The February meeting was held at the Evergreen Restaurant in Monroeville. We had a total of 16 attendees. Due to the severe weather conditions that occurred that day, our ASNT representative from Columbus was not able to attend. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the ASNT program in general. We remained on the subject matter for which great ideas were brought forward. We asked ourselves, ‘What can we do as an ASNT organization and what can individuals do to help bring in new people into the NDT Industry?’ This is one of the biggest challenges that all Industries are facing and not just NDT.

   One of the discussions items I would like to share with you all is teaching. Teaching covers a multitude of facets even within NDT and can be performed in many ways – Classroom being the most common. Consider also consulting, guiding, mentoring, to name but a few. Throughout your working lives in NDT you all will have performed some method of teaching, irrespective of your qualification or certification in the field. It is teaching at some point that would have brought you into NDT either by a friend, peer, supervisor, lecturer or even the newspaper in the job section. It is no secret that this industry is in need of ‘fresh blood’ to carry the ‘NDT Torch’.

   With that in mind, I ask that you take a little timeout to consider what YOU can do to help promote bringing people into NDT. Are you a teacher at a college that may be able to help organize a group of NDT professionals to be involved in job fairs or presentations? Are you an individual that could provide free training to entice young apprentices to start a career in NDT by getting them a qualification? Are you a company owner in need of NDT people that may wish to sponsor free training courses? If you have an idea, I want to hear about it. Please e-mail me (jamesbennett@zoominternet.net). This not just a push to get people involved in ASNT but also to get people into our industry so we do not lose that knowledge / experience over the next 5 to 10 years. It is my intention to bring this up again with the executive committee to look at ideas. Again, if you have any ideas, please contact me.

OK now onto our March meeting. I have another colleague from PRI who has graciously offered to give a presentation to our group. The topic is Composites and the presenter is Rebekah Foutz. Rebekah is a Staff Engineer at PRI who leads the Nadcap Composites task group responsible for 130 accreditations globally. These companies manufacture Composite components for the aerospace industry. Rebekah’s bio is attached to this newsletter. Hope to see you at the meeting.

Sincerely,
James E. Bennett
Chairman, ASNT Pittsburgh Section, 2007 - 2008