President’s Message

By Bill Kreysler

How are you fairing with the regulators these days? Now that the MACT rules are in place we are hearing daily from members being visited by inspectors wanting to see their records, permits etc. I had dinner with a friend and his wife last night. They were just cited for not having their MACT records in order. He is a long-time ACMA member, goes way back to before the FFA days, even remembers Charlie Whitman’s dad, Lawrence, receiving an SPI award way back when.

He’s pretty typical of our membership, working hard to make ends meet, send his two daughters to college, build his business enough to sell it or hand it off to his employees some day. He is far from intentionally breaking the law but, with everything else that needs doing it’s easy to put these regulatory matters on the back burner. The regulators he is working with are being reasonable. So far no $25,000 per day fine, which they could impose according to the law, so no draconian measures. They also understand it’s hard enough to run a small business and are giving him time to get things together. They even have a guy on staff to help him fill out the forms after he tried and apparently didn’t get it right. Even this state “expert” didn’t really understand why and where the UEF fit into the calculations or how it worked. “Just fill it out and don’t worry about it,” he said.

Still rules are rules and since he has officially been cited he will have to get this figured out pretty soon. Now that he’s looking more closely, he’s feeling that once it’s in place it won’t be all that hard to keep it up. Like many of us he’s a minor source, so he isn’t all that concerned.

But here’s the rest of the story. Not more than a day after the citation he got an unsolicited brochure from a law firm offering to represent him. He also is now on the “Worst Polluters” website, which lists all emission sources by name, address and owner’s name, in ways, shall we say, not very supportive of business. Like it or not, he is “on the radar screen.”

Pretty soon everyone in our industry will be, no matter how remote or independent one may think they are. Ignorance, or not getting around to it, might work for smaller companies in most cases, at least initially. Even the government knows better than to go around slamming business’ doors without at least giving them a chance. But there will be those over-zealous regulators or, more likely, the fiercely independent businessman who gets pissed off that the government is trying to tell him what to do. There will be casualties. Businesses will fail, citations will be issued, lawsuits will be filed and fines will be assessed.

My friend in Oregon who told me he wasn’t interested in participating in ACMA since he was in Oregon and “up here we don’t have the same regulations you guys in California have” may be surprised one of these days to discover that EPA is a federal agency and at least at the moment Oregon is still in the Union. With a small business, you might be able to hide for a while, but you can’t run, and when you are found you will be at the mercy of whoever is doing the finding. You could get lucky and get a reasonable fair person or you could end up with the Attila the Hun of regulators and have your liver eaten in the town square.

Or, you could take the time to read the documents, fill out the forms and be ready when you get the call to show that you are in compliance. ACMA has been working for years to develop tools that are effective at reducing pollution but reasonable for fabricators to abide by. We have spent thousands of hours of staff and volunteer member-time and hundreds of thousands of (actually well over $1MM) dollars to make these regulations manageable and doable. We have worked hard to convince EPA that we can be effective at policing ourselves and have built a good working relationship with EPA that has resulted in regulations that we can live with, and that represent a true win-win situation for the environment and for our businesses.

Now it’s our turn to show them we appreciate their trust, we deserve their support, and we are justified in our argument that policing ourselves is the best way to meet the clean air act goals. If we fail at this, it’s “bring out the big dogs” time, and nobody is going to win, least of all the small fabricator. The big guys are probably OK. They can afford folks in their companies to manage these issues and frankly they are often, on the whole, better corporate citizens than smaller companies. We small guys tend to avoid doing the right thing sometimes by not being noticed. The bigger companies have to be better citizens since they are too big to hide. But in this environment that may end up working to their advantage. Since they have more to loose they are taking this whole thing much more seriously than small fabricators are. My nightmare scenario is that the big guys will survive and small fabricators, in spite of the work ACMA has done to make their requirements minimal and reasonable, will fold under the pressure of increasingly impatient regulators who apply higher standards to those of us who are found to be more likely to abuse their trust, and one of the last bastions of the manufacturing entrepreneur will fade into history. We have a responsibility, if not to ourselves and to our employees, then to those like us who will come after us and who will have not much more than ambition, a willingness to work hard, and perhaps a few dollars or some credit left on their MasterCard, but who have an idea and decide that they want to start a business making things out of composites.

We composite manufacturing entrepreneurs are an endangered species. We need to recognize that it isn’t guaranteed that we will make it through these new times when environmental issues are becoming a bigger deal among voters. We are the guardians of an opportunity that has allowed us to start our own businesses, often with nearly nothing, and grow businesses that provide creative, rewarding jobs to thousands of employees as well as our own families.

Take the few minutes to get a binder going with the records you need. If you need help go to www.acmanet.org and follow the simple instructions. Even if you don’t get it right at least you will be showing good faith and in most cases that can buy you enough time to tidy it up and get it right before the axe falls. See you in St. Louis October 18th to 20th. Be there!

Bill Kreysler, CCT, ACMA President
William Kreysler and Associates
707.552.3500; bill@kreysler.com