FIA Honors 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award Winners

The recipients of the FIA Lifetime Achievement Award were announced and celebrated on April 22, 2023, during the FIA Annual Meeting of Members at the Ritz Carlton Tibúron in Naples, Florida. This year two honorees were awarded, Don Jones (posthumously) and Sharon Haverstock. The FIA and FIERF are grateful to both individuals who have made significant contributions to the association and the industry as a whole. 

Sharon Haverstock

Sharon has a passion for forging and manufacturing where she spent over 36 years prior to retiring from Scot Forge as Executive Vice President in 2013.

In 1980, after a four-year start to her career in metals at A.M. Castle, a steel service center, Sharon began her long-term forging association at Scot Forge, a leading custom manufacturer of metal open die and rolled ring forgings.

At Scot Forge, she started in inside sales, then held various other positions in sales, marketing, purchasing and operations with increasing leadership roles, including several VP roles - Marketing, Plant Manager (Clinton, WI plant), and Ringmasters joint venture (Wayne, MI). She was named Executive Vice President of Scot Forge in 2001.

Sharon was elected to the Scot Forge Board of Directors in 1991 and the Ringmasters Board in 1996 and served until her retirement. She was the first woman elected to the Forging Industry Association’s Board as a Director for the 1994-1999 term and thereafter on the Association’s Nominating Committee. Sharon also served on the American Gear Manufacturers Association Board of Directors and currently serves on the Board of Visitors for the Les Aspin Center for Government in Washington DC.

She is most passionate about advocating for the advancement of women to leadership and executive roles in manufacturing. In 2015 she established and endowed three separate women’s scholarships - at the Forging Industry Association, the University of Notre Dame and the Milwaukee School of Engineering - to financially assist and encourage talented women to pursue careers in manufacturing. She formed & Chaired the Committee for the Forging Industry Women’s Scholarship and remains a member today, continuing to contribute to and fundraise for those scholarships. She actively serves as a mentor to award recipients and select women targeted for advancement by company executives.

Sharon is currently the President of Haverstock & Associates LLC, offering advisory and mentoring services to up and coming women leaders in manufacturing. She earned a Business degree (BBA ‘76) with a concentration in marketing from the University of Notre Dame (South Bend, IN) where she was in the first four-year class of women admitted to the University, and completed the Kellogg School of Management’s “Women’s Director Development Program” at Northwestern University.

Don Jones

Don Jones was a man motivated by opportunity. In his work life, opportunity would knock in many different ways. The first opportunity introduced him to the forging industry at Kropp Forge for his first 20 years. When that chapter closed, Don took on a brand-new opportunity as a manufacturer's representative. For the next 20 years he would build the organization into a successful venture focused on open die, closed die and large fabrications. He would maintain relationships with his core principals throughout his time as a manufacturer's rep. His focus would always be geared toward the principal's best interest.

Opportunity would again knock on Don's door. Most of the 1980's saw tremendous change in the forging industry. One area significantly impacted was the small closed die forge shops throughout the US. Lack of investment, along with foreign competition left many of these companies vulnerable to economic downturns. In 1988 Don would take another step - this time purchasing DeKalb Forge. He turned 58 years old that year, but chose to venture into uncharted waters at a time when many of his peers were looking toward retirement.

Don would later describe the DeKalb purchase as "the worst purchase we ever made." The equipment and facilities had not been maintained and many of the customers had gone offshore or soon would be overseas.

Again, through all this, Don saw opportunity. With other shops struggling, he began a campaign of purchasing many small closed die shops. Forge Resources Group would end up operating shops from many of those acquisitions - with their current structure operating 6 of the facilities.

He loved watching the forging process. Every day he would walk the DeKalb floor to see what was running, and not running. (All would hear about what was not running).

Don's willingness to risk provided great reward in his life. He was a simple person, but also a very faithful person. He loved his Lord, his wife, his family, his work and good food. In later years he would always say "every day is a good day".

Always the salesman, some of his favorite sayings included - "Only customers pay salaries". "The customer is always right, until they take advantage of you." and "There are no bad orders. Some are just better than others."

FIA Lifetime Achievement Award Criteria 

Nominees must have been previously employed by an FIA Member Company; nominated by someone currently working in the Forging Industry; and have a minimum of 15 years Forging Industry related experience. Award winners are selected annually by the FIA Board of Directors. For more information or to submit a nominee, please contact Angela Gibian at angela@forging.org.