Dr. Jude Mary (Judy) Runge’s metallurgical engineer and surface finishing expert career spans almost 40 years in industrial, government, and academic professional settings.
She worked at Northrop’s Defense Systems Division, Taussig Associates, Inc., Saporito Plating, Argonne National Laboratory, and recently retired as a Principal Engineer for Surface Finishing at Apple. Dr. Runge still maintains her consulting company, CompCote International, where she works with OEMs and finishing operations on various processes, product development and failure analysis.
In 2018, she authored The Metallurgy of Anodizing Aluminum, published by Springer Nature, one of the foremost publications on all facets of the anodizing process.
We recently spoke with Dr. Runge about her career, her work at Northrop and Apple, and her ongoing anodizing consulting work.
Tim Pennington: Why don't we talk about how you got started in the finishing industry? How did it get you get you right out of your training and into the
Dr. Runge using a stool to teach an anodizing class.Dr. Jude Runge: My bachelor's degree is in mathematics, my master's and PhD are in metallurgy. My first job after my master's degree was at Northrop Corporation in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. At the time, they were the Defense Systems Division and made electronic countermeasures. Within electronic countermeasures are a plethora of finishes. So, like most people who are not born into the industry, the metal finishing came to me. At Northrop, there was all this metal finishing for me to study and understand because I worked in the reliability analysis laboratory right out of school. Luckily, I had instrumentation knowledge and knew how to work the scanning electron microscope, do metallography and image things microscopically. Northrop is where I first encountered metal finishing, but mainly as electroplating. State-of-the-art electronics technology for countermeasures at the time was surface mount and through hole technology component-on-board circuits, small microcircuits and hybrid microwave circuits, as well as electron and infrared tubes.
In addition to multi-layer circuit boards and microwave devices, I got involved in electron tube construction and was making vacuum seals or vacuum tubes, and became expert in joining ceramics to metals. Between soldering, for electrical circuits and brazing, for ceramic-to-metal joining which are metallurgical processes, the different types of material interfaces required different finishes. The lion's share of the metal finishing was different electroplated layers, with the top layer for solderability and conductivity for radio frequency (RF). We made a lot of RF devices; there was a lot of silver plating at the surface because RF is conducted on the surface. The state-of-the-art was constantly developing so other coatings and joining methods were, too. I was introduced to metal-filled epoxies, which were easy to dispense and an alternative to solders for surface mount devices. New methods and alloys for soldering and brazing were always being developed, as were different conformal coatings to protect the circuits from corrosion and external moisture. As part of the team at the Reliability Analysis Lab, I developed new methods to analyze and characterize them.
My metallurgical career at Northrop had a very interesting progression: always non-ferrous, always working with copper and copper alloys and then tin, tin alloys, nickel and nickel alloys. And to come to where I ended up in the long run, the chassis were all aluminum and conversion coated. And in conversion coating, you get that beautiful golden-green color that tells you it is there. And so this is where it began, and then a part that was anodized would come through every now and then.
TP: Why the metallurgy as a field of study? What led you to that in your college studies?
Dr. Runge: That's a great question. I'm third of nine kids and was the first to go to college. My parents didn't go to college, and neither did their parents. My mom — God bless my mom — in her mind, the best profession in the world was a medical doctor. And in her mind, I was going to be Dr. Judy, MD. I knew from the time I was a senior in high school that I was going to college, but I also knew that medicine was not what I wanted for myself.
When I left to go to undergrad, I was intimidated; I didn't know what to expect or how to know what to do. I had graduated at the top of my high school class and I had a full-ride scholarship to attend a small private college, Illinois Benedictine College, in Lyle, Illinois. IBC had 100% acceptance to medical school from their biochemistry program. I started there, and found out just what I knew in my gut: I didn't like it. I didn't like the subject matter and I didn't like my classmates. I switched majors to math and took a minor in physics. I had so many college credits from high school that I could graduate from undergrad in three years, if I stayed the fourth year, it would have had physics and math, which were extremely marketable. But I decided I'd follow a boyfriend, and took my diploma after three years. I knew I needed to continue with grad school, but didn’t know what to study! I was sitting with a group of girlfriends and said, “I don't know what to do!” At the time I didn’t want to teach math or continue in the world with a math degree. And one of my girlfriends said, “Why not go into engineering?” I went to the University of Illinois at Chicago, where my boyfriend was in dental school, to study bioengineering, focusing on materials.
