Secat Engineering Announces Promotions

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 23, 2012) — Three members of the Secat Engineering administrative team, located at the University of Kentucky's Coldstream Research campus, were promoted effective Jan. 1, 2012.

Shridas Ningileri was promoted to vice president of engineering, Todd Boggess was promoted to vice president of business development and Chenghe Xiao was named technical manager.

Ningileri began his career at Secat in 2002 as project manager. In 2009, he was appointed director for the Center for Aluminum Technology (CAT) at UK, while also continuing his duties as Secat project manager. In his position as vice president of engineering, he will oversee all engineering activities for the organization

Ningileri has a master's degree in technology-metallurgy with specialization in industrial metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India. He has nearly 30 years of experience, with 21 years in the foundry industry with expertise in the areas of melting, manufacturing, quality assurance and customer relations. He also has extensive knowledge of the aluminum industry along with its education and research needs.

Boggess will focus on developing new relationships with metal producers, fabricators, and distributers in addition to promoting Secat’s engineering services to the manufacturing sector. Boggess began at Secat in 2001 as business manager.

Boggess has a master’s degree in business administration from Western Kentucky University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Kentucky along with more than 10 years experience in account and contract management.

Xiao will be responsible for managing customer projects and international supplier relationships.  He began his career at Secat as laboratory manager in 2001.

He received his doctorate in metallurgical engineering from University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He has more than 25 years of industrial and academic research and development experience and possesses strong hands-on problem solving skills in metal casting, welding, heat-treatment, materials processing developing, failure analysis and materials characterization utilizing various modern analytical techniques and instruments.

Secat Engineering, established in August of 1999, performs cutting-edge research and delivers commercially viable technologies and processes on behalf of the metals industry.

MEDIA CONTACT: Jenny Wells, (859) 257-5343; Jenny.Wells@uky.edu