Reflecting on 15 years of excellence
Evan Zabawski | TLT From the Editor October 2018
The six people who motivate me.
For more than 15 years TLT has focused on virtually every technical topic of interest to those involved in the lubricants industry.
Back in 2004, at the STLE Annual Meeting in Toronto, I took a seat at an empty table shortly before the Presidents Luncheon was about to begin. I remember about three more people sitting down, but I can only recall the identity of the man who sat next to me: his name is Tom Astrene.
As soon as he introduced himself as the editor-in-chief of the new TLT magazine, I brightened. I had never really connected with the original Lubrication Engineering magazine (LE) but was finding the revamped style and content of TLT to be much more engaging. I had to share a story to let him know what one of my colleagues had said.
I told Tom that at a local section meeting a few months earlier I had a conversation with a colleague about the difference between the two magazines. This colleague had remarked, regarding LE and its preponderance for academic content, that it “always has papers about the friction of rubies on glass, in a vacuum, upside-down in space. These only apply to six people in the world, and I am not one of them!”
After we shared a chuckle about LE’s reputation, I added that the one thing I missed was the only column I ever read religiously: Love Letters to the Lubrication Engineers by Dr. Shirley Schwartz of GM Research. I said that I appreciated the seemingly endless variety of common situations on which she could offer some simple pieces of advice.
I then chanced a suggestion to Tom that if TLT was looking for another writer who could fill a page or two of non-academic, down-to-earth, eclectic content, I would be happy to volunteer. We did exchange cards before the luncheon began, but I never did hear back from him.
Over the ensuing years I retold that story to anyone else affiliated with the magazine as my way of paying a compliment to the improved content TLT contains compared to LE. In 2008 the recipient was STLE Past President Dr. Maureen Hunter of King Industries who, at the time, was TLT’s second editor. I added that I enjoyed her humorous and practical columns and that I was reading even more of the magazine than before. Nearly a year later she recommended me as her replacement, and the rest is history.
For the last nine years I have been very proud to be TLT’s editor and to have helped shape the magazine into something our readers enjoy. Since TLT’s first issue published in October 2003, members have consistently rated it STLE’s No. 1 member service. Our goal is to provide content that is not only technically sound and timely but that appeals to as many people as possible.
One logical approach to accomplishing this goal was encouraging the readers themselves to provide content suggestions. In the last few years TLT restructured its format for filling its Editorial Advisory Board with a greater number and wider variety of STLE members through a completely open invitation. The response has been outstanding; we had to turn down more than 100 applicants this year, and those who were chosen provided nearly four times as many article ideas as we have space to publish.
I can honestly say I have never witnessed TLT’s staffers resting on such laurels; they are a very motivated group. They created this great magazine, weathered a near-crippling economic downturn and emerged on the other side with a print magazine that has actually grown during an era where such a medium is either being replaced digitally or is disappearing altogether. Indeed, TLT’s ad sales are nearly three times the industry average for magazines published by non-profits STLE’s size.
For me the story of those six people my colleague once stated in hyperbole has never left my thoughts, nor should it; it continues to motivate me to do my part in ensuring STLE has the magazine its members deserve.
TLT continues to tweak its style and content, and, as clichéd as it sounds, it still has some more exciting changes, which are expected to roll out in the following year. So here’s to 15 years of publishing excellence—may the 16th year be the best one yet!
Evan Zabawski, CLS, is the senior technical advisor for TestOil in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. You can reach him at ezabawski@testoil.com.