Strategically Thinking

By: John Sudges

As an organization, we are always looking forward to where we are going—this year, three years from now, five years from now. Your board has spent a great deal of time in the past six months redefining our strategic plan, restructuring and refining our infrastructure, membership, education, promotion and certification. These have become the five pillars of PCI’s foundation, developed by your board of directors. To that effect, we are working diligently to put actions into place to support our new pillars.

First, and most important to our foundation, is infrastructure. The better half of 2015, after hiring new management, was devoted to researching new association management software where we could compile member and member prospect data, allow everyone to register for any and all PCI events in one location, and develop a website that helps us meet our mission—all utilizing one software program.

We have recently launched this new software and are in the process of gathering accurate data so we can best serve our association members, our website guests, and our Powder Coated Tough readers. A critical factor of our new software is to ensure that the data that has been transferred from a variety of PCI resources into the database is accurate.

That’s where you come in! Soon we will be sending out postcards and emails asking you to check the information we have on file. When you receive this request, please be sure to respond so that we can continue your subscription to Powder Coated Tough and keep providing you with information on The Powder Coating Institute.

While it is important to focus on the future, we also want to celebrate milestones. This year we are very excited to celebrate Powder Coated Tough’s 10th anniversary. The magazine, a glossy, colorful look at the world of powder coatings, has successfully communicated PCI’s voice for a decade now. Subscriptions continue to grow and PCI is very proud of this publication. Special thanks go out to our editor, Sharon Spielman, who has been with the magazine since it began. We’d also like to thank Lori Koning for her skilled sales efforts for the past few years along with our regular and semiregular contributors: Kevin Biller, Nick Liberto and Paul Mills.

We hope you will join us in 2016 for many of PCI’s events and we hope you’ll actively participate in a committee of your choice. Together, we can strengthen our association for all of us!

John Sudges is president of The Powder Coating Institute’s board and business development manager at Midwest Finishing Systems. He can be reached at jsudges@ midwestfinishing.com.