For all intents and purposes, editorially, GWD was a two-man operation: I was editor and Ron Lucas was my managing editor. Between us, we produced most of the copy inside the magazine. We had a couple of contributing columnists from the welding and gas communities as well as an expert contributor, but I usually wrote from one to three features per issue and handled the news, "people," and industry sections while my No. 1 took care of the mundane stuff like convention promos and new equipment. On average, Ron, my No. 1, also contributed a feature per issue as well. We'd get a contributed article occasionally and I'd put my editor skills to use directing the content of the article and massaging it into shape after it was submitted. It often took more than Shiatsu to fix up stuff submitted by PR people.

       Not being a by-line hog, I'd put my moniker on one piece I'd written per issue – okay, it was what I considered my best article – and let the others I wrote appear anonymously. Below is a sampling of the stuff I produced during my tenure. These are excepts since I've had to re-key most of them.
       Click on the titles to link to the articles.

The Ups and Downs of Rightsizing

Advice about how to make sure a gas and welding supply distributorship has the proper number of employees. This was a shift from the coverage of my predecessors. They focused on distributorship profiles and technical articles. I tried to give our audience help in the "soft" side of running their businesses.

An interesting note about this cover. It was done using a paint program. I'd have sworn it was in pastels.

Hiring and Firing, the Alpha and Omega of Business

This was a companion piece to the Rightsizing article above. I don't think anyone working at a gas and welding supply distributorship ever wore a suit unless they were being buried in it. This graphic was also created using a paint program.

The Welders' Supply Co. Successfully Rides the Crest of Change

A couple of brothers took over the welding supply business from their father when he retired. These Baltimore guys were the most unlikely pair of welding supply shop owners I'd met. Both were college grads and the older brother's favorite exclamation was "groovy."

Turning Acetylene Lime Slurry Into An Asset

Acetylene comes from the reaction calcium carbide has with water. You get a gas made of C₂H₂ and a mildly alkaline powder. You could eat it for acid reflux if there were no Tums around.

Make Sure Abrasives Rub Customers the Right Way

We ran a department called "Product Knowledge," that told our readers stuff they mostly knew. Mississippi Welding Supply has this piece in their technology information section of their web site. Maybe I should get the RIAA to drive a spike through their computer's heart.

Smith Welding Supply

Here's a short guy with big hair running a welding supply shop in Dee-troit city. Why is it that most gas and welding distributorships are in the bad parts of town?

From Spartanburg, with love

This was a press release I inherited when I took over the reins of GWD. I turned it into a short little piece just because I like James Bond movies – no, not the Roger Smith / Timothy Dalton ones. I think the two guys in the picture were expecting to get slapped in the testes and were protecting themselves.

Portland Welding Supply "Cements" Its Position in Maine

This was a remote-control profile. I tried to get a geographical mix of business profiles. I conducted the interview by phone and talked Miller Electric – a welder maker – into sending a photographer to get pictures. Sadly, these were the ugliest guys we'd ever profiled, shot by a photographer who had as much sense of style as a stone. We tried to use them for a cover, but just couldn't bring ourselves to put their mugs on the front.

Ironworkers

This was a command performance "Product Knowledge" article forced on me by my publisher. My audience didn't sell or use these machines so I saw no use in writing about these things. I have a hunch that my publisher took an ad for some ironworker maker and had to make good with a piece about these machines. Think of them as big mechanical blacksmiths – they pound metal into very uninteresting shapes. Why did I do it without raising a stink? Well, it wasn't that hard and as George Bernard Shaw was once reported to have quipped: We know what you are, all we're doing now is quibbling about the price.

Customer-concern places PatriArc in the "Hot 100"

The "Hot 100" was some other publication's listing of the fastest growing businesses in some obscure category. PatriArc was the only gas and welding supply distributorship on the list. That's worth a profile in my book – literally, since in the magazine publishing world, a magazine is called a "book." See Gregory Peck's film "A Gentleman's Agreement" for proper use.