As PMA celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, we want you to get to know the people behind the scenes that have contributed to PMA’s success. Each month we will feature a key PMA staff member on our blog.
This month we are highlighting Brad Kuvin, who is celebrated 22 years with PMA this year! Read on to get to know more about Brad and his role with PMA and MetalForming magazine.
Name, title and time at PMA.
Brad Kuvin, Editorial Director, hired January 2000.
What made you want to work at PMA?
I’d spent the first part of my career working for publishing companies, cutting my teeth and learning how to be an editor of technical trade publications. I found the opportunity to join the editorial team at MetalForming magazine and PMA—presented to me by then-PMA president Jon Jenson, a degreed journalist in his own right—appealing because, while the job would still allow me to hone my craft, I would also be writing and learning about new and relatively unfamiliar technologies. That’s the best part of my job, honestly: learning about new technology and transferring knowledge to our audience.
Also appealing to me, working for PMA compared to working for a publishing company, are the opportunities to network with the best of the best in the metalforming industry—our member companies—and to also develop content for products other than only the print magazine, such as live events, for example.
How has PMA changed over the years since you started?
Well, of course PMA has evolved quite a bit in my 20+ years here, to keep up with the needs of its members and the industry overall. But at its core the mission hasn’t changed—to help member companies maintain competitiveness and profitability.
Some key initiatives that support the mission include the development and management of executive networking groups, and today PMA has several more of these groups than it did when I started. Another important evolution has been in the breadth and depth of PMA’s advocacy efforts, which really kicked into high gear right around the time I started and has continued to mature and expand ever since. Of course, our tradeshow, METALFORM, has taken on a whole new look since I started, as PMA has since collaborated with other industry organizations to produce the FABTECH show. PMA’s educational initiatives have changed dramatically, too, evolving from only offering live technical conferences to online events, to the most recent introduction of the METALFORM EDU on-demand online curriculum.
Last but not least, of course we have ushered in numerous significant changes on the MetalForming magazine front since I started at PMA, adding new publication titles, enewsletters, websites, and even live and online educational events.
First event/meeting that you worked on/attended.
Right after I started, I attended the METALFORM show in Nashville, in February 2000. I vividly remember the reception on the eve of the show, held at the NASCAR Café. That afternoon, a tornado ripped through downtown Nashville, forcing an evacuation of the PMA host hotel. One of our exhibitors, Mark Sutherland, spearheaded a fundraising campaign among the other exhibitors and PMA associate members, to collect donations to aid the local communities impacted by the tornado.
Prior to joining PMA, in my previous job I had collaborated with PMA to help produce the welding-technology conference tracks for METALFORM, so I was fairly familiar with the show, and I knew some of the PMA team. But actually attending the show as a PMA employee, of course, was completely different. The way the members came together to support the community in Nashville was a great illustration of the camaraderie that defines PMA membership.
Favorite PMA memory?
There are many, but the first that comes to mind was planning for and working the ICOSPA Congress, held in 2008 in Grand Rapids, MI. That event is held every three years in one of the six countries that participate in ICOSPA, so it was an honor to be involved in the planning and execution of the Congress. It was all hands on deck, as several PMA staffers, including myself, took on a lot of responsibility leading up the event, and during its execution. Among my responsibilities was helping to organize and facilitate plant tours for the ICOSPA delegates and Congress attendees. We set up several tours of PMA member companies in and around Grand Rapids.
What does PMA mean to you?
PMA to me is all about the membership and the association’s commitment to supporting the mission, in every way possible. That means technology transfer and education; peer-to-peer networking to foster relationship building and allow members to share best practices; and advocating for a better manufacturing environment.
What is your favorite part of your job? What excites you about working at PMA?
The best part of my job is and always has been having the opportunity to learn about new and evolving metalforming technology, and to then be able to transfer that knowledge to our readers. That’s why we do what we do. And, PMA allows me, and our team, to do that in so many different ways, day in and day out. It’s really a very exciting environment in which to work, and I’m very appreciative of the opportunity to do so.
What has been your biggest achievement/success while at PMA?
When I started at PMA, our publishing group, PSI, for the most part only had one revenue stream—the monthly print magazine, MetalForming. Since then, our team has developed numerous new products to help deliver information and transfer technology to our readership. These products now include a quarterly Mexico Spanish-language magazine, Fabricating Product News and 3D Metal Printing magazines and their related products (enewsletters and websites).
I also am particularly proud of the educational events our team has developed since I started, including several technical conferences in Mexico that we launched when manufacturing in Mexico started to become increasingly important to PMA member companies. We also launched, in 2012, what became a very successful series of conferences focused on manufacturing-execution and enterprise-resource planning software, which has evolved into our Industry 4.0 Experience.