President and CEO’s Message: We’re Looking for a Few Good People: WMIA’s committees are hard at work overseeing Association programs and developing new member benefits. But to achieve greater success, we need you. In his latest message, WMIA President and CEO Larry Hoffer highlights the Association’s current active committees and discusses the work they are currently doing. Over the last several years, we’ve been committed to ensuring that participating in a committee isn’t overly time-consuming or labor-intensive. We know how busy you are; we want your ideas and enthusiasm but don’t expect you to take on major tasks.

If you’ve thought about joining a committee but you didn’t know where there was the greatest need, if you were involved years ago but are interested in getting involved again, or if there are members of your team that could be valuable committee members, learn more about committee service in Larry’s message. 

WIC 2020 Registration and Hotel Block Now Open! It’s certainly not too early to start thinking about the 2020 Woodworking Industry Conference (WIC)! WIC 2020 will be held May 5-8, 2020, at the Wild Dunes Resort in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, which is just outside Charleston. The hotel room block is openfor reservations; registration is open as well. The resort will offer its discounted room rate from Saturday, May 2-Saturday, May 9, so you can plan accordingly! (For those of you who live within driving distance of the Charleston area, the hotel offers free parking during the conference!)

All of our major educational sessions for WIC 2020 are already set.

• Thomas Landstreet of N3L Capital Partners and Trusco Investment Management will once again speak at WIC and deliver the Economic Outlook (He last spoke at WIC 2018 in Hawaii.)
• A session on managing the multigenerational workplace will be delivered by Jamie Notter of Culture That Works
• Seth Mattison of Luminate Labs LLC will deliver a session on workforce development and addressing the skills gap
• Woodworking Network will sponsor a “40 under 40” panel featuring honorees from this recognition program

At WIC 2020, we will be shifting the Contact Tables session from Thursday afternoon to the afternoon of Wednesday, May 6, in response to attendee feedback. WMIA will also be hosting a Distributor Forum on Friday, May 8, from 12:00-5:00 p.m. For more information on the conference, including activities, speakers, and the schedule of events, please visit the WIC website. Hope to see you at Wild Dunes!!

$30,000 in Scholarships Awarded: Once again this year, WMIA’s Educational Foundation awarded scholarships to high school seniors and college students to enable them to continue their education in the wood industry. A total of $30,000 in scholarships was awarded. Eight students were selected to receive a total of $13,500 in scholarships, while the Foundation also continued its scholarship endowment program (SEP) this year, in which it provided a fixed amount of scholarship funds to several schools, and the schools determined how many scholarships to award, and in what amounts. Four schools—Pittsburg State University, the New England School of Architectural Woodworking, Seattle Central College Wood Technology Center, and the École Nationale du Meuble et de L’Ébénisterie (ENME)—participated in the program, awarding a total of $16,500 in scholarships to 11 students.

The 2019 scholarship recipients are: Justin Angel, Appalachian State University; Erica Cartwright, Seattle Central College; Kelson Claassen, Pittsburg State University; Gage Davis, Pittsburg State University; Kyle Gorham, SUNY Morrisville; Marie-Elisabeth Guerin, ENME; Harrison Houser, Seattle Central College; Larry Johnston, New England School of Architectural Woodworking; Jes Jordan, Seattle Central College; Nathalie Locas, ENME; Elizabeth Moreno, Seattle Central College; Pablo Partida, Seattle Central College; Sarah Provard, Pittsburg State University; Katie Roux, Seattle Central College; Katherine Stuglik, Conestoga College; Kristen Van Hoosen, Pittsburg State University; Kendra Van Polen, Pittsburg State University; Caleb Wuthnow, Pittsburg State University; and Liz Xu, Rosemount Technology Centre.

For more information on this year’s winners, visit www.wmia.org/education-and-scholarships/2019-scholarship-winners/. We’ll be profiling the winners in subsequent issues of the newsletter.

Where Are They Now? To date, WMIA has awarded nearly $450,000 in financial support to students looking to continue their education in the wood industry. But once these scholarship recipients graduate, what happens to them? Do they stay in the industry or do they pursue another path?

WMIA has recently begun profiling past scholarship recipients. We’re looking for more past recipients, so if you received a scholarship or know someone who has, please contact Olivia Mueting at [email protected]. Learn more about some of our past recipients by visiting www.wmia.org/education-and-scholarships/wherearetheynow/.