"Metal finishing found me, and became a big part of my career. I think it's how one continues. This is what I try to tell young engineers: if you see something along the way and it excites you, you must dig deeper."
My thesis advisor at UIC was William Rostoker, also one of my mentors. He was a metallurgist and had a whole research group that I joined; we were researching titanium fiber metal as implantable prostheses. My master's thesis was about an acetabular prosthesis or the hip socket. What was unique about these is that they were manufactured from small sections of titanium wire, and we would form them mechanically into a compact, sinter it, and then backfill it, creating an articulating surface of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene. It was an interesting and very cool project.
TP: You said earlier that the finishing industry found you; can you explain what you meant?
Dr. Runge and her co-workers in the Apple surface finishing department.Dr. Runge: I felt extremely fortunate for a variety of reasons. First, to get a job because the market in 1982 was tough job-wise. Reagan was president, and many DoD dollars were available. Northrop was hiring like gangbusters, and no one else was. I went to all the different steel mills around Chicago, and nobody was hiring, and I was non-ferrous, so getting into Northrop was great. Then, getting into microelectronics and the manufacturing of circuits and all of the different processes associated with that — including electroplating — this was just a wonderful broad spectrum of opportunity; it was fantastic for years after leaving Northrop that all that I learned remained state-of-the-art. This enabled me to work and support different big companies like Molex, Visteon (Ford Motor Company), Motorola and AT&T as a consultant after I left Northrop. So, metal finishing found me, and became a big part of my career. I think it's how one continues. This is what I try to tell young engineers: if you see something along the way and it excites you, you must dig deeper.
TP: People know you as a researcher in the papers you write and your presentations, but you spent many years in an electroplating shop. How was that experience?
Dr. Runge: After I left Northrop, I worked for 10 years at a consultancy in Skokie. It was a metallurgical consulting firm called Taussig Associates. I was one of the only non-ferrous metallurgists ever hired. At Taussig, the engineers developed their own client base, and different metal finishing companies sought me out for support. Over the years, I developed several clients who asked for support and help, sometimes through analysis and characterization, sometimes through process review, and sometimes just to do something new. Most of the time, there was an interesting, challenging, collegial work relationship. After I was at Taussig for 10 years, another laboratory bought them out, and the dynamic changed. I was finishing my Ph.D., having gone back to school when my youngest was 3 and I had to move on.
"Jude, you're the only one who gets it. Can you give my paper?” And I gave his paper, and what an honor. Milt Stevenson Sr. approached me later and said, “It's no wonder Moisey trusted you; you're the only one who gets it.”
This was when developing important relationships through consulting paid off. When BodyCote bought Taussig, there was a basic change in how business was done, and I could no longer support clients with deep dives anymore. I went to Jim Mirabile at Saporito Plating, who was supporting my PhD research project, and said, “Jim, would you ever think of hiring someone like me?” My PhD thesis was on anodizing, specifically using complex electrolytes to develop oxides with unique characteristics. My goal was to create a transition layer to chemically bond polymers to aluminum. I wanted to develop that further, even to developing a conductive anodic oxide. At Saporito, Jim was open to it, as was Charles Saporito, Jr. What was unique at Saporito was I could continue to do anodizing research while working with different metal finishing processes, including electroplating. At Saporito, I had my own laboratory with complete metallographic capabilities with a metallurgical microscope and a prototype anodizing line. Additionally, the Saporitos allowed me to consult out of the lab.
TP: It seems like it also gave you an idea of how shops run, how these manufacturers run, and where they make money, how they make money, and where they lose money.
Dr. Runge: It was incredible because, as a researcher and an engineer with ideas, sometimes you think, “Why not? Let’s change things up! Why aren't we diving in and doing this right away? Let's go, let's go, let's go.” And I learned quite often was: “No, that’s not how we make our money.”
TP: We talked about mentors and everybody. Every successful person has some really good mentors who help them along the way early. Who are some of the people who helped you?
Dr. Runge received the NASF Scientific Award from Tony Revier from Uyemura.Dr. Runge: When I was first out of school, I was never shy about calling my old professors like Bill Rostoker, David Levinson, and Mike McNallan. They were the core people; Bill was my master's advisor, and Mike was my Ph.D. advisor. When I got to Northrop, I still called on them. At Northrop, I met some of the icons in military electronics. They liked that I was curious and wanted to know more.
