Dr. Rober Bakish Award

Dr. Robert Bakish, VON ARDENNE’s first and still active representative in United States, was honored by the donation of an award named after his person. At the celebration of his 85th birthday, the donation certificate of the award was presented to Dr. Bakish by a VON ARDENNE delegation led by Dr. Alexander von Ardenne.

Dr. Robert Bakish was born in Bulgaria and emigrated to Switzerland in the 1960s to start working in the metallurgical business. Together with his wife Ellen he later moved to the United States to continue his activities for metallurgical processes. One of the companies he worked for was Temescal, a company providing first electron beam generators for vacuum melting furnaces. During a visit to Dresden in the mid 1970s Dr. Bakish recognized the potential and advantages of the newly developed VON ARDENNE electron beam guns for vacuum melting and coating processes. He established various business relations and made VON ARDENNE electron beam equipment well known in the North American industry.

In 1983 as podium for the growing electron beam technology Dr. Bakish launched the conference on "Electron Beam Melting & Refining - State of the Art" as well as the "Web Coating" conference. With his continuing chairmanship the conferences today continue as biennial "ebeam" conference organized and sponsored by the two leading electron beam equipment suppliers VON ARDENNE and ALD.

In addition to acknowledging  Dr. Bakish’s contributions, the award represents VON ARDENNE’s commitment to continue the tradition of the "ebeam" conferences. During the next five conferences, the award with a $2000 donation will be granted to outstanding contributions, intended to especially promote young scientists or engineers working in the field of electron beam technology.