It has been a busy summer here at PCI — one full of changes. After 20 years as our national account manager, Lisa Guldan retired on July 15. Many of you in the industry knew Lisa, both during her time here with our magazine, and prior to that when she sold equipment for Eiger Machinery, Inc. (now Engineered Mills, Inc.). Lisa was an important part of the PCI team, and things won’t be the same without her. I wish her all the best, and am happy that she gets to enjoy time now with her family, friends, and grandchildren.

When we heard that Lisa was retiring, I spent quite a bit of time discussing our brand’s future direction with Tom Fowler, our publisher. After much consideration, I have decided to accept a new position with PCI as Associate Publisher/Chief Editor. I will maintain direction over the magazine’s editorial, and will still secure articles to publish in our digital magazine and on our website. I will also be moving into a sales role, and have taken over Lisa’s accounts and territory. I’m excited to now be working with my coatings industry colleagues on both their editorial and marketing efforts.

To help me with all of the editorial projects we work on, we have hired Courtney Bassett to join our team as associate editor. Courtney has many years of experience with editing, managing projects, and community outreach. We have also hired a new assistant editor, Christopher Crumley, who will be taking over Karen Parker’s responsibilities with copyediting and our eNewsletters, since Karen has recently become Editor-in-Chief of our sister publication, Adhesives & Sealants Industry. Christopher has experience as an assistant editor with an online journal called Kairos. We lucked out finding these two editors, and I’m excited to share my knowledge and passion for the coatings industry with them!

With training two new people and learning the world of sales, I feel like I am drinking from a fire hose at the moment, but I know that once we have all settled in to our new roles, we will be running like a fine-oiled machine once again!