It’s been a hectic year so far

This spring was a busy time of year for us and for industry’s many suppliers to the MRO marketplace. In March, our staff attended the humongous IFPE trade show in Las Vegas, NV, where there were more than 400 exhibitors and 120,000 delegates. Next was the Bearing Specialists Association (BSA) annual conference in Austin, TX, where manufacturers and distributors gathered to discuss industry issues and to network.

In May, we also attended the CIM Conference and Exhibition 2011 — the Canadian Institute of Mining show — in Montreal, Health & Safety Ontario’s Partners in Prevention conference and show in Toronto, and during the first week of June, the Canadian Conference of the Power Transmission Distributors Association (PTDA), where a couple of hundred delegates learned about new products in the PT industry, heard about future market opportunities and got an update on forthcoming economic trends.

If you attended any of these events, you likely saw me and staffer Eric Achilles Cousineau with our full-size Nikon cameras taking hundreds of photos. You’ll find a few of them featured in our MRO On The Road section on pages 37 and 38.

In the past, we’ve felt frustrated after such events that we were able to publish only a small number of the photos we shoot. So to solve that problem, we’ve worked with our in-house web developers to add the online MRO Photo Gallery to our website. It’s live now at www.mromagazine.com/photogallery, and there you’ll be able to view, download and print your favourite images. Eric was the driving force behind its development, so we hope you enjoy all the event photos online now. It’s one more way we’re expanding our coverage of the industrial aftermarket with the help of the Internet.

We also attended another recent event, one which wasn’t aimed at our readers but the magazine publishing community. It was the annual Kenneth R. Wilson (KRW) Awards gala, presented by the Canadian Business Press. It recognizes excellence in writing, editing and graphics in business, professional and trade magazines. 

We’re happy to report that Machinery & Equipment MRO received a Silver Award and an Honorable Mention Award for its two nominations in the prestigious competition. Over 600 entries were received from 62 publications. The awards were presented at a ceremony at the Carlu in Toronto on June 7, 2011.

Machinery & Equipment MRO senior contributing editor Carroll McCormick of Montreal received the Silver Award in the Best Technology/Industrial/Manufacturing Article category for his feature story, The Case of the Missing Foreman, a compelling profile of the maintenance operations at Genfoot Inc., which appeared in our April 2010 issue.

As well, MRO Magazine art director Ellie Robinson was nominated for her humorous layout of Five Ways to Kill a Bearing, for which she received an Honorable Mention Award. The article was published in our September 2010 issue.

Both articles can be found using the search function on our website at www.mromagazine.com.

That makes a total of 11 KRW Awards the magazine has received, including four Gold (first place) awards, and several Silver and Honorable Mention Awards.

Our hearty congratulations go to all of this year’s recipients.