Ask Questions, Wait For Answers

I've covered the chemical industry long enough to know the best conversations happen in the margins — not in press releases or earnings calls but during conversations where I pose a simple question and listen to the answers. That’s when folks talk about what's keeping them up at night.

Lately, those conversations happen over Teams meetings because gathering people together in person is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. Conferences are a great way to get face time with people. An even better way to get in front of our audience is to host our own event. Endeavor Business Media, Chemical Processing's parent company, acquired eChemExpo, a regional expo, conference and professional seminar event based in Kingsport, Tennessee. This year, the show takes place April 7–9 at the MeadowView Marriott Conference Resort & Convention Center.

What makes it interesting is how the content gets built.

Conference director Damon Shackelford described an interview-driven process where the planning team asks executives, including vice presidents, operations leads and asset managers, for their two-year outlook on capital investments, hiring challenges and emerging technologies. Then the people reporting to those executives weigh in on the nuts and bolts. The conference agenda grows out of that input.

"This is essentially a market-led expo," Shackelford told me in a recent podcast. "They tell us what they want and what they see coming. Then we interview the people reporting to those executives. They give us where the rubber meets the road."

The result is a program that reflects what practitioners deal with. This year's theme is Energizing Growth and Resilience in a Competitive Landscape and tracks main issues that Chemical Processing covers daily: industrial artificial intelligence, workforce development, operational excellence, environmental health and safety, instrumentation and process reliability, and novel equipment design.

Shackelford highlighted the "gray tsunami" of experienced workers retiring faster than organizations can develop replacements as a key issue. That challenge has been building for years, and the chemical industry is feeling it acutely.

What I find most useful about an event structured this way is that it avoids the generic. Safety, for instance, wasn't listed as a track because it seemed like the right box to check. Shackelford told me it surfaced as a priority in every single one of the more than 100 interviews conducted to build this year's content, regardless of the actual topic being discussed. That's the impact of programming being driven by real conversations.

The keynote may be the clearest illustration of that philosophy. Rather than leading with a chemical industry case study, this year's opening address features the Tennessee Department of Transportation's response to Hurricane Helene — a storm that caused catastrophic damage in the Appalachian region, far from where anyone expected a hurricane to land.

When I first read about the keynote, I wondered how it applied to chemical processing operations. But it fits. Civil engineers are trained for long-horizon planning, not disaster response. After the hurricane, the engineers working with the Tennessee transportation department had to pivot in real time to protect lives. They applied what they knew to an unexpected event. 

Similarly, the chemical industry can’t write a management of change procedure for every contingency. What you can do is build an organization capable of adapting when the unexpected arrives. That's the “aha” moment the eChemExpo conference keynote creates, and it's the kind of thinking that belongs in a room full of engineers and operators.

Beyond the conference programming, eChemExpo has practical appeal for professionals who need to maintain certifications. The event offers professional development hours through the local AIChE chapter under Tennessee professional development hours and national API guidelines. This year, for the first time, it is also offering continuing education credits for inspectors covering API 600 for steel gate valves, API 598 for the valve inspection/testing standard and API 2000 for venting atmospherics and low-pressure storage tanks, among others. The addition came directly from requests by asset managers who needed a path to inspector recertification without flying across the country, Shackelford said.

To illustrate the range of courses, one seminar will be led by a Ph.D. from Germany who will provide in-depth instruction into the differential equations underlying API 2000 and the most recent research on excursions. It’s not an introductory course. That level of specificity is difficult to find at large national events that come at a much higher price tag. 

The pre-conference on April 7 adds more options: an ISA golf tournament and a perimeter tour of Eastman Chemical's facility. At more than 990 acres, Eastman is the kind of site you can't fully appreciate unless you see it for yourself. 

The show initially grew out of Eastman's footprint in the region, but it has expanded. BAE Systems, BWXT and its affiliate Nuclear Fuel Services are now major participants. Attendees have come from as far as Cincinnati, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis with outliers from Europe, California and Texas. 

The geographic footprint of the audience speaks to the ROI argument. For engineers and operators who don't have a travel budget for Las Vegas or Houston, a drive to Kingsport for two days of substantive content, professional credits and vendor access is a defensible ask. 

"You will get super-high-end conference content, super-technical seminars and some of the best vendors across the United States for very little money," Shackelford noted.

For Chemical Processing, this acquisition is a meaningful extension of what we already do. We cover the issues our audience faces, including process safety, workforce challenges, environmental compliance, operational reliability and emerging technology. eChemExpo is built around those same issues, sourced directly from the people managing them on the plant floor and in the executive suite.

Executive Editor Jonathan Katz and Content Director Keith Larson will be covering the sessions and reporting back with the essential elements. Having looked at the lineup, I suspect we will have great content for a long time. Wondering why I won’t be there? It’s not for a lack of want. Unfortunately, I am recovering from bilateral breast cancer treatment. I will continue my conversations via Teams and leave the Jell-O nailing to Jon and Keith this go around. 

eChemExpo runs April 7–9 in Kingsport, Tennessee. For more information, visit echemexpo.com.