Citation
Cox, B. (2007), "NACE - Corrosion 2007", Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Vol. 54 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/acmm.2007.12854dac.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
NACE - Corrosion 2007
Nashville, USA, 11-15 March 2007
Those of you who read this column from time to time will know already I consider that attendance at the annual NACE corrosion conference to be a “must do” activity for any practicing materials and corrosion engineer at least every few years. I have managed to get to most of them since Boston in 1982 but I did not go to San Diego last year – it is a nice venue but a long plane ride from the UK, so Nashville this year was a necessity.
The meeting was held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Centre, a glorified greenhouse that is actually a few miles outside Nashville itself. Only Americans could build something quite so nice and quite so garish all at the same time in a green-field site and then have the audacity to name it anything like the “Grand Ole” Anything. I have seen the original theatre and I know about the long-running radio country music show but none of that prepared me for the Opryland Convention Centre, or the (actually brand new) “Grand Ole Opry” (Figure 1).
Figure 1
The Gaylord Opryland Convention Center, Nashville
There were 5,000 delegates and the conference centre accommodation was completely sold out. You could take boat trips up and down the canals in the greenhouse and there were umpteen different places you could spend your money before you left town, all apparently owned by Gaylord, whoever he may be. It has to be said, nevertheless, that the facilities were clean, smart, well- appointed and pretty well organised, and actually they were all pretty reasonably priced as well. The meeting rooms and the exhibition area were all within the same facility so delegates did not need to move from building to building and the place did not feel like the empty barn that the San Diego or Orlando Conference Centres can become towards the end of the week. The weather was unseasonably warm which also added to the atmosphere.
This year you needed to be there on the first day of the meeting which was 11 March, i.e. Sunday. Sunday used to be an optional day when all the committee meetings took place but over the course of the past few years more and more technical meetings have crept in there as fewer and fewer people want to stay on until the end of the week. This year the meeting ended on Thursday, leaving Friday completely free (Figure 2).
Figure
2 Delegates in session at NACE 2007
Although NACE styles itself as a “Technical Society” it is not difficult to scratch the surface and find the old “Guild of Pipeline Engineers” still there just under the glossy top coat, so the Cathodic Protection men are still basically in control, their close allies the chemical treatment vendors are right alongside, and the paint vendors immediately behind the chemical vendors. And there you have it – pipeline protection inside and out. Yes, there are people from the nuclear industry, and the military, and the paper industry, and the refining and petrochem industries, but the underlying control is still in many ways the old guild of pipeline engineers. Other people are allowed but woe betide them if they ever think they are going to exercise real control!
Inevitably, the result is that peculiar American mixture of hospitality and paternalism. It is American, it is therefore the biggest, but you are invited too and you are encouraged to participate in every available activity. Once again, the Refinery Industry session was outstanding, as was the Information Exchange. The seminar room was packed for most of that meeting and there must have been close on 250 delegates just in that one session. The quality of papers this year was excellent – I would say higher than in some previous years, and the pricing of the CD Rom of the Proceedings was more realistic. The Feature Forum, “Corrosion and Punishment – Can you be held legally responsible?” was topical, thought- provoking and well-attended, and there were 14 “Forums and Special Meetings” which included Bridge Painting, Defence, Health and Safety, Marine Coatings, and Leadership Training. There were 40 Technical Symposia, most of which seemed to take place on Tuesday. Christopher Leygraf (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) gave the Whitney Award lecture, Jose Antonio Gonzales (CNIM, Madrid) gave the Speller Award Lecture and Winston Revie (CANMET, Ottawa) gave the main Plenary Lecture of the meeting. There was another excellent Research in Progress seminar. John Broomfield (UK) and Bijan Kermani (UK/Iran), along with Leon Terrase Sr (Louisiana) received Technical Achievement Awards, there was a student poster session, and of course, there were innumerable Technical Committee Meetings with their own in-crowd jargon of TGs (Technical Groups), TEGs (Technology Exchange Groups), and STGs (Specific Technical Groups). As was helpfully noted in the programme, TEG designations are always followed by an “X” (Figure 3).
Figure
3 Editor Bill Cox (right) photographed with Kirk Johnson of Metal Samples
(left)
On the down side everyone is double- or triple-booked for every hour of the day and most of the evening, the exhibition is always closed or just about to close whenever you try to get in, and it is almost impossible to walk anywhere without bumping into someone that you really must stop and catch up with. It is impossible to cover everything you want to attend, and inevitably you choose some places and then wish you had been somewhere else when you hear what an interesting session was held. The meeting should be at least three times as long, to enable you to get to everything you need, but then again nobody would stay that length of time, so you just do the best you can and try to catch up on the rest later.
