President's Message

Please join me in welcoming Tim Andrassy to PMPA as our new executive vice president. Tim brings more than 25 years of association experience to PMPA, and he is only the fourth executive vice president in our 69-year history.

We look forward to Tim's strong leadership as we tackle the many challenges we face within our association and as an industry. Tim will be joining me this year on the balance of my visits to PMPA's districts and chapters, and he will also be accompanying Pete Rosenkrands, PMPA's first vice president, on his district and chapter visits. I know it is Tim's No. 1 priority to get out and meet our members, and therefore you will have an opportunity to visit with him at one of our upcoming national meetings or president's round tables. I know you will be as impressed with his association leadership abilities as your board and officers already are.

What's happening at PMPA? Well, in addition to filling the executive vice president position, we are moving forward with many new programs. The newly formed PMPA Services Inc. is underway, with a recent election of officers and board members. This new entity will provide additional benefits and services to our members, such as affinity programs, which are not currently available through PMPA.

The foundation just completed 2 days of strategic planning to help provide direction, particularly in the areas of recruitment and training, two areas that get a lot of discussion, but not much follow through. I think we all agree it is critical for our survival in the world market of turned parts to attract, train and retain a viable workforce. Now is the time to do something about it.

Having just completed a successful Management Update in Charleston, we look forward to the always informative technical conference in St. Louis in late April. A major emphasis on lean manufacturing was addressed at Management Update and will once again be a major focus at the technical conference, confirming that our industry and members need to improve our manufacturing methods and efficiencies in order to be competitive in a world market for our products and services.

Now more than ever, it is the time to join forces with your association. We need the strength of our organization as we struggle with the trend of declining manufacturing in our country, resulting from the ever-present threat of off-shore sourcing for the products and services we produce. Although each one of our member companies may have different individual goals or objectives, our needs as an industry are the same: to continue to build on and improve the manufacturing abilities of our industry, to be competitive in a world market and to promote the strengths of maintaining a strong manufacturing base in North America. Your association is the vehicle for this.