NFPA Engagement Opportunities

Getting involved in NFPA activities is one of the best ways to bring added value to you and your company. NFPA is on the forefront of many industry-shaping initiatives. Your active participation not only brings necessary industry expertise to the table, it also connects you to knowledge, resources and business opportunities you can’t get anywhere else.

To help get you or others in your company connected, we’ve summarized below a list of opportunities aligned with NFPA’s current strategy. It’s just a representative sample. There are many other opportunities—including some of your own creation—to better align your interests with our objectives. That helps both of us. To discuss this potential, or to volunteer for anything listed below, please contact our Membership Manager, Leslie Miller, (414) 778-3369.

Our Mission

Simply stated, our mission is to strengthen the fluid power industry. We do that by focusing on three areas of strategic priority: (1) Serving as a forum where all fluid power channel partners work together; (2) Promoting the technological advancement of fluid power; and (3) Building and connecting our members to an educated fluid power workforce.

Here are some of the current engagement opportunities that align with those strategies:

1.  Inclusiveness: Serve as a forum where all fluid power channel partners work together.

• Member Recruitment Campaign. Our focus this year is on recruiting more fluid power distributors into the membership. Now that those members are able to vote in NFPA elections and are eligible to serve on the NFPA Executive Committee, their role in governing the association has been greatly enhanced. We need existing members—distributors and manufacturers alike—to help us identify good distributor prospects and to talk with them about the value of joining NFPA’s unique supply chain forum.
• Distributor Committee Membership. To help distributor members take better advantage of the services available to them, and to help create future services that align with their unique needs, we need more distributor members participating on NFPA’s working committees. Serving on the Education Committee, as an example, or on one of the technical committees associated with our standards development process is a great way to network with manufacturers and to offer a distribution perspective on the programs and services NFPA is developing.
• Economics and Statistics Committee. This committee is responsible for keeping NFPA’s essential data and market information services aligned with member needs, and it currently in the process of being re-invigorated with new members and a new chair. Making sure this critical service area continues to serve our members—especially as that membership diversifies across the supply chain—will be a key challenge for the new committee.

2.  Technology: Promote the technological advancement of fluid power.

• Markets and Messages. The Marketing Committee needs people with expertise in marketing fluid power to customer markets to help develop messages about fluid power’s unique competitive advantages in each of those markets. Three markets—one for mobile hydraulics, a second for industrial hydraulics, and a third for pneumatics—are chosen each year. Messages and appropriate resources are created and added to the customer-facing pages of the NFPA website.
• NFPA Innovation Award. Each year the Marketing Committee gives this award to a machine builder or end-user that uses fluid power in an innovative fashion to address a real market need. In 2011, the award went to a pair of engineers who used a hydraulic system to reduce the amount of fuel consumed by commercial fishing boats. NFPA members are needed to nominate potential awardees in 2012 and to serve on the review committee that will decide on the winner. By promoting these innovative uses of fluid power in specific applications, NFPA is able to raise the profile of the technology across the market.
• NFPA Education and Technology Foundation Research Grants. One way that NFPA helps create new technologies is to award grants out of its Foundation to research institutions that are pursuing projects that align with a pre-competitive research agenda. A third such award will be made in 2013, and volunteers are needed to serve on the committee that will identify that project area that represents the most promising area, review the grant applications that are received, and select the awardee institution.
  

3.  Workforce: Building and connecting our members to an educated fluid power workforce.

• Fluid Power Challenge Events. Five NFPA members are currently organizing Fluid Power Challenge events in their local communities—connecting their companies with dozens of eighth-grade students and teachers to introduce them to fluid power and get them interested in career opportunities in our industry. Many more members are needed to host new events, or to serve as competition judges for one of the existing events.
• Project Lead the Way Connections. Through NFPA’s efforts, fluid power has been added to numerous Project Lead the Way engineering courses, a unique and problem-based set of curricula used in thousands of high schools across the country. These students and teachers want real-world engineers to come into their classrooms and help put their instruction into a real-world context. NFPA can help connect you to the teacher in your local school district.
• Fluid Power Laboratories. The NFPA Education and Technology Foundation launched a new funding program this year that will provide grants to open fluid power laboratories at universities and technical schools and keep them stocked with the fluid power components and materials of our members. The labs will dramatically increase a school’s ability to include real-world fluid power education as part of its curriculum. Component donations are needed, but so are individuals to serve on the review committee that will determine awardees for future lab grants.
• NFPA Foundation Education Grants. The NFPA Education and Technology Foundation also offers smaller project grants to allow universities and technical schools to develop or purchase fluid power educational materials for their students and classrooms. More than 20 such grants have already been given with more being offered each year. Members are needed to serve on the review committee that selects the recipients for these grants.
• Online Education. The NFPA has a number of educational resources on its website designed as introductory instruction for new industry hires. It’s time to review and update these materials. A dedicated committee of volunteers is sought to help us create a development plan that better serves the educational needs of our members.