01 February 2006 -
Congratulations to the 2005 POY Award Winners
By Greg Valero, g.valero@elsevier.com

We are pleased to announce the recipients of our second annual People of the Year (POY) Awards, which recognizes two individuals who made a significant impact in the metal finishing industry in 2005. Congratulations to Mike Kelly, vice president, ASKO Processing (Seattle), and Christian Richter, a principal at Navista and founder of The Policy Group (Washington). The two winners will receive their awards at an upcoming industry event.

You may find Christian's selection a surprising choice because the POY Awards were created by Metal Finishing namely to recognize solid contributions made by surface finishers to their company and/or the industry. But few people have done more to positively influence the business of metal finishing. By monitoring issues and identifying political activity and policy trends, developing and implementing strategies on behalf of the Surface Finishing Industry Council (SFIC) before federal agencies and Congress, Christian played a major role in helping overturn or modify several major, expensive and unjustified national enforcement actions against the industry.

Even though Christian is compensated by SFIC for serving as its lead government relations advocate, the payback has been huge. These lobbying efforts have helped negate or minimize several proposed regulations that would have cost the industry billions of dollars in compliance costs. Plus you cannot put a price on the passion, drive, and commitment that Christian exhibits in doing his job. He epitomizes the meaning of the POY Award.

Like Christian, Mike Kelly played a major role in helping protect the interest of surface finishers nationwide. The 28-year industry veteran was a major player in helping unite AESF, MFSA, and NAMF into one entity under the proposed National Association of Surface Finishers banner. He was influential as an active member of SFIC’s government affairs and steering committees, past president of NAMF, and other association activities.

I don't know many people who work as tirelessly and care as much about our industry as Mike Kelly. He volunteers an incredible amount of his own time to participate in industry events and association meetings as well as local community and business activities. Kudos to Mike for a job well done.

While the winners were the general consensus of the POY selection committee—which consisted of industry members—there were other outstanding candidates nominated. Peter Gallerani of Integrated Technologies was cited for his efforts in organizing the SUR/FIN 2005 technical conference. Matt Marsh of Marsh Plating (Ypsilanti, Mich.) was cited as being instrumental in developing and managing a highly efficient zinc alloy plating process using trivalent chromates on brake caliper castings. Jim Abbott of Nimet Industries (South Bend, Ind.) authored several technical articles related to various products and job shop technology. And Herb Nissen of East Side Plating (Portland, Ore.) was cited for his work on the AESF board and newly formed SUR/FIN steering committee.

We look forward to recognizing the accomplishments of other industry members in 2006.