My Take: Get Pumped

As mentioned in this column before, editing magazines is my second career. It started almost 17 years ago when I began covering all things related to the industrial-fluid-handling pump market.

Oh, what a big “room” that was! Thrown into it by accident, I soon learned that pumps, after electric motors, were the most purchased industrial items in the world. Pumping systems, i.e., pumps, seals, bearings, motors, controls, instrumentation, and the technologies that kept everything aligned and running as desired, became a major focus for me. As did pump-user workforce issues—something that was also capturing the serious attention of pump-using industries.

For me, the ongoing skilled workforce crisis that Efficient Plant has been highlighting for the past decade first reared its ugly head in the pump world. Circa 1999, operations were already anguishing over the loss of seasoned pump pros from their ranks. The amount of “tribal knowledge” disappearing with the “old hands” was alarming, given the fact pump operation and maintenance courses typically weren’t a big part of engineering- or vocational-school curricula.

Granted, Dr. Dara Childs and the Texas A&M Univ. (TAMU) Turbomachinery Laboratory, College Station, were trying to keep practical pump education and knowledge transfer alive. The Advisory Board of the TAMU Pump Symposium (now in its 32nd year) was a veritable “Who’s Who” of the greatest living pump experts on the planet. Still, the timing and location of the annual Houston-based Symposium weren’t necessarily the best for all aspiring pump users across North America, and programs sometimes skewed toward the theoretical.

While pump-industry suppliers had always offered various training courses to meet growing demand, other opportunities—often hands-on in nature—began appearing around the country. One example that immediately comes to mind is the long-running Mid-Atlantic Pump Symposium, presented by the Baltimore/Philadelphia-based industrial-equipment distributor Geiger-Smith Koch.

There were other efforts as well, including a number of value-added, non-Houston-based, open training sessions and workshops. That’s how I met one of my favorite pump-training gurus, Sam Buckles, of Eli Lilly and Co., Indianapolis. He and his enormous working-pump rig appeared on my radar screen in one of the first such workshops I attended—and I continued to see him using the equipment to train new generations of pump users throughout industry (much like he did at Eli Lilly) several times thereafter.

Although Sam has retired, I understand his well-traveled pump-training equipment is still in service. I was delighted to learn of this at the 2016 Univ. of Tennessee Maintenance & Reliability Conference (MARCON) in Knoxville. That’s where I met an amazing woman named Rendela Wenzel.

As an Indianapolis-based consultant engineer in Eli Lilly’s Global Plant Engineering, Maintenance, and Reliability organization, Rendela has done—and continues to do—many interesting things. Among them, she implemented pump training courses for the masses at Eli Lilly, and now drives the company’s global pump, vacuum-pump, mechanical-seal, and basic and advanced lubrication-fundamentals training programs. Accordingly, she has become the keeper of Sam Buckles’ training rig. Having gotten to know her, I’m confident this equipment and the associated training programs, like everything else that she manages for Eli Lilly, are in good hands. To learn why, turn to page 17. 

Rendela Wenzel is the subject of this month’s “Voice from the Field” profile by contributing editor, Michelle Segrest (another veteran of the pump arena, BTW). My take is that you’ll be just as impressed with this industry “Voice” as we are.

On a related note, speaking of pumping systems and amazing women, check out April’s special “Reliable Pumping Section” that Michelle Segrest also produced. Beginning here and focusing on oil and gas matters, it’s the first in a series of sections on various pumping applications that we’ll run this year. Stay tuned. 

jalexander@efficientplantmag.com