EDITOR

Heat Treat Today publishes twelve print magazines a year and included in each is a letter from the editor. This letter is from the August 2026 Annual Automotive Heat Treating print edition. In today’s letter, Bethany Leone, former managing editor at Heat Treat Today, shares her insights on why technical standards and specifications only become truly valuable when paired with the shared experience of the people who apply them — and how learning from others’ failures, engaging with the heat treat community, and contributing your own perspective all strengthen the industry’s collective problem-solving.

Technical excellence isn’t built only through standards and specifications. What gives that information practical value is the shared experience of the people behind it.

Technical Info Needs People

Specifications explain what should happen. Experience teaches why it sometimes doesn’t. Studying standards and expanding your technical knowledge will make you an amazing engineer in theory, but the core identity of a heat treater is one who crafts solutions for ever-evolving situations. This comes through testing, practice, creative problem solving, and, inevitably, failure.

Failure teaches, though we often cringe at the word. It’s true, failure always comes with risk. So how do we fail well? One way is to listen to the stories of others: the trials, the testing, the creative problem solving, and even the mistakes.

Knowing the people in this community is the first step toward becoming part of its ongoing conversations. This is how trust is built. You may experience this by following your favorite author or speaker through various industry platforms.

Once we understand how others solve problems, standards and new processes become much easier to apply in our own work. Whether it be hearing the short shop analyses or reading fully published case studies, absorbing the problem-solving experiences of others informs our own problem solving.

Finally, after observing and learning from the heat treating community, the greatest value comes from being a part of the conversation yourself — from lighthearted comments to rigorous skeptical commentary.

In sum: Technical ideas become more useful when they’re shared by the people who put them into practice.

License to Engage

This publication reflects this reality of connected technical decision-making. Not only do we publish articles, we invite your participation.

Expanding how you can feel and be a part of the heat treat community and conversation, we are now spotlighting readers at the end of each magazine (see page 60).

We are also launching a few new features on page 59 of this issue that test your knowledge from the articles you read (Heat Treat Trivia) and encourage you to have a chuckle (Heat Treat Humor).

And of course, you may have noticed the Reader Feedback icon on various pages, reminding you that our door is always open for your questions, queries, and comments. Keep writing — we so appreciate your thoughts, however short or long.

Read…Then Contribute

Often, our most engaged readers become the clearest contributing authors.

But even if that’s not you, we want to hear from you: what you thought of that polarizing article about process change, whether you agree with the Heat Treat Trivia results or had a better answer, or are looking forward to an article on a specific topic. Every perspective strengthens the conversation, whether you realize it in that moment or not.

Heat Treat Today publishes twelve print magazines a year and included in each is a letter from the editor. This letter is from the July 2026 Annual Super Brands Issue print edition. In today’s letter, Bethany Leone, managing editor at Heat Treat Today, shares her insights on why interpreting client needs, not technical know-how, is often the real challenge engineers face — and how deliberately practicing creative thinking, the willingness to ask “what if…?”, is the skill that builds resilience in the face of change.

I had the pleasure of attending an award ceremony for a local metallurgy chapter filled with academia and industry players in metals processing. As we chatted around the table exchanging first-hand stories about aerospace engineering industry feats and reflecting on materials capabilities, the conversation took a turn. What was their biggest challenge of their careers? The unanimous, almost immediate consensus came down to interpreting client needs.

One gentleman with a full career and retirement worth of experience commented first. A lot of confusion came from the misuse of or difference in terms. For example, use of the term “sheet” versus the desired “foil” outcome in rolling operations. This reminded me of a maxim my colleague and managing editor predecessor likes to quote: “The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” Until you understand what the terms of the discussion are, neither you nor your listener can make much of it.

Another expert chimed in and shared that clients often brought their own expectations of what made for a sufficient thermal processing outcome. But with testing, though the specs were met, the part failed. Finding the words to bridge the gap between the expectations of clients and the world of testing that he lived in was a regular feat of strength. Or perhaps a feat of the mind through creative thinking.

