Phil Hilger has over 20 years of heat treating and heat treat equipment design/rebuild experience. Phil began his career in 1997 working at Guardian Industries as an engineer on the glass annealing and forming furnaces. In 2000, Phil began working for Al-Fe Systems as an engineer; designing, building and refurbishing heat treat furnaces. Phil advanced to Lead Mechanical Engineer at Al-Fe Systems. This included managing the design and project management group. In 2008 Al-Fe Systems was closed and Al-Fe Corporate decided to focus the operations on heat treating. As a result Phil was moved to Al-Fe Corporate Group with responsibility for the Engineering, Safety, and Environmental departments. In 2013 Phil began a role as Senior Project Engineer for Superior Essex. In this role, Phil was responsible for new design and installation, and upgrades to existing wire enameling ovens and ancillary equipment for the global company. In 2016 Phil returned to Al-Fe Heat Treating as the Engineering Manager. Aalberts surface technologies purchased Al-Fe in 2018 and Phil was retained as the Engineering and Purchasing Manager. In 2020, Phil was promoted to Director of EHS, Engineering, & Purchasing. Phil has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Purdue University, a Six-Sigma Green Belt from Cuyahoga Community College, a Leadership Certificate from Notre Dame and has also completed the Project Management training courses from PMI.
