Thanks!
By Dr. Ryan D. Evans, STLE President | TLT President's Report November 2022
STLE volunteer leaders have shown gratitude for the achievements of its members throughout our history, but can we do more?
I have not missed an STLE Annual Meeting since attending my first one in 2004 in Toronto. Back then the Program Guides were thick with pages but skinny in width. Their narrow width was intended to make them easy to fit in a pocket, but these books with more than 200 pages created a clunky pocket look in my opinion. STLE did not move to the 8.5 x 11.25 inch-sized books until the 2008 STLE Annual Meeting in Cleveland. I took a tour through my collection of old Program Guides while cleaning my basement recently. That is when a realization struck me—it has been a while since we hosted special annual meeting technical sessions to honor accomplished members of our STLE community.
During my first STLE Annual Meeting, I remember the skyline view of Toronto while eating dinner one evening in the CN Tower with customers. I also remember attending talks in the Mike Gardos Symposium. There were talks given on ceramics tribology, solid lubricant friction fundamentals and exotic lubrication environments in those sessions. Former STLE presidents, Tribology Transactions journal editors, STLE Fellows and STLE International Award winners participated—quite the all-star lineup for a young engineer like myself to witness, all in honor of Dr. Gardos. Fast forward to the STLE Annual Meeting in 2008 in Cleveland, now with larger Program Guide books, I attended the Ken Ludema Symposium. These sessions spread across Monday and Tuesday of the meeting, and covered diverse topics across friction, wear and tribotesting to thank Dr. Ludema for his work and career. The last honorarium symposium I remember was in my favorite technical sub-community of STLE—the rolling element bearings group. The STLE Life Member Erwin Zaretsky Symposium was held at the 2011 STLE Annual Meeting in Atlanta, with two special sessions of talks presented on Monday of the meeting. To honor Dr. Zaretsky’s many contributions in the field of rolling element bearings, most of the talks in those sessions focused on advances in rolling contact fatigue mechanics.
Prior to officially “taking office” as STLE Treasurer in 2019, I was invited to STLE Executive Committee (EC) planning meetings to get acclimated to the team’s group and work. During this time, I witnessed STLE Immediate Past President Michael Anderson advocate for and then implement the Jeanie S. McCoy Scholarship. This scholarship went “live” in 2019, and honors Jeanie’s contributions to STLE while encouraging tribology research by funding the work of deserving young women. Jeanie was a role model for trailblazing a path for women in a time, technical field and society where women were not readily provided opportunities for leadership. In a similar way, I was able to participate more directly in the creation of the Raymond L. Thibault Award in 2020 to honor teachers of practical tribology. Ray was a legendary training provider for STLE certification preparation and directly impacted so many of our certification holders today (especially STLE Certified Lubrication Specialist™ [CLS] holders). What better way to honor Jeanie and Ray’s legacies than by granting awards in their names each year going forward?
Each November in the U.S., we pause to reflect with gratitude on the contributions of those that have impacted our lives in a positive way. The Thanksgiving holiday is often associated with turkey dinners and other American traditional rituals, but it really has a more profound and personal purpose. Psychologists have found that gratitude, or a feeling of appreciation or thankfulness, can have many health and well-being benefits. Among these benefits are better sleep, decreased stress and anxiety, better immune system health, better relationships and higher levels of optimism. I believe these benefits of a posture of gratitude also may apply to larger communities like STLE. Whether it be a special technical symposium or a named award or scholarship, my experience is that STLE volunteer leaders have shown gratitude for the achievements of its members throughout our history. Could we do more? I believe so, but it will not happen on its own. I challenge the Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC) to create another honorary STLE Annual Meeting technical symposium out of gratitude for the work of an accomplished member of our community. I challenge the STLE Scholarship Committee to launch fundraising and recommend new scholarship awards out of gratitude for the work of selfless STLE community members. I challenge STLE Local Section participants to thank their local volunteer section leaders. I challenge all STLE volunteer leaders to thank STLE staff for their efforts to support them and facilitate the smooth operations of our society. I challenge all members of our STLE community at large to pause, reflect and give thanks in your own way for our technical community.
Dr. Ryan Evans is director of R&D at The Timken Co. in North Canton, Ohio. You can reach him at ryan.evans@timken.com.