At Taussig, there were many different metallurgical experts from whom I continued to learn. Corwyn Berger was my boss there and trusted me. He gave me a very long leash and flexibility with my schedule so I could have time with my young family. At the end of my tenure at Taussig, while I was doing my Ph.D., I was extremely fortunate to work with McCrone Associates, a laboratory in the suburbs of Chicago. Don Brooks owned the company at the time. Don gave me access to the laboratory and the team at McCrone to help with my research. I worked very closely with Steve Rice, and because of Steve, I started my characterization of anodic oxidation and anodic oxides with the transmission electron microscope (TEM). This is a study that I've pioneered. I don't see anyone using it as extensively as I have over the last 40 years to understand. Anodic oxide nucleation and growth and the impact of aluminum and its alloys on how that oxide grows.
I was first recognized for my anodizing expertise in 1996 by Charlie Roberts of Universal Metal Finishing, who invited my to present at the International Hard Anodizers Association Biannual Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Here I met the Grandfather of Anodizing, Dr. Arthur Brace, as well as other key people in the anodizing industry. I also met Moisey Lerner from Sanford Process. Moisey brought anodizing insights and technology from Ukraine and Russia and challenged the industry by saying the anodic oxide is a semiconductor. In 2003, as he was dying and was supposed to give a paper at SUR/FIN, and he said, "Jude, you're the only one who gets it. Can you give my paper?” And I gave his paper. What an honor. Milt Stevenson Sr. approached me in Chicago and said, “It's no wonder Moisey trusted you; you're the only one who gets it.”
At Saporito, I met Charlie Grubbs, another well-known anodizing expert. Charlie was the first to bring me into the AESF, where I was his co-chair for the Light Metals Finishing Committee from 1997 to 2006. As soon as Charlie saw that I could handle the role as committee chair, he was able to drop off, I took off my training wheels, and I learned to fly. Another metal finishing icon and mentor that I met at Saporito was Walter DallaBarba from Italtecno.
TP: Many people in the industry consider themselves an anodizer but may not get to that level of understanding what's going on. To understand what they are doing to the substrate, what is happening, and what it may do. So, a finisher has got to have a good understanding of what may occur.
Dr. Runge: Yes, and it does account for that other end of the process. If you look at both sides of any metal finishing process, you have the metal you're finishing and what you're doing to it externally. It's that interface — what goes on at that interface — and that goes back to my Northrop years; its interfacial phenomena, what is going on there. And especially with anodizing, we're not just covering the surface but growing from that surface. We're consuming that aluminum, and only aluminum anodizes.
What are those elements doing? What are the inclusions doing? What's happening at that interface? And people are so fixed on the coating that the consensus has been — and I hope I've been able to debunk it over the years — but the consensus has been that during anodizing, a barrier layer, a contiguous layer of oxide, forms on the surface. Then regular pores dissolve in this layer, and it grows, and you have an ordered oxide.
"Aaron, my tech, said after he read the paper, “Judy, I feel like you're at the top of the ski hill, and the tip of your skis are there, and you're getting ready to just go down because, at the same time, I wasn't sure 100% — now I am, and I know more — but then I didn't. I was hesitant because I didn't want to insult anybody."
My research has shown that it's not how it is. The anodic oxide is a nanoscale network of individual oxide cells that are spaced according to the polarization of the surface. Those little cells all grow at the same rate unless they get interrupted by something. And this is where the microstructure — the condition of the structure, how clean it is, everything — comes into play and what drives its growth.
TP: When did you discover that wasn't the case and that it was something different than others thought? Had you been led to believe — or had you not been led to believe — and it's something you came across, and it was an ‘aha’ moment?
Dr. Runge with a group of speakers at the Aluminum Anodizers Conference meeting.Dr. Runge: It was the late 90s, while working on my PhD. One of my 1st papers I wrote on my theory for anodic oxide formation was for the Aluminum Surface Science and Technology conference in Manchester, England, in 2000. I have to give Saporito credit here: they were behind me and wanted me to understand this as we were bringing my PhD work to production. They sent me to England, and how many metal finishers do that with their staff? And they sent me, and my technician, Aaron Pomis, with me. And I gave a presentation I wrote called New Insights to the Nucleation and Growth of the Anodic Oxide. And I'll never forget Aaron, my tech, saying after he read the paper: “Judy, I feel like you're at the top of the ski hill, and the tip of your skis are there, and you're getting ready to just go down because, at the same time, I wasn't sure 100% — now I am and I know more — but then I didn't. I was hesitant because I didn't want to insult anybody. But I had all this data from state-of-the-art instrumentation. I was looking at these things with the transmission electron microscope, understanding the structure, seeing the deviations at the interface with the metal and saying, “This is so different from what is in every book.” What I was seeing wasn’t what was published and taught about anodizing. It was the benefit I had of the state-of-the-art analytical and characterization equipment at my disposal, with the best qualified microscopists that enabled me to have my AHA moment.
