CONNECT. Learn. Achieve.
Greg Croce | TLT President's Report January 2019
Our society offers many opportunities for members to network, share and form lasting relationships.
STLE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition unites more than 1,500 tribologists and lubrication engineers from around the world.
The STLE value proposition—Connect. Learn. Achieve—has quickly and easily provided our members with a snapshot of what STLE brings to the party. I want to use this month’s article to capture the essence of what we do to CONNECT.
Connecting people is one of the most important activities a society can provide, and STLE prides itself on providing multiple ways to connect people with common interests. What makes our society special is that we have members from both the
Tribology industry and the
Lubricant
Engineering industry (the
TLE in SLTE!). This makes our connections that much more valuable in that we connect not only people in like professions but also across disciplines.
STLE provides the CONNECT part of the value proposition through several activities and tools, including conferences, the new 365 app, our numerous affiliations with like societies and lastly our local section engagement.
STLE manages two world-class conferences each year. First is the STLE Tribology Frontiers Conference, which provides a forum for some of our best and brightest researchers to present their latest work (you can see Dr. Robert Gresham’s summary of the recently concluded 2018 TFC
here). Then, to close our fiscal year, we have the largest tribology-related annual meeting in the world. The STLE Annual Meeting & Exhibition generally unites more than 1,500 tribologists and lubrication engineers from around the world to present, learn, teach and just see each other again and network. All those who participate in our annual meeting should be proud of what we accomplish each year with this event.
Speaking of the annual meeting, you all probably know we developed a conference app that lets you see activities, papers and events in real time during the week. Did you know we converted that app to work 365 days a year? You can download the STLE 365 app and keep tuned into what is happening, now year-round. There also are some games on the app, my favorite being the technology questions—have a go at it. Who knows—you could win one of the prizes we give for answering the most questions correctly.
STLE also stays connected in our industry globally with several affiliations. We have affiliations with societies in Europe, South America, Brazil, China and Japan, just to name a few. We are very proud of these relationships and continue to strive to work closely with these partners to mutually grow our combined visions and missions.
Lastly, what I call the heartbeat of our society is our local section activities. Not all members can make it to our national conferences, and local sections provide us with a delivery mechanism for STLE’s value proposition. Our more than 15 local sections vary in size and participation, but one thing they have in common is a desire to get like people together to network, learn and form lasting relationships. Section activities range from monthly meetings, to education programs, golf outings, scholarship sponsorship and now even annual STEM programs. Call out to Northern California Section—when is our first STEM program?
I have on my calendar to visit many of these local sections in 2019 before my term is up, and I am honored and very excited to do so.
Globally, there is the same drive to CONNECT. As STLE has announced, we are working hard to increase involvement in Central America and start sections in Thailand, Mexico City and Singapore. These efforts will not slow down, and we hope to have these sections up and running in 2019. Brazil, you are next! There is significant passion for STLE in Brazil, and we should all act on and support it.
Until next time, keep CONNECTING.
Greg Croce is Delo Brand technical manager for Chevron Products Co. in Richmond, Calif. You can reach him at gcroce@chevron.com.