A new development this year was the World Corrosion Domination Meeting – or rather the “World Corrosion Organization Meeting”. I obviously missed the international roundtable last year where the WCO was germinated, though I have had a long-standing interest in the former NACE International Relations Committees. I was invited by the late Redvers Parkins to join the then IRC, and attended the packed and very busy meeting at the (1989?) San Francisco meeting, only to find that the committee was disbanded by the then incoming President, Bob Brown, soon thereafter. There was a good reason for his action – the downturn in global industry meant that NACE was spending above its means and expenditure had to be cut. There was a move headed by the late David Whitby, the Australasian Corrosion Society delegate, to take over the NACE board by forming as many new chapters as possible outside North America (because according to NACE rules at that time each new chapter was entitled to its own representation on the Board of Directors). As a newbie on the Committee, I was surprised to receive a note from President Brown advising me that my services were no longer required. However, I was sympathetic to the idea that NACE worked as well as it did because it was an American idea and I did not agree that it would necessarily work as well if the organisation was taken over by someone from another part of the world.
It seemed apparent that perhaps a new dawn might be breaking when at the 1997 New Orleans meeting it was announced that a new Committee was to be formed and this would be the “International Relations (Operations) Advisory Committee”. This was intended to be a think-tank for the NACE Board to try to frame policy that would assist NACE in its objective to become the acknowledged leader of corrosion control technology worldwide. (“Operations” related to the internal NACE structure under which the Committee existed). Here, at last was an attempt to listen to the issues that were important to delegates and NACE members from outside North America, and perhaps to try to find ways to accommodate them within the “NACE International” environment. The IROAC collected together opinion from the various National Corrosion Societies around the world, usually from NACE members who also were members of their respective national corrosion society. Generally speaking, the corrosion control industry is sufficiently small on a national basis that many of the same people are involved in both groups. The problems can arise when a small minority who, either do not have adequate formal qualification to get far in a professional technical institute or were people who disagreed with those leading the local national society, ingratiated themselves with NACE in the hope that of a higher profile association. Fortunately there is usually still a role in representation at a national level and there is often a degree of healthy realism as to the possible/likely motives of NACE in terms of membership. Nevertheless, there should be a role for the major corrosion control and prevention society to lead opinion and initiatives on a global basis. The relevant term here, however, is to lead (not drive) such opinion, and that seems to be where a blurring of objectives can arise.
Two years ago these ideas, and a range of others were submitted for consideration by the NACE Board of Directors. The reaction from the Board was to reject the document and disband the IROC. Members of the Committee received a letter similar to that circulated by Bob Brown, but this time signed by George Hays, the then incoming President of NACE, advising them that their services were no longer required. It came as quite a surprise, therefore, to find the same George Hays addressing this inaugural meeting of the WCO. The Organisation was formed with the proviso that it was registered in the USA and had a majority of Directors who were citizens of the USA. Michael Schütze (Dechema, Germany) was appointed as a serving non-American. Representatives from other contributing National Corrosion Societies (Australasian Corrosion Society, Institute of Corrosion, European Federation of Corrosion, Chinese Society for Corrosion and Protection) could vote. Others, i.e. possibly the Saudi Arabian Corrosion Society and the Libyan Corrosion Society could vote if they agree to pay their subscriptions. Still, at the current dollar rate the subscription level was not prohibitive for people to pay just to have a say at the table (Figure 4).
Figure
4 Kalliopi Aligizaki at NACE 2007
There is no doubt that the idea of a world co-ordinating body for corrosion prevention technologies has merit and should be supported. The declared goals – normalised standards, raising public awareness of the need for corrosion prevention, the identification of best practices, and the provision of corrosion prevention expertise to governments are perfectly laudable. However, if NACE is seriously interested in promoting international collaboration why would it not (for example) throw more effective support behind the International Corrosion Council (ICC)?
As in so many things these days, the issue is one of trust. With control so firmly in the American corner it will be interesting to see if the World Corrosion Organisation will be any kind of jointly-organised high-level group to lead and develop corrosion awareness throughout the world.
The closing view on the Nashville meeting was that it was well done. Not perfect, but better than anyone else could have organised elsewhere in the world. There really is a place for a leader to co-ordinate the propagation of good practice in corrosion control technology. If you missed the meeting this year, then put New Orleans in your diary for this time next year. It is good value even if you disagree with some parts of the strategy and if you are working in corrosion control then for sure this meeting is the best opportunity to keep your finger on the pulse of developments in the field.
Bill CoxEditor