2023 ASME B31 Forever Medal for Excellence in Piping

During B31&NM Code Week in Las Vegas, George Antaki, PE, Fellow ASME, received the 2023 ASME B31 Forever Medal for Excellence in Piping. Unable to attend the meeting, a colleague accepted the medal on his behalf. A separate virtual meeting was held to celebrate the Antaki nomination. Well attended, everyone had an opportunity to say some encouraging words. 

The ASME B31 Forever Medal for Excellence in Piping is a Committee Award that was established in 2010 that is awarded for distinguished contributions in the field of pressure piping including but not limited to leadership, technical, research and development, and publication efforts that have had a significant impact on the content, development, promulgation, and expansion of ASME B31 piping standards. 

Antaki is an internationally recognized expert in process and power piping systems. He started his career at Westinghouse Nuclear Europe in 1975, then at the Westinghouse nuclear division in Pittsburgh PA. In 1989 he transferred with Westinghouse to the U.S. Department of Energy Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., where he supported the inspection and fitness-for-service of the site’s pressure equipment and piping systems and chaired the site’s Pressure Equipment Protection Committee.

In 2007 he joined Becht as Chief Engineer, Nuclear Services, retiring in 2023. Throughout, Antaki has been active in the development of the ASME III Code, as member then chairman of the ASME III Working Group Piping Design, member ASME III Subgroup Component Design, member of several ASME XI Task Groups on integrity assessment, past-chair and member ASME B31 Mechanical Design Technical Committee, member ASME Operation and Maintenance (O&M) of Nuclear Plant subgroup piping, past chairman joint ASME-IEEE committee on seismic qualification using experience data (ASME QME), past co-chair of the joint ASCE-ASME Committee on buried steel pipe, past member of API/ASME Joint Committee fitness-for-service, ASME Post-Construction Committee on Repair and Testing. He regularly conducts courses in design, fabrication, and fitness-for-service of pressure equipment and piping.

Past Recipients – ASME B31 Forever Medal for Excellence in Piping:
•    2010 Louis Hayden Jr
•    2011 Don Frikken and Everett Rodabaugh
•    2012 William Koves
•    2013 Mohinder Nayyar
•    2014 John Kiefner
•    2015 Philip Flenner
•    2016 Ron Haupt
•    2018 Walter Sperko
•    2019 Robert Appleby
•    2020 Michael Rosenfeld
•    2021 Jimmy Meyer
•    2022 Charles Becht IV
•    2022 Raymond Reamey