Experts and resources
By Kevin Delaney, STLE President | TLT President's Report November 2025
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I just attended my 50th high school reunion—wow! After a while talking to old classmates, it seemed like no time at all had gone by. Of course everyone looked different, but they sounded the same, and once you knew who they were, you could see the resemblance to their senior yearbook picture, which fortunately was on the name badges. The pictures were a great idea, since that was how you would remember everyone. One possible area for improvement would be to print the names in a large font so that we could see them better (less staring and squinting).
After the reunion I received a LinkedIn message from one of my classmates asking if he could forward a lubricant idea to me. I think this is interesting because it shows that our industry, though not the biggest, has a reach even to rural Pennsylvania.
In his message he characterized me as a leading expert—I told him I am not, but I certainly know some experts. STLE is rich with them. I haven’t seen his idea yet, but I am sure that regardless of what it is, I will be able to find someone (and most likely several people) who can provide an opinion on its viability.
A relatively new area for lubricants is e-mobility. STLE has been actively involved in this lubricant application from the start, and this month marks the 5th STLE Tribology & Lubrication for E-Mobility Conference, Nov. 19-21. You might even be reading this column between technical presentations at the Detroit Marriott Troy in Troy, Mich. One of the keynote speakers for this conference, Peter Björklund with TRATON GROUP, is also a source for the TLT Feature article in this issue, where he discusses the lubricant challenges of heavy commercial vehicles. Also in this issue is a Webinar article featuring Dr. Peter Lee, who discusses how electrified environments present new tribology challenges for vehicle fluids. Even if you couldn’t make it to Detroit this year, I encourage you to read the insights shared here in TLT to keep up with these industry developments.
STLE has great resources for continuous learning about e-mobility and every other facet of the tribology and lubrication fields: articles in TLT, peer-reviewed articles in Tribology Transactions and Tribology Letters, webinars, podcasts and contacts you make by being a member of this great organization.
So when a former classmate asks you about a lubrication idea, you can say, “I know someone.”
Kevin Delaney is global sales director for the Petroleum Group at Vanderbilt Chemicals, LLC, based in Norwalk, Conn. You can reach him at kdelaney@vanderbiltchemicals.com.