Staff
Dr. Michael Beffel
Dr. Michael Beffel is vice president, Operations, for Chromalloy. He has more than 22 years of experience in the casting industry, with the majority in positions in the investment cast area, including multi-site responsibility. He also spent several years in the automotive tier-one supply industry, producing aluminum wheels for OEMs. Most recently, he supervised the design, construction and preliminary qualification of a green-field plant for production of IGT components. He has held technical and senior-level management positions. Beffel holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan, a M.S. in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering.
Alicia Durham
As the manager of administration for CCAM, Alicia Durham is responsible for coordinating and developing policies and procedures for the organization, managing member and vendor relationships, planning events, maintaining the website and bookkeeping.
Before joining CCAM, Durham served as the Assistant Executive Director for RichTech, Central Virginia’s premier technology association. While at RichTech, she implemented a new strategic plan, which included a new brand and membership structure. In addition, she was responsible for marketing, event management and communications, as well as budget management. Prior to working for RichTech, Durham worked with Preferred Management and the Beacon Group as an account manager.
Durham has a BA degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina.
Kevin Farinholt
Kevin M. Farinholt joined CCAM in July 2012 as a manager in manufacturing systems research – with focus on modeling and simulation, adaptive manufacturing, and nondestructive evaluation. Farinholt also leads efforts to identify and pursue federal funding opportunities in CCAM’s focused areas of research. Before joining CCAM, Farinholt served as a Technical Staff Member and Early Career Award recipient at Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico. Prior to his time at LANL, Farinholt served as a Research Scientist with NanoSonic, Inc. in Blacksburg, VA leading SBIR and STTR efforts in active controls and novel power systems research.
Farinholt earned an A.S. degree in Engineering from Piedmont Virginia Community College, as well as B.S., MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. His research has resulted in more than 90 book, journal, and conference publications, and he remains actively involved in the research community. Farinholt serves on several Technical Committees and is currently Chair of the Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Conference within SPIE’s Smart Materials & NDE Symposium.
Matt Stremler
Matt Stremler joined CCAM in June of 2012 as a manager in surface engineering, with a focus on polymeric and corrosion-resistant coatings. Prior to joining CCAM, he served for fifteen years as a coatings and corrosion engineer and team leader at Newport News Shipbuilding. He focused primarily on corrosion-related failures, quality, specification and design, and research and development relating to surface preparation for, and application of, organic coatings.
Stremler earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and a Master of Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Virginia, and is an SSPC-certified Protective Coatings Specialist.
Jim Whitton
Jim Whitton joined Chromalloy in July 2011 in the role of Program Manager for CCAM Initiatives. In January 2012 he was assigned a concurrent role as CCAM Director of Operations. Whitton previously worked at Barnes Aerospace, a division of Barnes Group Inc., where he was LEAN Leader, responsible for developing continuous improvement strategies for the global aerospace aftermarket operations. He earlier worked at UTC Power, a division of United Technologies, as Manager, Development Operations.
Prior to that Whitton worked at JDS Uniphase in development engineering. Earlier he worked within various groups at Pratt & Whitney on hot section coatings, component repairs and product development. Early in his career, Whitton worked at Chromalloy’s Orangeburg, N.Y., advanced coating and repair center. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in ceramic engineering from Alfred University and is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of Massachusetts.
Benjamin Zimmerman
Benjamin Zimmerman joined CCAM in 2012 to lead surface engineering research, with a focus on metal and ceramic-based coatings. Zimmerman brings nearly a decade of experience researching, developing, and producing coatings and coating-related processes, while collaborating with academia, government institutes, and companies large and small. Prior to joining CCAM, he worked with high-temperature aerospace coatings as an engineer at Pratt & Whitney, where he was the Subject Matter Expert for ceramic thermal barrier coatings. More recently, Zimmerman was a Technology Development Lead at Pratt & Whitney, where he focused on developing multiple additive manufacturing technologies.
Zimmerman holds a Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from Iowa State University and is enrolled at Indiana University where he is pursuing an MBA. He has nearly 30 patents currently pending.