Retirement of Glenn Miner

So the news of a major retirement in our industry has been floating out there for several weeks now.  I had heard that Glenn Miner of Vitro was hanging them up back in January.  It initially did not connect for me, after all Glenn is blessed with youthful looks and personality so I couldn’t even fathom retirement talk attached to him.   It was true however, he told me himself and I had the obvious emotions.  First and foremost I was so happy for Glenn and his family.  Happy that he’ll get out of the industry and now do all of those things he’s wanted to do…  next though was sadness because he is such a good man and such a major part of our world.  Glenn is  in my opinion one of the most well rounded folks in our world with regard to knowing so much about every product line that went into a building and understanding its value and place.  No tunnel vision there at all.  In addition to his great knowledge, Glenn’s desire to push for advanced education at all levels of our world is something that I hope gets carried on at Vitro (I am confident it will) but more than that- Glenn always made time to catch up with whomever crossed his path.  For me personally, he always cleared some time to chat (though he would skillfully push off any of my video requests to the great Joann Funyak) and I will always be grateful.  We as an industry will miss Glenn a ton and his impact will not be forgotten.  Go enjoy the heck out of that next phase of life Mr. Miner- you have absolutely earned it!

Elsewhere….

--  As I noted last week, this week the industry had two events happening at the same time.  I was at the Glass Processing and Automation Days (GPAD) in San Antonio and it was an excellent event.  Ron Crowl and the awesome Fenetech team did everything first class and the education there was off the charts.  The technology and innovation that is out there on the fabrication side is mind blowing to me.  Over the course of GPAD- I saw so many pieces of machinery and software that fundamentally would change the way we all work… very exciting stuff.

--  In addition to the education side of it, the networking was top notch and a great chance to catch up with some of the great technical and business minds in our industry.  Plus because of the operational nature of it I met a ton of new people from across our world.  That was really cool expansion of the network!  It really was like a BEC for the fabricator and it’s a conference I don’t plan on ever missing again.

Staying in Texas for three more items… (I do love the great state of Texas by the way.)

--  First it was great to spend some time in San Antonio before the GPAD Conference kicked off.  Getting to visit with my old friends, the Luna’s of Champion Glass was awesome.  I am such a huge fan of David, Ray, Joe, and Davey Luna- they are just awesome people and I am honored to be a friend.  Class acts and great for our industry.  In addition I got to see some old friends I had not seen in forever- David Shaw and Rod Pistokcha of Complete Line Glass.  Both guys are simply tremendous and their hospitality towards me and the team from NGA in town for the event was nothing short of spectacular.  It was great to catch up with them both and I was very impressed what they are doing with the Complete Line plant and brand. 

--  Second, it’s been recently finalized that I will once again be speaking in Texas at the Texas Glass Association’s TGA Glass Conference II.  The conference is May 17^th in Waco and I’ll be giving a piece on the state of our industry.  So please my Texas friends, I would love to see you at this event.  The agenda is fabulous and you can view that and sign up at this LINK.  Oh and the picture they used for me is no doubt old- but its nice to remember that once upon a time I had hair and could actually fit into clothes that weren’t marked “tent size” 

--  Third… Texas Tech!  Congrats to the fans of the Red Raiders… my pal David Shaw (mentioned above) and especially Bowie Neumayer of Cardinal.  He is a gigantic fan and no doubt will be floating all week until the Final Four begins Saturday!

--  Reading wise… This piece on lessons learned from past hurricanes and ideas for new hurricane builds… am I crazy or did it leave out or skip over hurricane glazing?  Maybe I missed as thanks to twitter my reading comprehension is not great, but I didn’t see it.  Hurricane glazing is an incredible product area- the aluminum and glass are superstars in a field that is till trying to catch up…

--  Last this week… I am so far behind in my sports… missed the start of baseball season and I know you all need my prediction on who’s going to win it… So here goes- It’s the Yankees to win it over the Braves in the series.  So congrats to every other city but NY and Atlanta- you have a chance now…

LINKS of the WEEK

Tough one here... it does violate the rules but he did save a cats life.

The ultimate perils of storm chasing

This story (like so many others in these days of awful journalism) is a mess.  It completely blows by the point and also references quickly a bizarre previous experience.  I just shake my head… 

VIDEO of the WEEK

I’m old school and one of my favorite announcers ever is Verne Lundquist.  Someone out there compiled his best play-by-play calls and there are some classics on here!  This was a guy that did it right that is for sure…


Click the link https://youtu.be/cO_pKjui0p0 if you want to see... blogger is not being nice to me today and allowing me to embed!