5 minute read
President’s Podium
President’s Podium Welcomes
Joe Kaperick Afton Chemical Corp. NLGI Treasurer
Recap of the 2015 82nd Annual Meeting
NLGI 2015 – Digging into Grease Lubrication
The 82nd NLGI Annual Meeting was held at the Coeur D’Alene Resort in the beautiful lakeside town of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho on June 6 – 9, 2015. This year’s focus on mining lubrication not only paid tribute to one of the largest industries in the area but also to the critical role of lubrication in the protection and maintenance of the equipment used in these endeavors. The technical portion of the program was kicked off by our Industry Speaker, Luke Stavros, Chief Sales Officer and Vice President of Product Support for Ground Force Worldwide. This local company builds mine support equipment for both open pit and underground mines, with one of their monster lubrication trucks parked in front of the hotel for a “show-and-tell” session for the duration of the meeting. True to this year’s theme, this was the beginning of a lot of hard work on the part of the attendees as they dug into working groups, networking opportunities, and technical sessions. Even those taking advantage of Sunday morning’s short break on the gorgeous resort golf course had to do some excavating in sand and tall grass!
Diamonds in the Rough
Awards presented for best technical papers from the 2014 meeting continued to highlight the gems that have been produced by researchers within NLGI’s technical population. The winners of the two NLGI Author awards were Paul Bertin (Elevance Renewable Sciences - “Novel Long-Chain Dibasic Complexing Agents for Lithium Thickened Grease”) for Development and Gaston Aguilar (Afton Chemical Corporation - “The Effect of Thickener on EP Additive Response”) for Applications while Bill Tuszynski (Ivanhoe Industries, Inc.) picked up the Clarence E. Earle Award for Contribution to Technical Literature in recognition of his tireless efforts for coordinating the 6thEdition of the NLGI Lubricating Grease Guide.
Yours, Mines and Ours
With a record attendance of 389 plus 81 guests at this year’s meeting, five of the seven continents sent representatives. With attendees from such areas as Singapore, Australia, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom, more than 80 grease enthusiasts traveled to Idaho from over twenty different countries to increase the depth of their knowledge. Presentations were also made by Dr. E. Sayanna, Vice President of NLGI’s India Chapter, and Terry Dicken, Chairman of ELGI (the European counterpart of NLGI), with updates from their respective organizations. And new this year was a rousing Closing Festival with yet more networking and business opportunities.
Meeting of the Mines
Members of the Working Groups that are sponsored by both NLGI and ELGI continued tunneling through a variety of issues to make good progress in several different areas. Meetings of each of the Joint Working Groups (Food Grade, Grease Particle Evaluation, and Bio-Based) were held with continued progress in each. These groups draw their membership from both ELGI and NLGI with sessions being held in Europe and North America. Additionally, the ELGI has two Working Groups (Railway and Test Methods) which are currently specific to the European region but attract attendees
from both organizations. This year a new NLGI Working Group was started to begin discussion on updating NLGI’s Automotive Service Grease specification based on enthusiastic response to a poll of the membership. Those with an interest in participating in this discussion should contact the chair, Dr. Gareth Fish (Gareth.Fish@Lubrizol. com). These working groups are chaired by volunteers from within the industry and are aimed at addressing current topics of real interest and concern to the global grease community.
Hidden Treasure
For those interested in learning more about grease issues in various regions, meeting new potential customers outside of the United States or looking for new reserves of grease knowledge, the opportunities continue to flourish. NLGI-India Chapter will hold their next annual meeting in February 2016, while ELGI will host their 28th Annual General Meeting on April 16 – 19, 2016 in Venice, Italy. Finally, NLGI’s next Annual Meeting will be held June 11 – 14, 2016 in the Shenandoah mountains at The Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia. All of these meetings welcome technical contributions and attendees from all over the globe.
So whether you’re interested in digging into new veins of technical knowledge in your own backyard, or you want to prospect in distant lands, the opportunities to shore up technical gaps and build strong networks continue to grow as the world of grease is brought within reach by organizations such as NLGI. As is the case in gold and silver mines, there are nuggets of great value to those in the grease industry that can be unearthed with a little hard work, the right equipment and a good grease formulation.
Joe Kaperick Afton Chemical Corporation NLGI Treasurer
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