Dear friends, welcome to the October 2018 issue of BIC Magazine, the Business & Industry Connection, America's largest multi-industry, multi-job-title industrial publication.
I am particularly proud of the breadth of useful and industry-friendly editorial, which sets us apart from other publications. Typical of the comments I receive on our publication, a plant manager at an industry meeting last month said that, although he gets several magazines, BIC Magazine was one of the only publications he actually read and looked forward to reading! Similarly, an EHS manager from a chemical plant sent me an email to say she was impressed that, while reading a recent issue of BIC, she found several articles in the magazine were not only very interesting, but more importantly could help her immediately.
I must thank the many groups and individuals who participate in our publication to share news, opinions and best practices. For many years, BIC has carried editorial on behalf of various associations. In just the past two issues of the magazine, we have had bylined subject matter articles from American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), OSHA, Fluid Sealing Association, National Institute of Storage Tank Management, Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, Colorado Petrochemical Council, Houston Area Safety Council, Industrial Safety Training Council, National Association of Hose Distributors and others.
Additionally, we have published contributions from other associations, such as the International Liquid Terminals Association, the Western States Petroleum Association, the American Society of Safety Professionals, the Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission, American General Contractors, the Louisiana Chemical Association, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Subcontractors Association, the Plastics Pipe Institute, The Manufacturing Institute and WaterJet Technology Association, among others.
Each issue is replete with interviews of, and editorial coverage of presentations by, thought leaders in the industry such as LyondellBasell, Flint Hills, Valero, Dow, ExxonMobil, Duke Energy, Meridian Energy, Sempra, Kinder Morgan and many, many more.
The TCC/ACIT EHS committee has provided safety- and environmental-related editorial to BIC for over a decade, and TCC/ ACIT President Hector Rivero has utilized BIC by publishing TCC/ACIT updates for just as long.
The Houston and Pelican Chapters of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) have continued ABC's BIC Magazine Construction Industry Update started by former Chairman Tom Musser over 17 years ago. Their use of BIC as a communications tool to reach the ABC membership and other key industry decision makers has served as a fine example of how BIC is being utilized in a positive fashion by industry.
Similarly, we have carried workforce content provided by the Iron Workers, Central South Carpenters and the United Association. Still further, many professionals within manufacturing and service companies make the extra effort to share their vast experience with you, submitting guest articles on a myriad of topics, such as safety, environmental issues, maintenance, purchasing, turnarounds and technologies, to name but a few.
We at BIC are fortunate that so many qualified individuals and associations recognize our publication as the right tool for communicating with one another; it has been critical to our success. Thank you for your participation, for all of your incredible efforts to network and share information and insight with your peers, inuring to the greater good of our industry and, ultimately, our country.
If you or your association would be interested in having some news or an article published, or perhaps even in sponsoring a subject matter column similar to these, please give me or BIC Managing Editor Dylan Krieger a call.
BIC has been blessed with steady growth for 34 years, particularly for the past 10. We have never hesitated in reinvesting to help our industry communicate more effectively and make our service even stronger. We have invested in new video equipment and have been producing original content for our website and social media. Recently, we added almost 10 years of the print publication to our online archive at BICMagazine.com, alongside daily energy headlines and industrial news, content far exceeding the space limitations of print. And our industry is responding: The number of visitors at our website is getting closer to our 31,000 print subscribers! And you heard it here first: We are working on the next generation of our website to be released in the first quarter of 2019.
Many of you have also been receiving our weekly e-newsletter and have told me that you read the magazine online for convenience but still like getting the hardcopy by mail. Thank you for your feedback and participation in our electronic formats.
It is never easy to venture into new arenas, but it is our pleasure to serve you. In this issue of BIC, it is our pleasure to serve you with interviews of Christi Craddick, chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas; Mitra Kashanchi, Salt Lake City refinery manager for Chevron; Henk De Zwart, president and CEO of FLO-BIN Rentals; and Mark Erdmann, director of sales -- Houston/ Gulf Coast, International Cooling Tower.
We also feature a wide variety of articles on topics important to your business, such as safety program innovations your company should adopt, fast-tracking natural gas infrastructure, improving performance on major projects with AWP, learning lessons from past turnaround mistakes, enhancing equipment reliability with predictive analytics, troubleshooting catalyst losses and utilizing FCC additives toolkits in unexpected ways.
We at BIC are proud to provide a forum to discuss these crucial topics in our industry, and we look forward to your contribution.
tbrinsko@bicalliance.com