 Sign Your Service Technicians up for “SpecOps” Training, October 10-12: WMIA and WTII are proud to announce another session of the extremely popular 2-1/2-day training session for service technicians launched last October. This session is taught by Pittsburg State mechatronics faculty, and covers the following topics: Basic Electricity; Schematics: Circuit Devices and Symbols; Schematics: Understanding Schematics; Relays, Contractors, and Motor Starters; Circuit Protection; Troubleshooting 101; Electric Power; Induction Motors; Introduction to PLCs; HMI and SCADA Interfacing; DC, Servo, and Stepper Motors; Industrial Networks; Power Quality; and Variable Frequency Drives. Safety and customer service are also covered during the training.

The next training will be held October 10-12, 2019, at Pittsburg State University. The session will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday and run through 12:00 p.m. on Saturday. The training will cost $1400 for WMIA members and $1750 for nonmembers. This cost includes two nights’ hotel stay (Friday and Saturday); daily transportation from the hotel to University; breakfast, lunches, and classroom snacks (all dinners excluded); resource book and laboratory supplies. For more information, or to register members of your team, visit http://wtii.net/home. The service technicians’ training is called “SpecialOps: Electrical Training.”

 #jtc27: Joint Technology Committee Webinar on Digital Marketing, September 17: The WMIA/WMMA Joint Technology Committee presents #jtc27 – a series of short webinars covering technology that is affecting the Wood Machinery Industry. The first webinar in this series will cover Digital Marketing, including content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing as well as touching on SEO/SEM/PPC (search engine optimization/search engine marketing/pay-per-click). This will be a high-level presentation that features some new ideas and concepts for each of these subjects that you may want to bring into your business.

We’ll also have a short Q&A afterwards as well as a survey – and we would like your feedback as to what topics, if any, you would like to see more presentations on in the future.

The webinar will be held Tuesday, September 17 at 2:00 p.m. ET. To register, click here. 

 Welcome WMIA Members! We are pleased to welcome two new Associate members which have recently joined the Association.

Helmitin, Inc., located in Olive Branch, MS, has manufacturing plants and research facilities located throughout Canada and the United States, enabling them to become an industry leader in specialty adhesives. From flooring to transportation, woodworking to construction, their mission is to provide a network of sales and supply points that deliver personalized solutions for their partner industries. For more information, visit their website at https://helmitin.com/.

IMS USA, LLC, located in Wilmington, NC, was born in 2009 as a new branch of the established company IMS S.r.l. (Industrial Machining Solutions). They began by specializing in the distribution of tool holders for CNC working machines for stone and glass, wood, aluminum, plastic, and metal. Over the years the inventory has grown with many different accessories and components. For more information, visit their website at www.imsusanc.com/.

Merino Industries, located in Doral, FL, is a versatile manufacturer and marketer of interiors solutions with a wide array of products for homes, offices, commercial, and public areas. Plywood was their first product in 1974 and it launched the company’s reputation for product quality and service. Merino then established its manufacturing unit for high-pressure decorative laminates. For more information, visit their website at http://merinoindia.com.

Introducing a New Member Benefit through MachineryHost: MachineryHosthelps machinery dealers bring in more revenue by driving buyers directly to your own website. It’s a web-based software tool that helps machinery dealers keep up with changing buyer behaviors and the new requirements from search engines like Google. Built specifically for sellers like you, it’s the easiest way to upgrade your business.

MachineryHost includes:

• A better performing website that will help you rank well on Google
• An inventory Management tool that saves you time
• Customer database for storing and tracking leads, contacts, and customers
• Simple quoting and invoices
• Email marketing tool
• Hosting, support, and maintenance

Check out a 60-second overview video here, or see an example of a demo site for a woodworking machinery company at http://woodworking.machineryhost.com/. For more information or to discuss a 7-day free trial, contact James Tomlinson, director, MachineryHost, at (484) 484-0001 or [email protected].

June 2019 Housing Report: Virginia Tech, Virginia Cooperative Extension, in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service, produces a monthly housing report. These reports contain in-depth data and comments on the U.S. housing market and are intended to help gauge future business activity. You can view Part 1, the main report, and Part 2, the economic conditions. The reports are intended to help you gauge future business activity. All past housing reports are archived at http://woodproducts.sbio.vt.edu/housing-report/.