Kempton H Roll, founding Executive Director of the Metal Powder Industries Federation (MPIF), trade association for the international metal powder producing and consuming industries, died on November 4, 2015, following a short illness. He was 92-years old.

Well known in the national and international metalworking communities, Roll retired in 1988 after a 40 year career. He joined the Lead Industries Association in 1948 as Technical Director with responsibilities for the former Metal Powder Association (MPA), forerunner of MPIF.  He was named Executive Director of MPA in 1956 and helped found MPIF in 1957 as the umbrella organisation representing different sectors of the metal powder producing and consuming industries.

Roll was also executive director of APMI International, the professional society for Powder Metallurgy that he helped found in 1959, and served as publisher of the International Journal of Powder Metallurgy.

He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology and graduated from Yale University in 1945 with a degree in metallurgical engineering and served in the Pacific during World War II as a bomb disposal officer with the US Navy. He earned a master’s degree from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1953.

In 1992 Roll received the MPIF’s prestigious Powder Metallurgy Pioneer Award and in 1988 the Distinguished Service to Powder Metallurgy Award. In 2007, to honour his lifetime accomplishments, MPIF created the Kempton H. Roll PM Lifetime Achievement Award which is presented every four years.  He was named a Fellow of ASM International in 1987 and was a Legion of Honor member of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society.