PROF. DR.H.C. DR. VLADIMIR ŠOLAJA

Prof. Vladimir Šolaja was born on December 3, 1920 in Zagreb where he completed secondary school and four semesters at the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Technical Faculty. He sta y ed in Belgrade until its liberation from German occupation, when he joined the Liberation Army. In October 1945 he was discharged from the Army to continue his studies and received his degree from the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Technical Faculty in Belgrade in 1949.

In March 1949 he was appointed junior industrial engineer at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, at the end of the same year was appointed Teaching Assistant, in 1958 Assistant Professor, in 1961 Associate Professor and in 1968 Full Professor retaining this last title until retirement in 1985.

In the period 1959 – 1963 Prof. Vladimir Šolaja was a member of the Yugoslav delegation to the OECD Committee for Science in Paris and then for three years a member of the Yugoslav delegation in Section 2 (machine tools) of the Commission for manufacturing technology SEV.

In May 1963 he was appointed by the Executive Council of the Republic of Serbia the Director of the newly formed Institute for tool machines and tools – IAMA in Belgrade, holding this position until May 1979. After a short break he was head of this Institute until it merged with industry Ivo Lola Ribar.

At the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade he was head of the Department of Production Engineering in the longer period. In both institutions he was very active in organizing and implementing IR-activity.

Prof. Vladimir Šolaja was a member of the Editorial Board of the journals SITJ ''Engineering“, ''Manufacturing Systems'', the President of the Council of the ''Maintenance of Machines and Equipment of WMD'', member of the Publishing Board of the Institute IAMA publications (now LOLA Institute) and of some publications of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In addition, he was a member of the international institution for reasearch and production engineering CIRP, based in Paris. He was President of the Scientific Council of the LOLA Institute.

Prof. Vladimir Šolaja was the winner of the '' Seventh-of-July” award for his scientific work and was honorary doctor of the University of Belgrade.

He initiated the 1965 establishment of the Association of scientific–research institutions of production engineering. He was also the organizer of the 1 st and 10 th Consultative meetings on production engineering in Yugoslavia held in Belgrade in 1965 and 1975. Also, he was the winner of the ‘’Prof. Dr. Pavle Stanković’’ Chart and Medal awarded to him in 1983 i.e. in the year it was established.

The reference list of Prof. Šolaja’s published works includes over 300 titles. All his works can be grouped into three basic areas:

Being Head of the Chair of Production Engineering, Prof. Vladimir Šolaja directed the development of a large number of young and talented researchers, thus making a solid research and teaching team and being interested all the time in the work of the Chair and the Faculty in general.