November 2023 Volume 5

PRESIDENT'S NOTE

President's Note

5. First Forging Children’s Book Series: Freddy the Forger made its debut with two books, an audio recording and upcoming language translation. 6. First Education Grant to a Community College: to support development of an automated cell for teaching in a ‘factory-like’ scenario within a community college (Blackhawk Technical College – Janesville, WI). 7. First Forging Competition: multiple universities competed, demonstrating why their tuning fork is best – held at Forge Fair. Next competition April 2024 in Milwaukee. 8. First FIERF Summer Camp: held at Cuyahoga Community College with more than 25 middle-school aged students in attendance. Members were involved in exercises and hosted plant tours. Three planned for 2024 (Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit). 9. First Forging Proclamation Declared: in the city of Trenton, Michigan with the efforts of Trenton Forging and further recognition on the floor of the Michigan House of Representatives on the first official Forging Manufacturing Day. 10. First Forging MFG Day Established: the second Friday of October in conjunction with National MFG Day (Month). Importance of Completing Trade Surveys To represent members on matters of fair trade, FIA members need to cooperate and complete our trade attorney’s survey on the assessment of the impact of imports on forged products and potential trade remedy options. You can find the survey here: https://www. surveymonkey.com/r/7R6HWG5. It is helpful to report any individual incidences of bids lost due to foreign competitors selling forgings at unrealistic prices, i.e., finished landed components sold for our cost of raw material. You can report those incidences either directly to our trade attorneys (Thomas Beline tbeline@cassidylevy.com or Myles S. Getlan - mgetlan@cassidylevy.com) or on FIA’s website at this link: https:// www.forging.org/advocacy. Best regards, James R. Warren President and CEO Forging Industry Association

What A Year We’ve Had We’re nearing the conclusion of quite a successful year for the association and its foundation. It was an interesting start with the recession/no

recession chatter and a strong-enough economy that mostly handled still higher inflation. Not all of our markets are humming but FIA’s Orders & Shipments survey results and visits with forgers/suppliers show us that many forgers have kept busy in 2023. Notwithstanding the automotive strike and difficulty securing titanium, it could have been an even stronger year. The FIA and FIERF had a great year due to successful events (Forge Fair, Automation Conference, Management Development Institute, Marketing Conference, ForjaMex), an increasing membership base, first-time congressional appropriation and other government contracts, and above average donations to the foundation. We’re addressing some dips in attendance at the Annual and Fall Meetings, we’ve tweaked our strategic plan and have the FIA FIERF ship pointing in the right direction. I’m proud of both FIA FIERF boards, our standing committees and our wonderful staff who execute the boards’ vision so well. I appreciate all the members sharing with me how pleased they are with what we do and pass that feedback along to staff often. Thank you for your confidence in us. Ten ‘First Evers’ for FIA-FIERF in 2023 Members, boards, committees, and staff kept busy rolling out ten ‘first evers’ for FIA and FIERF. No one could ever accuse our members and staff of hanging back taking it easy! Here are the ten first-evers: 1. First Female Chairperson: Chelsea Lantto became the first Chairwoman of FIA in our 110-year history. 2. First Significant Congressional Appropriation: recognizing the importance of the forging industry a $5 million appropriation (Senate) is pending FY2024 budget approval (contract with Army Research Lab) to support forging industry R & D and automation implementation. 3. First Lobby Day in Canada: held in May with plans for annual visits to Members of Parliament and government agencies. 4. First State Lobby Day: held in Michigan (June) with additional future states planned in 2024 and beyond.

Editorial Staff

Board of Directors

Robert Brodhead Mark Candy Mark Derry Robert Dimitrieff Jose Lozano

Mike Morgus Matt Natale James Romeo Joe Schwegman

PUBLISHER James R. Warren jwarren@forging.org MANAGING EDITOR Angela Gibian angela@forging.org

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Amanda Dureiko amanda@forging.org DESIGN Lorean Crowder lorean@forging.org

CHAIRPERSON Chelsea Lantto VICE CHAIRPERSON Jim Kravec

FIA MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2023 1