Time to say goodbye

At the recent IFPE Show, a co-worker and I walked by the Bellagio and stopped to see the fountains one night after dinner. This particular time, they danced in rhythm to the beautiful Andrea Bocelli/Sarah Brightman Italian duet, Time to Say Goodbye. The song hit me just right, and I ended up purchasing it when I got back home. It’s been running through my head ever since.

I suppose this was strangely prescient, because it is truly with mixed emotions that I will be leaving H&P after a wonderful 13 years. My new challenge will be leading several magazines that cover the hotel/lodging industry — certainly a huge change from the engineering that I studied in college and have written about all these years.

I’m pleased to see the strides that the fluid power community has made here in the U.S. over the past few years. I think the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power, headed by Kim Stelson, is an enormously important strategic move for our industry. Even though, as readers, you may not immediately see the results of the collaboration between university research centers and manufacturers, trust me, they are coming. More efficient components, increased use of fluid power to solve some of the energy issues that face our world, better intelligent controls — all of these will eventually trickle down to the point where they will give you many more choices to your design challenges, making your jobs that much easier.

The H&P staff that I’m leaving is a truly excellent group of people who love their jobs and the fluid power industry. You are lucky to have them as information providers. I’ve always tried to ask myself with each issue, what problems, what questions keep our readers up at night? How can we help them do their jobs better?

I’ve seen many publications — in the engineering space, as well as in totally different industries — cater to advertisers during these difficult times for publishing. But I’m proud to say that H&P has not crossed this ethical boundary. My good friends, Michael Ference and Alan Hitchcox and their team realize that without editorial quality and without unbiased coverage, a magazine would not be worth the paper it’s printed on.

I ask that you keep a keen eye on all the publications that you read, be they a magazine, a website, an eNewsletter, or something else that hasn’t even been invented yet. Ask yourself who the editors are. If they don’t tell you, look at their online “about us” area. See who is providing you the information.

And go deeper, past the pretty paper or fancy graphics. If an article is written by a component manufacturer, is it purely a plug for that company, or does it actually provide you some design advice beyond their product? Do product writeups tell you all about a company history or do they give you the kind of engineering specs that you really need? Is the publication full of marketing terms such as “unique,” “ideal,” “best,” “patented” ... or do the editors take the time and care to rewrite the material in a way that presents it to you in an unbiased way?

It has been a pleasure to get to know so many of you over the years, and I wish you and yours the best. Feel free to reach me at the email below; I would welcome staying in contact with you.

Paul J. Heney

senior editor

karapaul@prodigy.net