In both cases, technical expertise was not the limiting factor. The challenge was finding a new way to understand and communicate a problem.

Exercising Creativity

Today’s world of advanced technology does not necessarily undervalue creative thinking, but it is a metric that is often misidentified. What is often thought of as creative thinking is often another skill: problem solving, logical reasoning, savvy use of tools.

These are all excellent abilities to have. But I fear for myself and especially for the engineers navigating the new manufacturing world that we are not flexing the creative thinking muscle purposefully. There are increasing defaults in our lives that minimize effort while maintaining quality outcomes (note the key word: maintain). With technology’s rapid advances, practicing creative thought increasingly requires a deliberate choice to break through what is normal or assumed to be “right” answers in search of new solutions.

This skill is built by repeated efforts to challenge accepted norms — think, perhaps, heat treat process recipes — and invites “what if…?” to solve new problems. This is not a necessary tool to apply to every instance of challenge, but the effort to break mental rules is a scientific superpower that makes us and our operations resilient in the face of change.

Research suggests that mentally stimulating activities like crosswords and sudoku may support cognitive health and delay cognitive decline. And while logical thinking and memory skills play a foundational role in problem solving, the magic moments often come with a forced “what if…?” Whether in a scribbled newspaper game or on the plant floor, this daring thought comes after you have done your due diligence, executed the research, laid the logical framework, and tested for solutions systematically.

What If…?

Decide to practice and not offload this ability. You are among many who finesse every tuning, manage every hot zone refabrication, or confront each production issue. Therefore, the greatest engineering skill will be to let curiosity prevail and slowly, painstakingly find the words to ask the right questions.

Heat Treat Today publishes twelve print magazines a year and included in each is a letter from the editor. This letter is from the June 2026 Sixth Annual Buyers Guide Issue print edition. In today’s letter, Bethany Leone, managing editor at Heat Treat Today, shares her insights on why a print directory still earns its place in an engineer’s toolkit.

The physical act of flipping pages, folding corners, and marking up listings creates a kind of accidental learning that a search bar can’t replicate. And the guide serves everyone differently — metallurgists, maintenance managers, and newcomers still learning the industry’s vocabulary all get something different out of it.

I’m a fold-the-spine-backwards kind of person. Chaotic annotate-at-an-angle kind of researcher. Audiobooks were designed to protect documents from people like me. But full immersion is sometimes the only way to really use information designed to help you learn or answer a question.

While the other issues in this magazine contain a slew of articles and stories to inspire and teach North American heat treaters about their equipment and processes, this issue is the industry directory. Its process-driven structure is designed to make the directory a practical next step for engineers and decision-makers evaluating their options.

A central use is finding out “who’s who” even before you need to call an equipment supplier or process provider. This can easily be done online at www.heattreatbuyersguide.com too, but in print, comparison becomes physical. Your eyes move faster than tabs open. A folded page, a pen mark, and a highlighted listing become part of the evaluation process itself.

Additionally, it is a tool to learn what’s outside your primary area of expertise. Search bars are excellent for finding answers to questions you already know to ask. Directories are different. They expose adjacent technologies, unfamiliar process names, and companies you may not have encountered otherwise. This accidental learning is hard to replicate online.

For an in-house heat treat operation mainly focused on annealing processes for steel grades but looking to enhance hardness profiles, Heat Treat Buyers Guide introduces you to the range of equipment, processes, and suppliers involved. Mark these, circle the companies, or leave a half page fold for your future self when it comes time to make a process improvement decision. While some sections may not matter today, a new alloy, distortion issue, or throughput challenge makes those folded corners and handwritten notes the starting point of the next improvement project.

The wide reach of this tool is critical for heat treating, a process dependent on an interconnected network of specialties. At my last trade show, an engineer who had transitioned from aerospace into furnace manufacturing told me, “Surprisingly complex! I had not anticipated all that goes into engineering a furnace. It is very different than aerospace, and not at all simple.” Every process step has its own expertise, from fixturing, atmosphere control, and quenching to testing, software, and beyond.

