Our February 19, 2008 meeting was a tremendous success. The attendance of 180 people set a record that we hope to break at our next meeting. The number of people that registered early gave us an indication that we would have a large crowd and that proved to be the case.  The networking hour was very busy and offered the usual opportunities to meet with others in the industry and share experiences and ideas. As usual, this extended through the dinner hour and created a relaxed atmosphere to accompany the barbecue served by HESS personnel. The two hour networking opportunity has been established as the highlight of each meeting and is thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.

Our Keynote Speaker, Dr. Barry Lawrence, an exciting and stimulating individual, was very well received by everyone.  His presentation on Global Supply Chains was most interesting to the attendees and we noticed several taking notes for future reference  We are going to contact Dr Lawrence to try and obtain some information from his presentation to place on our website  We have had several requests from members and guests for copies of Dr Lawrence’s presentation and hope to be able to satisfy those requests. Dr. Lawrence has proven to be one of our best speakers and we look forward to future visits with him. He has indicated his desire to council us on a joint-venture with Texas A&M Industrial Distribution School to convince young people to pursue a career in the PVF industry.

Our next meeting will be held at the HESS Club on 20 May 2008. This meeting serves as our annual presentation of those selected for The PVF Hall of Fame sponsored by The Wholesaler magazine. The new members will be introduced at the meeting by Industry Icon Morrie Beschloss and the history of The PVF Hall of Fame will be presented.  Our Keynote Speaker will be Al Schommer who will provide a presentation on the API/ISO transition and the hurdles encountered during the transition. Al’s presentation will be followed y a Q&A session with a PVF Roundtable panel composed of Al, Ron Merrick of Fluor Corporation and Greg Johnson of United Valve.  Ron is President of The PVF Roundtable and Greg is widely known as the Historian of the valve industry and is the possessor of a valuable collection of valve catalogs dating back to the 1880’s. Greg also has copies of valve patents going back to 1840.