SMI Celebrates 75 Years of Service to the Industry
Wow! Seventy-five years ago when a few springmakers banded together to form SMI to find a way out of the Great Depression and fight a flood of low-cost imports from Europe, they probably never thought of celebrating a 75th birthday. During these past 75 years, we fought a world war, the Korean War and the Vietnam War; faced the Soviet Union down in the Cold War; engaged in several small conflicts; and had two wars in the Gulf. In our “spare time,” we went from radio to high-definition TV, instant news 24 hours a day, pagers, cell phones, the Internet, worldwide air travel, and the greatest economy the world has ever seen.
The spring world has also changed. We used to make parts using banks of kick presses to “true” rework or do secondary forming. Today, we manufacture complete parts on the machine or in manufacturing cells, with one operator overseeing the production of several machines and using statistical process controls to assure Six Sigma compliance. One thing that has not changed is the intense competition from outside North America; though today our greatest challenge comes from China instead of Europe.
The birthday we will celebrate in Palm Springs on March 8-11, 2008, coincides with the change to the forth generation of springmakers to lead our industry (the founders in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s; the builders in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s; and the technology generation of the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s). I will be passing on the leadership to Reb Banas of Stanley Spring, Scott Rankin of Vulcan Spring, Steve Moreland of Automatic Spring Products, and Russ Bryer of Spring Team.
Ken Boyce has retired after guiding SMI presidents from Park Blatchford to myself. I know that everyone in SMI thanks him for helping transform SMI into the vital organization it has become, and wishes him and his wife, Sheila, well in all their future endeavors. Shane Johnson, our new executive vice president, will have to find a way to keep this next generation out of trouble and on track.
In my years on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors, I have been honored to have been a small part of SMI’s first 75 years. In the last few years, we have re-established our financial strength, re-engineered our organization’s structure to face the current competitive landscape, continued to make Springs the world magazine of the spring industry, provided strong technical leadership for our members, and helped our regional associations become more active. These accomplishments were made possible by the very hard work of the board members, committees and all of you in our industry.
I know that I am leaving the leadership in strong and capable hands. Best of luck to Reb, Shane and the team.
Happy Birthday, SMI.
P.S. I hope to see all of you for our 100th.
