Released on November 2, 2011

Al Hunter, chairman of the board and director of product development for Hunter Automated Machinery Corp., Schaumburg, Ill., died Oct. 29 at the age of 89.

Hunter, who resided in Naples, Fla., at the time of his death, launched Hunter Automated Machinery after he built the company’s first automatic matchplate molding machine in his garage in 1964.

“As the inventor of the matchplate molding machine and numerous mold handling line innovations, [Hunter] changed the face of sand casting,” company spokesperson Tim Daro said. “The family and all of us who knew him mourn this loss.”

According to a notice submitted to the home handling his funeral arrangements, Hunter was born in Wilkie, Saskatchewan, Canada, and served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. He earned his degree in mechanical engineering from the Univ. of Toronto and began his career in the metalcasting industry in 1944 as a floor molder at John T. Hepburn Ltd.

Hunter went on to work for several other metalcasting organizations, including Toronto Foundry, Dominion Engineering Works, and Beardsley & Piper, before launching Hunter Automated Machinery. Today, the company Hunter founded has operations in multiple countries.

A member of the American Foundry Society (AFS) since 1960, Hunter's contributions to the industry led him to receive the AFS Management Service Citation in 1990 and the William J. Grede Award in 2001. He authored more than 80 patents that have helped advance the metalcasting industry.