A letter from our Chairperson,

Dr. Robert MacKay:

Last month the Detroit-Windsor Chapter had a visit by Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who is also a current Republican Gubernatorial candidate for the state of Michigan. An all out media blitz was made to announce the Congressman’s time with us at the Detroit-Windsor AFS Chapter on the Detroit Free Press, WXYZ Channel 7, WDIV Channel 4, Local ASM and AFS Chapters in the local region, and the Engineering Society of Detroit, of which the Detroit-Windsor AFS Chapter has recently become an affiliate. Congressman Hoekstra shared with us his views on the future of Michigan and the role the metal casting industry has in helping shape Michigan’s future. We also had a social hour sponsored by Cadillac Casting, Automation, Testing & Design (ATD) and 3 Point Machine, and private security for this momentous AFS dinner event was provided by Veritas Global (www.veritas-global.com).

For the March dinner event, I am proud to say that the Detroit-Windsor AFS Chapter, along with outside sponsors who will be acknowledge at that event, will provide three scholarships for deserving students. The Detroit-Windsor AFS Education Committee, under the leadership of the Education Co-chairs, John Burford and William Ruth, came up with a new scholarship application form for these three scholarships. The Foundry Education Foundation (FEF) reviewed the scholarship application form and found it to be one of the most fair and complete application forms used for selecting and evaluating students for metal casting based scholarships. I wish to congratulate the Detroit-Windsor AFS Education Committee on the excellent job done! Also important to note our guest speaker for March dinner meeting will by Dr. Sam Ramrattan, Professor at Western Michigan University. The Technical Chair for this event will be Bob Smillie, the AFS National Director.

The Detroit-Windsor Chapter is also participating in regional AFS Chapter conference calls with AFS National, focusing on what AFS National can do to help troubled Chapters trying to survive these difficult economic times. There was some spotlight on how the Detroit-Windsor Chapter has reversed the downward spiral experienced over the last couple of years by exploring more cost effective ways of doing chapter business, new ways of finding sponsors, having weekly conference calls to stay on track with our efforts, and using websites such as Linkedin and Facebook in the future to advertise dinner meeting events, golf outings and other Detroit-Windsor fundraisers. We are not dying; from adversity we are gradually changing the face of what a thriving AFS Chapter has to be in these difficult economic times. The Detroit-Windsor Chapter will gladly support other chapters on lessons learned, and to help strengthen AFS as a whole. We, of course, will learn ideas developed from other chapters. Reinventing ourselves on the chapter level, and at national, will not be easy; but our passions for AFS are strong enough to make viable changes happen.