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One of the biggest challenges with being an editor for a specialized trade publication like EW is that you tend to learn a lot about a wide variety of different topics, but don't always get the chance to drill down deep into as many topics as you would like. Our pool of knowledge tends to be like the Missouri River, which Meriwether Lewis of Lewis & Clark fame said was “a mile wide and an inch deep.”
To add more depth to the pages of Electrical Wholesaling, over the past few months we have recruited a number of content experts to our staff of contributing writers. John Gross, president of J.E. Gross & Co. and a leading authority on copper pricing and metals management, began writing for EW in January and has an article in this issue, “Managing Price Risk” (page 32). This month's issue also marks the 2009 editorial debut of Mike Dandridge, president, High Voltage Performance, Temple, Texas, and Jon Schreibfeder, Effective Inventory Management Inc., Denton, Texas. A 25-year veteran of the sales wars in the electrical business, Dandridge will delight readers with his articles on sales techniques. Schreibfeder has been helping distributors in many different fields squeeze more profits out of their inventory for the past 28 years. Both have written for Electrical Wholesaling in the past; we are delighted that they will be writing for the magazine on a regular basis.
I think you will also enjoy this month's articles from several other regular writers for the magazine. Tom O'Connor, Farmington Consulting Group, Farmington, Conn., has been writing for Electrical Wholesaling since the mid-1990s. His article, “Guaranteeing Service” (page 44), offers a sure-fire approach to solidifying account relationships with customer service guarantees. Want a dose of reality on the economy from the industry's leader in sales forecasting? Check out Herm Isenstein's economic update on page 29. Another great article in this issue is a report on LIFO accounting (page 44) by Allen Ray, Allen Ray Associates, Kennedale, Texas, and David Gordon, Channel Marketing Group, Raleigh, N.C.
Also in this issue, Howard Coleman, MCA Associates, will help you do some Lean Thinking for your business operations in his article “Learn Now, Lean Forever,” (page 44), and Jack Foster, Foster Communications, Trumbell, Conn., offers a report on the recent NEMRA Annual Conference (page 38).
These authors, along with the other writers listed in the sidebar below, make up the best stable of contributing writers in any electrical publication. That doesn't mean that you won't be seeing plenty of articles from myself or Executive Editor Doug Chandler. Far from it. With these writers focusing on their areas of expertise, Doug and I will be getting even more opportunities to go deep on the topics that can help you sell more electrical products and run your business more profitably.
For instance, in this issue, (page 20) Doug reports on his visit to a California distributor that sells to wind farms and his tour of one of the most famous wind farms in the world in the Golden State's Coachella Valley. Tune in each month for much more.