To Success

This year, we've been honored with our first award in an international competition, presented by Trade, Association and Business Publications International, which included almost 300 entries from North America, Europe and Asia. Executive editor Larry Stewart won a Gold Award for "Buying File" and a Bronze Award for his April 2003 feature on operator training, "Production Heroes." Of course, Stewart is the first to say that although it's his byline, these articles succeed thanks to managing editor Katie Weiler, senior production editor Heather Burlingame, and art director Mary Sondergaard. We congratulate each one of them.

We enjoy celebrating success. But this staff over the years has taken each success also as motivation to improve over the next 12 months. That string is also quite alive.

This year, we launched two initiatives that won't qualify for awards in editorial excellence. But they do qualify as excellent services for you, our most important judges.

First, in March, we launched Construction Equipment Institute (CEI) in Chicago, featuring Mike Vorster from Virginia Tech. Vorster's Construction Equipment column, "Equipment Executive," has become one of the most popular features of the magazine. Our second CEI will occur Jan. 11–14, 2005, in Austin, Texas. Mark your calendars now.

Our second initiative takes advantage of the growing use of electronic communications via the Internet. We now have several newsletters going out to subscribers, and we've just launched another: E-Market Watch. This monthly e-mail contains all of the major product announcements we've uncovered over the previous few weeks. If you're not a subscriber, access ConstructionEquipment.com and click on "E-Newsletters."

We aim to keep our award-winning string alive, but our only true success is with your success. Our E-newsletters and CEI programming, we hope, will contribute to that.