The table of contents provides the main equipment categories with color tabs that replicate on the pages of the corresponding sections. Be sure to check out the final few tabs which indicate listings for commercial heat treaters and a few leading consultants in the heat treat industry closer to the end.

The most representative categories to page through include:

• Aluminum Heat Treating
• Annealing
• Hardening, Quench & Temper
• Vacuum Heat Treating
• Induction Hardening
• Solution Treating & Precipitation Hardening

In line with new heat treat technology developments are increasingly represented categories around vacuum:

• Vacuum Furnaces
• Vacuum Carburizing
• High-Pressure Gas Quench
• Vacuum Hardening
• Vacuum Brazing

The guide serves different purposes depending on who opens it. A metallurgist may use it to identify process capabilities. A maintenance manager may use it to source replacement systems or atmosphere components. A young engineer may simply use it to learn the vocabulary of the industry.

Whether you keep yours tidy and pages well-thumbed or take the closest sharpie to mark your next hit list, use this directory to better understand your options within the North American heat treat industry.

Heat Treat Today publishes twelve print magazines a year and included in each is a letter from the editor. This letter is from the March 2026 Annual Aerospace Heat Treating print edition. In today’s letter, Bethany Leone, managing editor at Heat Treat Today, shares her insights on the tension between a surging editorial workload and the need for thoughtful, deliberate decision-making — and why choosing clarity over the rush may be the most important discipline we can practice in the busiest of seasons.

The holidays are past; the fervent rush of “let’s get things done!” has arrived. I’ve sensed the pressure build as the editorial team faces limited time, increased volume of articles, and competing priorities. Navigating the excitement to publish technical articles and make public news statements becomes the work of editing.

Influx of Activity

This past month brought an increased editorial interest from industry suppliers and partners. Industry experts writing about new technologies often are busy with developing those products and refining the processes. So when these individuals take the pen (the keyboard), we seize the opportunity to bring their thoughts to you. This ensures the wider North American heat treat community is benefitting from the treasure trove of instruction, guides, and practical warnings to best operate equipment and maintain processes in a timely way.

You’ve likely heard murmurs of events and in-person engagements. Case in point: Heat Treat Today’s Helium Leak Detection Seminars launches this month. These also have occupied our time as the editorial team prepares content and carves out time to follow up with new people, meet remotely with folks, and even attend webinars ourselves. All of this means processing editorial content sooner than usual and anticipating industry trends that come out of these forums.

This increase in editorial volume necessitates more focus and less time to reflect. As a curious and systems-oriented person, these times of focus, while invigorating, leave me wishing for time to reflect, research, and develop better processes. This is not order for the sake of order, but to ensure that articles truly capture and deliver the value that authors intend, and that they do so at the right time for readers.

All Movement, No Time to Think

It is now that I feel the first inclinations of the dreadful “r” word: rush.

There is no allure to rushing. In American culture, we do find ourselves busy, but rushing is never appealing — it is all activity without the direction of a thoughtful decision. The “r” word in the editing world means a missed opportunity to define an unclear metallurgical term or printing a graph too small that causes readers to squint. Bring that word up in an audit and everyone becomes uncomfortable. Hurriedly chip off February ice from your windshield to get to work and drive off dreading if your wallet was left behind in the rush.

More ideas, asks, input, and even adjacent activity by colleagues can often bring less margin. If only I could have time to think and execute everything all the time in a day, then I’d be happy! But instead of wishful thinking, I find the best first step is to stop yearning for an unchanging balance of priorities and readjust the expectations for output (or thought life) that I once held, even as recently as the day before. External demands pushing us into action require decisive thinking. The goal is clarity under constraint, not just endurance in the excitement.

Marching Orders

In all of this, remember: on the opposite side of my editorial conundrum is a slew of experts seeking to connect with you, our readers. In their own way, they too are in “execution” mode. Take advantage of their efforts and send us your feedback (editor@heattreattoday.com) whenever a question or idea strikes, or if you have more to add than that which was covered in the scope of an article.

And of course, here I am: send me your technical articles! You may find me joyfully drowning in grammatical questions, image requests, or word count conundrums.