What Is Eustress?

Ever heard of “Eustress”? It is the word for “good stress”. We all need good stress in our lives to make us feel vital, alive, and excited about the day. While it is possible to get too much good stress in your life, it is important to get enough of it in your life. Good stress can come from relationships, learning, goals, challenges, etc. What if you find yourself with too much stress – good or bad?

The most common signs of too much excitement in your life include:
• Impatience or Edginess
• Lack of Enjoyment
• Sleep Problems
• Exhaustion

Here are some healthy ways to deal with stress in your life:
• Take a walk
• Call a friend just to chat
• Work out at your favorite gym or get outside and go for a run.
• Play with your pet
• Putter in the garden (okay well Spring is on the way!)
• Get a massage
• Read a good book
• Listen to your favorite music

Something to think about...
Often times when we find that we are under the weather or really sick on the weekend and we ask ourselves, do I wait until Monday to go to my doctor, or should I see someone today. Ask yourself these questions: When should I go for care and where should I go to receive that care? If it can wait until Monday to see your primary care physician, that’s great. But if not, here is a “rule of thumb” to consider:

Emergency Room:
• Life-threatening symptoms – chest pain, trouble breathing, uncontrolled bleeding

Urgent Care Center:
• Serious problems – sprains, fevers, minor cuts and burns

Walk-in Clinic:
• Minor problems – colds, allergies, sore throats

From the President

A Team:

We all look forward to this time of year where we can count on the days getting longer and the weather getting warmer. And, we sports fans get to fill out our brackets for March Madness and completely and entirely miss the mark.

But, what we all really and truly look forward to this time of year are “Girl Scout Cookies”.

It has always been something everyone looks forward to here at Adrian Steel. Girl Scout Cookie delivery day! As they make their deliveries up and down the halls of Adrian Steel boxes are opened and thoughts fill the air that few will make it home.

An interesting fact that many may not realize is that the Girl Scout Organization was founded on March 12, 1912, and is celebrating one hundred years of existence. With that in mind this year while walking around Adrian Steel and years in seeing the boxes of Girl Scout cookies I thought a little less about the cookie and more about the organization that was able to achieve this impressive milestone.

In doing so it brought me back to an article I read by Thomas Friedman about Kathy Cloninger. Kathy is credited with the recent transformation of the Girl Scout organization. She has actually written a book about the transformation called Tough Cookies. In it, she states that “I don’t care what kind of company you work for, what qualities were average ten years ago are below average today and what is average today is not good enough to create long term success”.

Wow. Here’s something to chew on, if the Girl Scouts get it, do we?

Your teammate,
Dave

New Laser Machine

We sat down with Randy Marks, Plant Manager at Adrian Steel, and gave him the floor to talk about a project that he has been pursuing since the year 2000 - obtaining a laser machine for the Adrian Steel plant. If you look up the word “persistence” in the dictionary you should find a picture of Randy wearing a tee shirt that says “laser machines forever” and he will be standing on top of a laser machine with a sign that reads “this machine destined for Adrian Steel”. We’ve been told that Randy would ask the question “what are my chances in this organization to see a laser machine?” over and over and over and, one more, over, and always received the same answer. The answer always had something to do with a very, very cold winter apparently because it was going to be when some place “freezes over”.

Finally, a committee was formed. Mark Mohr, Randy Marks, Rodger Goodrow and Marc Jackson have been working on getting the right machine at the right time. Their intentions were to replace another machine, an automated turret that was brand new in 1988 and had since become outdated and labor cumbersome. When asked if the four would pose for a photo we were supplied with the following:

From left to right: Marc Jackson, Rodger Goodrow, Randy Marks and Mark Mohr

For this latest technology they looked at a German company, Trumpf, that builds their machines in Connecticut. They are the leader in laser – both industrial and medical. What we chose was a “TruDisk laser”. Order in June, 2011, it was delivered in January of this year and we hope to have it in production right around the time of this publication. TruDisk lasers are ideal for welding and cutting metals where high quality, continuous high power and very good beam power are required. Excellent for the automotive industry! Because of the nature of laser, we will be taking extraordinary precautions and steps in training and safety. We have sent two A-Team members, Mark Mohr and Gregg Ries, to training at the Connecticut facility in regarding to its operation and we recently sent Craig Smith, our Safety Director and Mark Mohr to Phoenix, Arizona to learn about safety and the precautions necessary for using a laser. As we incorporate the TruDisk into our daily manufacturing operations, we will be reporting all the news about the laser and providing photos. It is an exciting time as we enter a new era of operation.

Click here to see more pictures.

As a teaser to next month when we can, hopefully, feature the laser in use, the advantages of our TruDisk laser:
• is that it is more efficient (it will require no changeover time)
• it eliminates micro tabbing (which require small burrs to be ground off manually)
• it is a clean cut that uses nitrogen and because of the clean cut powder coating adheres
• and, there is no tooling to buy.

When Engineering designs new product, we will just cut the new shape and size.
To be continued…

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©2012 Adrian Steel Company
www.adriansteel.com