An Opportunity for Building a Strong Community

Humans are created for togetherness; it is natural to crave interactions with others. When we do not feel like we belong to a community, an emptiness often prevails. This emptiness is what prompts people to act on building communities and relationships and, if we can do this while achieving a common goal, well, that’s icing on the cake.

This feeling of lacking connections with others in the parts cleaning industry is the beginning of the story of how the new Manufacturing Cleaning Association (MCA) came about. A few industry leaders vocalized their concerns that there wasn’t a space to network and educate each other, and they didn’t have a standardization program curated by industry professionals that answers the question, “How clean is clean?” In other words, there wasn’t a strong sense of community, at least not in a formal way.

After several years of putting heads together and organizing thoughts, Gardner Manufacturing Association Solutions (GMAS), a new entity formed within Gardner Business Media, has created the MCA. Finally, a community is in the process of being built within our great manufacturing cleaning industry.

MCA’s mission statement says it all: “A community of manufacturing and industrial cleaning professionals networking, sharing and learning from each other.” The icing on the cake, right?

As one who has been standing on the outskirts of the initial discussions, I’m excited to see the MCA come to fruition. As a member of a strong board of directors — folks who I admire and look forward to getting to know better — I’m honored to be a part of the ongoing conversation of education within this industry.

Kudos to Matt Gilmore, MCA’s executive director, for putting so much work into planning and managing all the necessary details for establishing the association — a huge undertaking. And hats off to Todd Luciano, Products Finishing’s publisher, for initiating the beginning conversations about forming such an organization.

Because Gardner has gaged interest for the implementation of this association, which has resulted in a lot of positive feedback, I anticipate an active membership as we all work toward a common goal. This goal boils down to building relationships and, when looking at the big picture, relationships are what matter most.