Our History

The first PMA conference was held in 1980 at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, soon after the establishment of the PMA. The PMA was anidea of Mr. Brian Clark who was working at the CSIR at the time. He realised the importance of the P/M industry and felt that the CSIR should take the lead in providing support to the industry by facilitating interaction between people and organisations in the P/M industry.

Mr. Clark was the first Chairman of the PMA. Mr. Clark subsequently stepped down as the PMA Chairman due to work commitments, and eventually became the President of the CSIR. However, the CSIR kept the chairmanship up to (and including) 1986, with the Chairman being Dr A.I. Kingon, a specialist in ceramics. A committee always assisted the Chairman with representatives of Boart Longyear, Powder Industries and Sandvik. In 1987 the PMA appointed its first industry Chairman: Dr. Steve Parsons of De Beers Diamond Research Laboratory, who increased the PMA's prestige by hosting the PMA’s conference in luxury venues such as the Sandton Hotel and the annual dinners in equally prestigious venues. He also began organising courses for the staff of the P/M companies and afternoon meetings (with an invited speaker), usually at the Airport Hotel.

Dr Parson also introduced the students' competition at the PMA’s conferences and the “Honorary Life members" awards. Unfortunately, Dr Parson died in a car accident in 1991. In 1992 Mr. Michael Rafferty of Sandvik became the Chairman. Mr. Rafferty gave a name to the student's prize: the Parsons Memorial Award, in recognition of Mr. Parsons’ contribution to the PMA and his work with the then Department of Metallurgy at the University of the Witwatersrand. This award is given by the PMA in order to foster and encourage research of a high standard related to the processing, properties, characterization and in-service performance of powder technology products.

Mr. Rafferty improved the standing of the PMA further by organizing an international conference (International Conference on the Technology, Applications and Markets of Hard and Superhard Materials, 29 August-1 September 1995), held at the Indaba Hotel, Johannesburg. This international conference attracted many well-known P/M researchers from several countries, including Germany, England, Sweden, Ukraine and the USA. The conference was extremely successful (thanks also to strong industry support) and gave the PMA considerable international exposure. Unfortunately, Mr. Rafferty died of cancer in 1997 and Prof. Silvana Luyckx from the University of the Witwatersrand took over the Chairmanship in 1996 for one year. Prof. Luyckx introduced a PMA Newsletter (which was later discontinued) and the annual P/M prize for the best P/M related poster at the University of the Witwatersrand.

In 1997 Mr. Ian Northrop of Boart Longyear Research Centre became Chairman and introduced the Michael Rafferty Memorial lecture to honour Mr. Rafferty’s contribution in making the PMA a truly international organisation. Unfortunately, with the closure of the Boart Longyear Research Centre in Krugersdorp, Mr. Northrop did not complete his term as Chairman, and Mr. Anthony (Tony) Smallman of Powder Industries became the acting Chairman and continued to chair the PMA in the following years up to 2000. Mr. Smallman was then followed by Mr. Dimitri Markoulides of Boart Longyear, who’s vision was to identify areas of growth for the local P/M industry by looking to international technology. As a result, a Sintering Workshop was held in 2003 that examined issues of technology implementation and translation to industry, as well as focusing on the fundamentals of sintering. The workshop received financial assistance from Trade & Invest South Africa, a section of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Mr. Garth Williams of Mintek, the present Chairman, is currently working along similar lines by organising a Powder Forming Technologies Workshop that would highlight the advances and added value of forming technologies for the industry. In 2004 Mr. Williams also introduced the Michael Thomas Memorial Lecture to honour the contribution of Mr. Michael (Mickey) Thomas who was an active member of the PMA from 1984 until 2003 when he passed away suddenly at an early age due to cancer.