TP: You wrote a book, The Metallurgy of Anodizing: Aluminum Connecting Science to Practice. What made you decide to write it? Tell us what you went through and how long you wrote it.
Dr. Runge: I had been in the industry for about 30 years at the time, and I had beautiful data from the time I was at Taussig, all the work I had done at Saporito, and years of consulting work studying interfacial phenomena, in addition to my thesis work, which was groundbreaking on its own when it came to understanding anodizing. I told my husband, “My goodness, I have so much wonderful data here that no one else has done to the point of working in the industry while I'm doing this.” The oxides were not grown under perfect circumstances and the substrates were imperfect alloys. These were industrial processes. This was not done in a beaker, and I don't mean to say anything that says graduate school is not representative, but it's usually not when it comes to metal finishing. This was the real life that I was working with.
I had just given a paper for Walter Dalla Barba at the Aluminium 2000 conference 2012. I gave the latest version of Base Metal Microstructural Considerations for Anodizing Aluminum, a paper I had begun in 1996 and revised over the years (the class is currently part of the AAC Anodizing Essentials Program). I had an email from Anya Levinson at Springer Nature, and she said, “I read your paper and loved it. Have you ever thought of writing a book?” I was at Apple at the time and had been there for two years under contract. I signed the contract to write the book in 2013 and started writing it in October 2014, almost a year later. I started writing the book then when I was at my home in Germany.
"When you think of Apple products and how consistently gorgeous they are — and then realize they're produced at multiple locations, the amount of anodizing process understanding and control is amazing and then consider the additional understanding for post-processing, for color and the seal is huge; understanding all aspects of the anodizing process over that scale is amazing engineering and manufacturing."
Writing took about three and a half years. It was not a constant process, as I was still doing consulting. During that time, I did some nice metallurgy on finishing aluminum forgings for Accuride and worked at Novelis and different companies, but these were small, compact jobs. I went back to work at Apple in early 2017. Nevertheless, the book was overarching; and it was a knot in my stomach. It was hard to write because I had all these wonderful things to say and I didn’t know where to start. I started with what was most comfortable, I wrote the aluminum metallurgy chapter and went right back to the basics. What I found was, writing a book doesn’t necessarily start with chapter 1 and end, in my case, with chapter 8. I started with chapter 4, then I went back to chapter 3, and then I went to chapters 5, 6, and 7 — which, by the way, are the meat of the book and were really what you got to get your teeth into. Chapter 8 is case studies. But before I did that, I wrote Chapter 2 and ended with Chapter 1. It’s putting it all together, knowing that somebody using this either for a college course or anything else will go from front to back and build that process with them.
"I knew Dr. Arthur Brace, who is said to be the grandfather of anodizing. He loved me and thought my work was fascinating, but he didn’t like that I was changing ideas about how the anodic oxide grows."
TP: I love the book because it has some wonderful illustrations that explain what you are discussing.
Dr. Runge: Joy Kaufman is my illustrator and graphic artist. We sat side by side, and I would say, “This is what I have in my mind. This is what's happening.” Joy is so brilliant. She took what we would say, and she would take a night sometimes and other times, a couple of weeks. She'd get back to me and by gum, if those illustrations she had made were not to scale, they were to scale, down to the ionic radii! Joy made sure that what we saw in those TEM micrographs was represented graphically to scale. It was brilliant.
TP: What kind of reaction did you get from people when some pieces you're putting together about the layers and theories start coming around to a little more?
Dr. Runge and her husband, Thomas Nussbaum, live in Germany part of each year.Dr. Runge: It was not met with a lot of applause. It was something that was recognized, obviously, as a game changer. It was also a challenge. As I mentioned, I knew Dr. Arthur Brace, who is said to be the grandfather of anodizing. He loved me and thought my work was fascinating, but he didn’t like that I was changing ideas about how the anodic oxide grows. I think he didn't want to change the basis of anodizing because it would conflict with everything he's done his entire career.
