Loyal readership and solid industry support helps build a credible brand.
12/29/2012
Twenty years after its conception and launch, one thing has remained constant—Pumps & Systems keeps the needs of its readers at the forefront. With this issue, we celebrate the magazine’s original editorial mission and its most important commodity—the pump users, pump operators, pump specifiers and pump engineers who read it every month.
In 1992, David Hill was ready for a new challenge.
Since graduating from Loyola Marymount in 1974, the entrepreneur-turned-publisher had successfully launched several trade titles about a myriad of topics ranging from health care software to asbestos to motorcycles. Searching for inspiration, he spread out more than 20 industrial publications on his desk. It did not take long for a new idea to take shape.
“I noticed that there were a lot of pump advertisers out there, but no magazine that offered true editorial support for them,” Hill remembers. “There was nothing on pump maintenance ... nothing of real value to the pump industry’s end users.”
A quick analysis on money spent annually on pumps provided a clear picture of the business potential. A few phone calls helped him confirm solid industry support. He identified about 10 of the industry’s leading pump experts and flew them all to his office in Denver, Colo. He immediately secured key industry players, including the Hydraulic Institute’s Executive Director Bob Asdal, Vanton Pump & Equipment’s George Black, Amoco Oil Chief Engineer John Dufour, Sundstrand Manager of Engineering William Mabe and Goulds Pumps Director of Technology George Wilson, among others.
“I didn’t want a cosmetic advisory team,” he says. “I wanted a hands-on group. We had a two-day meeting, and I just picked the heck out of their brains.”
They all agreed that a pump magazine focusing on maintenance and operations issues was a concrete idea and badly needed in the industry.
“We spent a lot of time with Dave discussing whether we would support the magazine,” says current Vanton President, Larry Lewis, whose father Gerald Lewis was president and CEO of Cooper Alloy Company (which owned Vanton at the time) and on the original editorial advisory board. “Identifying the right audience and the editorial direction were important to us. We didn’t want to be a part of it if it was just a ‘good ol’ boy’ magazine. We didn’t just want to see our name on the masthead—we wanted to get something out of it. From the start, the editorial content was straightforward and useful. From its inauguration 20 years ago to today, I still learn something new in every issue.”
Building a Loyal Readership
When Pumps & Systems launched in January 1993, it only took a couple issues to develop a loyal following from its readers. Chris Zielewski was one of them. “In 1993, I had already been in pump- and machinery-related work for more than 10 years,” says Zielewski, who is now a senior staff engineer for ExxonMobil. “At the time, I was getting ready for some major overhauls, and any technically-oriented troubleshooting resource was welcome information. The magazine showed up in my mailbox, and the rest, as they say, is history.” Zielewski found immediate value in the new magazine’s content.Many readers maintain a library of Pumps & Systems for future reference. Chris Zielewski, a 20-year reader, has every issue ever published.
“Machinery and pumps, specifically, continue to evolve,” he explains. “At the same time, the underlying basics and reliability principles stay constant. When Pumps & Systems was published, it managed to do a good job with covering both the innovation and fundamentals and also made it interesting. Effectiveness in my job comes from knowledge and confidence. The early issues with articles on vane pass vibration and suction recirculation helped me to quickly diagnose those problems and, more importantly, justify and implement solutions.”
Hill immediately took his new magazine to industry trade shows. It premiered at the 1993 Texas A&M Pump Users Symposium, where he received positive reader feedback. “People would come up to the booth and say, ‘Your magazine helped me solve a problem,’” Hill recalls. “That was always gratifying for me. I knew we were doing something right.”
At the trade shows, Hill also learned the technical side of pumps from readers eager to share their knowledge. At one show, he connected with Bob Matthews, then the lead pump shop maintenance technician at Champion International’s Sheldon, Texas, newsprint plant. Matthews became one of the magazine’s first regular technical authors.
“Dave asked me, ‘Does your company have pumps?’” recalls Matthews, a 20-year reader who is now the reliability manager at Royal Purple. “I said, ‘Yes, we have a few thousand of them.’ He asked me how big they were. I held out my hands and said, ‘Some are this big, and there are others that you can walk through.’ He wanted to see them, and that was the start of a great friendship.”