These Guys Really Get Around

John Creasy had never been to Tokyo, but when he attended the Japan International Machine Tool Fair (JIMTOF) held Nov. 17-22 at the Big Sight conference center, he spotted a familiar name on an ID tag while riding the elevator in his hotel—Gardner Business Media. “Hey,” he said to Travis Egan, our metalworking group publisher, who was also there for the show. “One of your editors will be visiting us next week for an article he’s writing.”

That editor would be me, and Mr. Creasy is vice president and CFO of J.C. Machine Inc., which is based in Lakeland, Florida. I traveled to meet with him and his son, Jay, the company’s president, who also attended JIMTOF, for a feature on machining medical parts, a market they entered recently, leveraging their expertise supplying the aerospace, defense, robotic, electronic, chemical and phosphate industries. They made time for me only a few days before Thanksgiving, for which I was very thankful. As always, it was fascinating learning about a machine shop that was new to me, especially at a time when they were developing new skills of their own. You’ll be able to read my feature in the February issue of PM. In the meantime, read “Process Control in the Medical Shop.”

This experience made me think of a number of things, namely the resources Gardner invests in covering important shows such as JIMTOF, EMO, and IMTS, and also how far our readers are willing to go—literally, in this case—in order to stay at the leading edge of technological developments in the manufacturing industry.