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FALL 2024

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Distributor's Link Magazine Fall 2024 / Vol 47 No 4

100 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S

100 THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK ERIC DUDAS UNTHREADED: THE TIME CARMEN GOT IT WRONG from page 28 See, the survey was part of a quickly conceived event we put together to replace the originally scheduled hydrogen embrittlement presentation Carm was going to give that day. He had to reschedule because he was asked to teach at the concurrent Fastener Training Week session. Thus, I received a call from the MWFA board to come up with a way to somehow fill the gap. I knew many people would be crestfallen to miss one of Carmen’s HE lectures, so we had to come up with something good. It had to be big. It had to be entertaining. And ideally, it had to allow me a chance to mention hydrogen embrittlement without actually having to know too much about it. Taking a page from master conference coordinator Vickie Lester’s playbook, I proposed to produce a fastener quiz game show modeled after one of my favorites from the 70s, Match Game. Hollywood Squares would have worked as well, but with the low ceilings in the conference room and Cavoto’s abject fear of heights, we played it safe and went with Match. We called it FSTNR Match ‘24. We recruited Matt “Johnny Olson” Delawder of SWD to be the announcer, and our esteemed panelists were Jo Morris, Charlie Kerr, Jake Davis, Jill Lewis, Mallory Nichols and Rich Cavoto. To play the game and have a shot at an array of fabulous prizes, we invited Danielle Pawloski of BBI and Nick Penney of Vogelslang. In FSTNR MATCH ‘24 ANNOUNCER MATT “JOHNNY OLSON” DELAWDER OF SWD DESCRIBES THE FABULOUS PRIZES SUCH AS THIS AMAZING TOASTER JAKE “VALDEZ” DAVIS OF BTM MFG. AND ERIC DUDAS ON THE SET OF MWFA FSTNR MATCH ‘24 addition to his announcer role, Matt did an amazing job running the audio and creating over the top graphics and sound for the event, which included the infinitely cheesy theme music from the original game show. The entire production was managed by MWFA executive director Francesca Lewis, who was flying solo during her first major event since picking up the leadership mantel. We had a blast and got lots of laughs, filling our time slot before the table top show and getting down to serious fastener business. Always too modest, often to the point of selfeffacement, Carmen approached me that afternoon after the show and commented, “That was great, man! So much better than another one of my boring presentations.” I recalled a moment at the last IFE when he and fellow fastener educator Laurence Claus had a disagreement on stage during a break out session. The good natured dispute was related to a fine point about a plastic fastener application question they’d received. CONTINUED ON PAGE 101

THE DISTRIBUTOR’S LINK 101 ERIC DUDAS UNTHREADED: THE TIME CARMEN GOT IT WRONG from page 100 ALWAYS THE THOUGHT LEADER, CHARLIE KERR OF KERR LAKESIDE EXPLAINS WHY FLAT WASHERS ARE HIS CHOICE AS MOST COMMON FASTENER CATEGORY After they’d both responded to the question, and realizing they’d contradicted one another, they acknowledged that in the fastener industry there are sometimes no right answers, only opinions about what is right. Replying to Carmen’s quip, I had to disagree. “Thanks, bro, it was fun. But if you think that was better than one of your presentations, you’re crazier than a styrofoam tension bolt!” “No way, who wants to hear me go on and on about hydrogen embrittlement while they’re trying to eat lunch? What you guys did was way better,” was his retort. So even though Carmen Vertullo was clearly incorrect in this case, that doesn’t happen very often. The man is a legend. And fortunately, we have the honor to feature him as he delivers his Fastener Training Minute on every episode of the Fully Threaded Radio (www.fullythreaded. com) podcast. There are dozens of episodes archived and available on demand. It’s a treasure trove of deep fastener wisdom. I’m sure about one thing: Thanks to Carmen and the MWFA, I got to have some predominantly fastener-related fun at this year’s huge FSTNR Week. Now get out there and sell some machine screws! ERIC DUDAS

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