The Distinguished Member grade is the most prestigious offered by SPE. According to the SPE Bylaws, to be elected a Distinguished Member, a candidate must be a member in good standing who has served as President of the Society or who, in the opinion of two-thirds of the Past Presidents voting, provided one-half of the surviving Past Presidents participate in the ballot, is deemed worthy of this status by virtue of outstanding achievement or professional eminence.

Kishor S. Mehta
Kishor Mehta was nominated for the Distinguished Member grade by SPE Past President Tom Haas. He stated in his nomination that over the years, he became aware of Kishor’s many technical programming and leadership contributions to SPE as well as the various awards he has received.

On the Society level, Kishor served as a member of the SPE Executive Committee from 1985-1988 where he held the positions of Secretary and Treasurer. He served another four years from 1999 to 2003, and held the positions of Vice President and Senior Vice President. Over the years, he chaired several committees, including International, Conference Policy and Planning, Recognitions, Education, Finance, Fellow Elections, Publications and Technical Volumes. For the last four years, he has served as chair of the Constitution & Bylaws (now Bylaws & Policies) Committee, which was charged with the monumental task of rewriting the bylaws and dissolving the constitution after 62 years in existence. The committee is now creating the first-ever policy manual for the Society.

Kishor, who has been an SPE member since 1968, served as chair of the Product Design & Development Division, the chair of the Injection Molding Division, the President of the Rochester Section, and chair of three technical conferences. He is both an SPE Fellow and Honored Service Member, and received the SPE President’s Cup in 2004 in recognition of his outstanding and meritorious service to the Society. He received the Product Design & Development Division’s Founders Award, the Injection Molding Division Man-of-the-Year Award, and the International Committee Award. On a corporate level, he was the recipient of Xerox Corporation’s Outstanding Achievement Award in 1981.

Tom Haas concluded his nomination of Kishor with a comment that sums up his extraordinary service: “Kishor, somewhat like the Energizer Bunny, ‘keeps going and going’ and continues to serve and contribute to SPE to this day.”