PRESIDENT’S PODIUM Joe Kaperick Afton Chemical Corp. NLGI Vice-President
Recap of the 2016 83rd Annual Meeting NLGI 2016 – Revolutions in Grease
The 83rd NLGI Annual Meeting was held at the Homestead Resort in the beautiful Shenandoah mountain town of Hot Springs, Virginia on June 11-14, 2016. The resort celebrated its 250th anniversary just days before our event and inspired this year’s theme, “Revolutions in Grease – Changing Technology for Changing Times”. Authors were solicited for research and presentations that challenged the existing way of thinking with regard to new thickeners, additives or improved test methods as well as novel applications or improved manufacturing techniques and an everchanging regulatory environment. Our keynote speaker, Graham Gow, touched on many of these subjects with his recap of a truly historic career in his presentation “Amazing Grease: Tales from a 36 year (R)evolution in our Industry”. The technical portion of the program was kicked off by our industry speaker, Carl Stevens, the equipment manager for the Lynchburg district
of the Virginia Department of Transportation. Mr. Stevens is responsible for maintenance of a fleet worth $35 million and gave a very interesting presentation on the implementation of their Reliability Centered Maintenance program with many examples focused on grease lubrication. Although the theme was “revolutionary”, the basics of the meeting were “tried and true”: great participation in the Working Groups, excellent technical sessions and networking opportunities galore.
Medals of Honor
Awards presented for best technical papers from the 2015 meeting continued to highlight new ideas and technology in the grease industry. The winners of the two NLGI Author awards were John Lorimor (Axel Americas - “Development of next generation electrical motor greases offering improved frictional characteristics”) for Development and Jason Galary (Nye Lubricants - “Investigation into the Dynamic Particle Generation of Lubricating Greases”) for Applications. Andy Waynick (NCH Corporation) was recognized for his work on “Calcium Biederman Plastic Sulfonate Complex Greases Using Grease Cartridges Calcium Hydroxyapatite as a HydroxideContaining Basic Reactant” with the Clarence E. Earle Award for Contribution to Technical Literature. Additionally, several members were recognized for their service to NLGI and the industry, while a new NLGI Founders Award was introduced which honors a company that Less Damage + Less Leakage has had a positive impact on the NLGI + Less Scrap in the tradition established by its three founding fathers. Battenfeld Oil and = Superior quality and Grease was honored with this award in its cost savings! inaugural year.
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With a total attendance of 384 plus 78 guests at this year’s meeting, NLGI