I said to Arther, “Anodizing is controlled corrosion.” He said to me, “Corrosion has no order. It can't be corroded.” I told him, “But if you control it, it does.” And that's what we're doing here. This is not an equilibrium reaction. This is a non-equilibrium reaction. Charlie Grubbs got it. Charlie didn't like people calling the oxide a coating. He wanted anybody he taught to call it an oxide. So that's forward thinking.
I received an interesting reaction George Thompson from UMIST in England. He had a whole group of students over several years and was a prolific author and advisor. George perhaps saw me as competition, but I wasn't academic; I was industrial, so maybe not a real competitor. However, this is what defines me, my work has always been done in supporting the anodizing industry, on industrial components made in different ways on industrial alloys. Because of this, the data from my characterization work and research exceeds most of what you read about that is academic.
TP: You worked for Apple for many years as a contractor, and then they brought you on full-time. I know that, for a time, Apple was really changing how they used their materials. I know they're using more color, but were you working more internally on these devices or externally?
Dr. Runge: The external part. Any aluminum housing on most of their products I have worked on one way or another. I worked on iPhone and way back when I worked on iPod, iPad and MacBook. You asked if I was working on the anodizing, or was it the color? I'm not a one-trick pony but a stubborn mule when tying the process to the base material. I did drive that home at Apple and showed them the need for characterization and understanding of what is going on at the metal-oxide interface.
Believe it or not, the oxide is transparent. When we look at an anodic oxide, we look through the oxide to the interface with the metal and may see every grain boundary, every particle, every microstructural feature. When you think of Apple products and how consistently gorgeous they are — and then realize they're produced at multiple locations, the amount of anodizing process understanding and control is amazing and then consider the additional understanding for post-processing, for color and the seal is huge; understanding all aspects of the anodizing process over that scale is amazing engineering and manufacturing.
TP: Did Apple have a large surface finishing team when you started?
Dr. Runge: No, not when I started. It was fascinating, and it was so stimulating. I had the pleasure of working in so many different places, from the ground up, from the gritty to the ivory tower, and Apple is a fabulous mixture. And, when I talk about soup to nuts — from the casting to the metal finishing processes — everybody had a hand in making these alloys and making this metal finishing process its absolute best. Today, they're doing essentially, by next year, have 100% recycled alloys through the entire product line, and then by 2035, be carbon neutral. These are impressive goals, but Apple is making them reachable, and it's because they engage the whole team.
TP: You worked at Apple until July 2023 and retired, but you still kept your private consulting company, CompCote International. What does the next year look like for you, and what do you want to do?
Dr. Runge receives an award from an international anodizing organization.Dr. Runge: I have too much energy to stop work all together. I'm looking to write more; I'm looking to teach more. In Fall 2023, I taught at the Southeast Center for Aluminum Technology (SECAT) at the University of Kentucky at Lexington, where there is an aluminum metallurgy certification course. This is for anybody in the industry; you do not have to have an engineering degree. The students learn over four intense weeks throughout the year. Each quarter is one week of aluminum metallurgy. I taught surfaces and surface finishing during the last week of 2023; it'll be in the third week of this year in early September. It's not only a classroom experience; it's also a laboratory experience.
I have plans to teach at other companies during the year, and of course will be at the AAC Annual Fall Conference, which is from October 1 – 3 in Cleveland, Ohio.
I have a few consulting possibilities at metal finishing companies in the US and a larger metallurgical consulting opportunity out
TP: As a consultant, what projects are you looking to work on?
Dr. Runge: What I have done — and what I hope to continue to do — is to help clients solve their metallurgical and metal finishing problems. Whether developing a new product, a new supplier or undertaking a new process, I work with the client to review the problematic issue, to understand the objectives and goals of engaging a consultant to finally answer the question, what went wrong? Or how do we do this? Answers will be gotten either through characterization or review of the process, recognizing the production environment, the production parameters and the performing environment. If things are going according to plan, to find out what went right, to compare the good to the bad, and to determine what has changed. So, as a problem solver, I bring answers to problems that sometimes only another set of eyes, or another brain can bring through analysis and characterization during product development and, sometimes, through failure analysis.
Dr. Runge has authored numerous papers and given seminars worldwide; she has been the Education Chair for the Aluminum Anodizers Council since 2008. Her book, “The Metallurgy of Anodizing Aluminum,” published by Springer Nature in 2018, is one of her biggest personal achievements. It is available at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-72177-4.
