Dr Frank Fitzgerald, CBE honoured with Commemorative Board at 90th Birthday Celebration
Speech given by Chris McDonald at the commissioning of the Frank Fitzgerald Commemorative Board at the Institute - 7/11/19
Dear friends, it is with great pleasure that I welcome you all here to join us in celebrating Frank’s 90th birthday. In entering his tenth decade, Frank joins the ranks of other notable and inspiring nonagenarians, such as Sir David Attenborough and HM the Queen.
Most of you know Frank from his time at British Steel, serving as Director, managing director and board member, between 1977 and 1992. During this time, Frank led a transformation of the British Steel technical laboratories, including this facility. The building in which are standing was opened in 1976 (the year I was born) and though it is the last of more than a dozen laboratories that existed at the time, I am pleased to report that Frank’s legacy here at Teesside is secure, with the Materials Processing Institute winning major new contracts in our research areas of advanced materials, low carbon energy, the circular economy and digital technologies.
Frank created a renewed focus in British Steel technology on industrial application and commercialisation, with an understanding that both pilot plant and works trials were essential in bringing new technologies to market. In doing so he cemented a strong business and commercial drive in this place, with a ‘can-do’ attitude that we continue to benefit from today. It is this instinct that has enabled us as an organisation to thrive in extremely challenging times for the steel industry in general and to find new markets for our expertise. We also still benefit from those original and far sighted investments in pilot facilities and from our purpose built research infrastructure. This is your legacy Frank, one of which we are extremely grateful and you and your family, should be extremely proud.
Unlike most people here, I have only ever known Frank as a friend, for he was retired before we met. Frank and I met through the Cleveland Institution of Engineers. I think the first time we met was when he was on the judging panel for the annual Institute of Materials lecture competition, in which I was a participant. Over many years we got to know one another well, through working on projects for the Cleveland Institution of Engineers. I was particularly grateful for Frank’s support during my year as President of the Institution, when he secured the agreement of Dr Tridibesh Mukherjee to give the inaugural prestigious lecture.
In fact I always found Frank to be extremely generous with both his time and experience. Something which was of great help to me when we set up the Materials Processing Institute in 2014. I had no experience of running a business and it was a great comfort to me to know that I had the support of Frank’s knowledge and experience to hand, to guide me through some of those early moments.
With this in mind, you can imagine how delighted I was, to be the first recipient of the inaugural Frank Fitzgerald Medal and Travel award, established by the Institute of Materials in Frank’s honour in 2005. The medal is awarded annually to promising young individual in the UK steel industry, with the express intention of providing a grant to travel and broaden experience overseas. I used my grant to spend one month in Japan, visiting a conference, steel plants and living with some Japanese friends. This proved to be an experience on which I continue to draw to this day and which has left a personal legacy of a long standing interest in Japan. One which I will be renewing next Summer as I travel with my family to Japan for the 2020 Olympics. A visit that I am sure would never have happened without that initial opportunity from Frank’s travel award.
The Frank Fiztgerald Medal has now been running for 15 years and to commemorate this milestone, alongside Frank’s own birthday, we have commissioned a commemorative board, on which all of the winners of the medal, both past and future can be recorded. I would now like to ask Frank to come forward and unveil the board.
7 November 2019
