Longtime IMAPS Member, Robert Osmun, Retires from Kyocera
Bob Osmun came into the ceramic industry in 1960 when he joined Frenchtown Porcelain Co., a leading manufacturer of structural and electronic ceramic parts, as a time study engineer. Over the next 14 years at Frenchtown, Bob worked as a cost estimator and a production manager, eventually moving into sales by the time he left in 1974.
He then joined Kyocera International Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of the Kyocera Corporation, and was responsible for sales of the entire product line for the U.S. east of the Mississippi river. The Kyocera product line at that time was diverse but was dominated by microelectronic packaging parts. He developed many of Kyocera’s largest accounts and played a key role in the rapid growth of the operation over the next 10 years. He oversaw the expansion of the New Jersey sales office and opened offices in Florida, Boston, and Chicago. In 1984 he moved to the San Diego headquarters and assumed responsibility for the sales of all substrates and metalized products and he was promoted to Vice President in 1985. He joined ISHM in 1986 and quickly became active on the Educational Foundation committee as a fundraiser. He was very active in the overall organization and attended all symposiums and frequently did booth duty in the ISHM booth.
In 1990 he was asked to form a new Kyocera subsidiary based in Vancouver, Washington, called Kyocera Industrial Ceramics Corporation (KICC) and was named President. KICC was built around all of the non-packaging product lines (Industrial, Automotive, Thin Film, and Electro-Optical) and its charter also included R&D and participation in the U.S. Government-sponsored development of ceramic parts for gas turbine engines.
In 1994, KICC merged with its sister subsidiary, Kyocera Engineered Ceramics (KEC), and Bob then proceeded to successfully integrate the structural ceramic and cutting tool production and sales operations of KEC into KICC. Bob lead KICC from its inception through a 10-year period of very rapid growth and left the company with a solid foundation of profitability and technology and an energetic and experienced management team.
Bob’s participation in ISHM/IMAPS fell off a bit in 1996 with the shift in IMAPS’ emphasis from hybrid microelectronics to packaging but he continued to stay active in the Educational Foundation and remained an annual personal contributor up until his retirement.
