Deaths.

Miles Krofta died on August 22, 2002 at the age of 90. Krofta was chairman of the board, president and founder of Lenox Institute of Water Technology, Inc., and was president of Krofta Engineering Corporation.

Krofta was a world renowned engineer and scientist in the treatment and control of industrial waste. He built his first dissolved air flotation clarifier in 1947. The Krofta advanced flotation technology pioneered and further developed over the past four decades.

Krofta, was a member of TAPPI for over 25 years and was the author or co-author of some 400 publications and held over 60 U.S. and foreign patents. In 1992, Krofta was named a TAPPI Fellow in recognition of his meritorious service to the Association and to the industry. For his professional achievements, he was granted Pollution Engineering magazine's PE Five-Star Award in 1982.

Don Preuss, a well-known 54-year veteran of the paper industry, died suddenly in February. Preuss devoted his entire career to one company, Crown Vantage (formerly James River/Crown Zellerbach). Preuss won dozens of internal awards as well as a significant customer recognition from 3M, an award for partnership and innovative excellence.

As a special honor, the Paper Industry Hall of Fame has set up the "Don Preuss Memorial Fund". Donations cans be made by calling Valerie Wylie, Executive Director 920-749-3040 x 103 or by accessing their web site, www.paperhall.org.

William K. Wilson, a TAPPI member since 1953, died on February 22 in the Arlington, Virginia, area. He received the Process and Product Quality Division Technical Award and Richard S. Hunter Prize in 1994. He served as chairman of the Chemical Methods Committee and made many contributions to all of the TAPPI Test Methods involving paper permanence, including fiber composition, chemical tests, pH, alkaline reserve, and moist and dry accelerated aging. Wilson also authored several articles for TAPPI JOURNAL.

Wilson earned a B.S. degree from Salem College in Salem, West Virginia, and a M.S. degree in chemistry from West Virginia University. While at the U. S. National Bureau of Standards (later the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST), he published a number of scientific papers on the aging of paper. He was chief of the Paper Evaluation Section at NIST before his retirement in 1975, then served as a volunteer chemist at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

Wilson joined the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) in 1951 and was chairman of the subcommittee on specifications for paper for permanent records. This subcommittee developed six standards for paper for permanent records. He received the ASTM award of Merit and title of Fellow in 1989. He served as Technical Advisor to a major study of the aging of printing and writing papers under the auspices of ASTM. The study led to approval in 2002 of three new test methods for accelerated paper aging to determine its long-term stability to the effects of natural aging.

Wilson was active in the work of the International Standards Organization (ISO) Technical Committee 6 (paper, hoard, and pulps), attending many meetings and serving as convener for the Working Group on accelerated aging, Wilson also held a U.S. patent for iron-catalyzed decomposition of sodium chlorite.