Change is a good thing!
Dr. Robert M. Gresham, Contributing Editor | TLT Lubrication Fundamentals May 2019
STLE continues to grow through lasting partnerships, both international and domestic.
STLE staff and executive board members attend the 6th World Tribology Conference in Beijing, China. From left: President Greg Croce, Immediate Past President Mike Anderson, Executive Director Ed Salek and director of professional development Robert Gresham.
As I’m sure you all know by now, STLE is celebrating its 75th year. This is quite a milestone as many organizations simply don’t last that long. And many associations have a general reputation of not evolving fast enough with the changing time, technologies or other major influences. In my experience with STLE, both as a member and staff, there has been a lot of change, and it’s all good. Change is good!
I had been a member of then-ASLE for about five years when in 1986 I was invited to be an ex-officio member of the board of directors as committee and council liaison. During one of my early meetings, I recall Life Member John Hermann exhorting the board of directors to become more international, as John was sensing the whole globalization phenomenon that subsequently occurred. Up until then, membership was almost exclusively from the U.S. and Canada with a few professors from other countries; we were a pretty parochial bunch.
We began our international initiative by changing the name to the current STLE, which nearly caused a civil war—not to mention the gnashing of teeth—within the society. We began our first international partnership with Vicky Villena-Denton of F&L Asia. We partnered with her conferences to hold STLE education courses in various parts of Asia. Speaking kindly, it was a humble beginning, but Vicky taught us much, and sometimes we had to learn her lessons the hard way. Nonetheless, it was a start.
We also partnered with the South African Institute of Tribology; we centered on making our magazine, then Lubrication Engineering, and CLS certification more readily available to members. That relationship lasts today. While still pretty humble, that’s two!
Soon after, we took on the problem of making STLE’s annual meeting more valuable to a wider audience. At the time, it was more like the current Tribology Frontiers Conference in that most presentations were highly technical, mostly by academics, national labs and the folks from the R parts of corporations’ R&D departments.
Corporate members were “allowed” to pay for anything they wanted and especially host hospitality suites, so attendees could get some free cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, save money on their expense accounts and maybe, with any luck, a company might be able to make some sales contacts. As one corporate member put it to me, “We pay for everything and get nothing but a couple of free education courses! Wow, what a deal!”
Not what you want to hear from our corporate folks. So at the annual meeting we began the trade show, soon followed by the Commercial Marketing Forum. Both have proved very popular with the total membership and continue to contribute to growing meeting attendance, advertising revenue and corporate membership. Corporate members now get high value for their investment and still get a couple of free education courses. Yet, at the time, the hue and cry was, “You’ll ruin the whole character of the meeting and destroy STLE’s technical reputation!” Well, how’d that work out? STLE is stronger now than at any time in its history.
However, we still weren’t very international. We began with one of our strengths, our technical community. Here, old friends like the late H. Peter Jost were helpful. Through his International Tribology Council, we were able to make contacts with various tribology societies in various countries. We attended the first World Tribology Congress in London as co-sponsors. Over time, we have developed lasting relationships with a number of societies; some examples (forgive me, I will undoubtedly leave some important group out) are the Japanese Society of Tribologists, Chinese Tribology Institute, Austrian Tribology Society, Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers, Tribology Society of India, Gesellschaft für Tribologie—well, you get the idea. We also are building relationships in parts of Africa and South and Central America. But these successes have one common theme: they are almost exclusively academic in orientation.
While that is most certainly important to a technical society like ours, we also wanted relationships that would include industry as well. This is still a current challenge. One of our earliest successes has been with OELCHECK, an oil analysis company in Brannenburg, Germany, and its OilDoc group. Over the last 10 years OilDoc has hosted five biannual conferences oriented toward industry and, as you might guess, a little toward oil analysis. STLE has participated in planning committees, technical programs and tradeshow exhibitions. Further, OilDoc also has a highly rated education program, which STLE supports through its certification program.
Additionally, STLE has partnered with LUBMAT, a common initiative between IK4-TEKNIKER, Bilbao, Spain, and the Jost Institute for Tribotechnology, Manchester, UK. Both realized that, even though there were numerous international congresses dealing with the scientific approach for lubrication and wear, there were not any specifically focused on industry. Since the beginning, STLE has been part of the program planning committees and technical program.
In my years with STLE as a member and as staff, I just realized I have visited 21 different countries, some multiple times, and have had a great time getting to know a lot of really great people and being a small part of this growth. Change is a good thing.
Bob Gresham is STLE’s director of professional development. He is retiring at this month's STLE Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Nashville, Tenn. You can reach him at rgresham@stle.org.