There’s a new pen in town!
Peter Wray, retired Director of Communications, reflects on his "retirement career" at ACerS. Credit: ACerS.
For the last five years, ACerS Director of Communications Peter Wray has been the dominant voice of the engineered ceramics blogosphere. In fact, he started it. He was hired in 2008 to establish a “web presence” for the Society by then-executive director, Scott Steen. And, wow, did he ever!
Peter came to ACerS after retiring from the Ohio Civil Services Employee Association, where he directed the public relations department. “I was looking for something to do for about five years until my wife retired,” he says. “Coming to ACerS was sort of like a hobby, but with a lot of interesting challenges, interesting technology, and interesting people.”
He established the Ceramic Tech Weekly blog with weekly updates of news and trends relating to ceramic engineering and science (see an early post here). Quickly, it grew to Ceramic Tech Today with daily updates that are broadly distributed in a twice-weekly email. Peter also was editor of the ACerS Bulletin and published a number of memorable articles on topics such as concrete recycling in Haiti, wound-healing glass, and Pyrex cookware.
Long story, short—Mrs. Wray retired in January. Peter stayed true to his plan and retired in February. Well, sort of. He is still working with us part-time to produce CTT posts, videos, and some special projects.
ACerS new associate editor, Jim Destefani. Credit: ACerS.
As we bid an affectionate “adieu” to Peter, we are pleased to welcome a new member to our team. Jim Destefani joined our staff yesterday as associate editor and will be writing CTT posts, editing the ACerS Bulletin, reporting on conferences, and following the news and trends regarding our favorite materials.
Jim brings a depth of technical magazine publishing experience to ACerS, with particular expertise in the manufacturing and metalworking areas. He worked previously for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers as well as for several for-profit business-to-business publishers.
We are excited to have Jim on our staff and look forward to his contributions.
