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It is with a heavy heart that I pen this last editorial for Modern Casting. By the time you read this column, I will have left the magazine to pursue a new career.  After 19 years in metalcasting, a new challenge awaits me.

So let me start by thanking you, our loyal readers of Modern Casting.  Many of you have let me into your metalcasting facilities—your homes—so I can better understand the process, the technology and the metalcasting mindset.  I have visited hundreds of metalcasters across the globe and every one of you taught me something.  Your wisdom is what made me believe I was a metalcaster.

Goodbyes are always difficult.  We all invest sweat equity in our professions. But I can leave knowing that metalcasting is in its best position for success since I joined the industry in 1997.  While global competition isn’t going anywhere and our customers may always first think of castings as commodities, your efforts to educate and advocate for metalcasting are taking hold. Customers are understanding the value metal castings bring to the table. The next generation is looking to manufacturing and metalcasting more than ever before.  And society as a whole is looking to manufacturing as more of a solution than a problem.

But the advancement of metalcasting is not done.  Everyone is always looking to do things better, faster and stronger.  Additive manufacturing is changing the way all metalcasting conducts business.  While you have been one of the early and significant adopters of this technology from its first appearances in the 1990s to its full development today, newer and better technologies and processes await to steal the headlines as the wave of the future.

That is the challenge that awaits you.  You must be the drivers that move the industry forward because no one else is going to do it for you.  As business owners, entrepreneurs, manufacturing leaders, quality gurus and marketing professionals, this is the opportunity you must savor.  I have looked many of you in the eye and seen your passion for metalcasting.  Keep that fire burning and continue to apply it to advancing your business.

I truly wish you good luck as you continue to battle in the trenches. Metalcasting is the backbone of manufacturing, our economy and society.  The next generation is beginning to understand that fact and we can carry that understanding into the future.

Be proud of who you are and what you accomplish every day.  Creating engineered cast metal components from scrap and raw materials is an awesome accomplishment that few people in this world will ever truly understand.

Thank you, goodbye and good luck.