lidia, his beloved companion for over 50 years, travelling together throughout the world, following his children, for whom he would do anything: Lydia, Roxana, Patxi and Cáterin. And the grandchildren, in whom he was always trying to stimulate ingenuity, intelligence and physical capacity – what he himself was like. Until his final days in hospital he would experiment, this time with his body and by discussing about the effects of such and such treatment with the doctors.
Paco will remain in our memory forever. We were privileged to have shared so many experiences with him – not just professional ones – and he will always be a source of inspiration and an example we turn to in many situations in our lives.
Paco Castro receiving the EPMA Fellowship Award from Ralf Carlström, EPMA President, at EuroPM2019, Maastricht.
(Copyright Andrew McLeish for EPMA Euro PM2019)