Local sections in action
By Kevin Delaney, STLE President | TLT President's Report May 2026
A recent visit to the STLE Philadelphia Section showed the impact of an award-winning outstanding section.
Members of the STLE Philadelphia section award scholarships to students at local universities.
I just finished the STLE Update presentation for the STLE Philadelphia section. They were pretty happy to be receiving this year’s outstanding section award. This is at least the second year in a row. The day I visited was their annual commercial forum meeting, and they squeezed me in to hear about all of the great things STLE is doing. There were five commercial presentations in addition to mine. It was a “hybrid” meeting with about 20 or so in-person attendees, and I think five to 10 attended virtually. They’ve been doing this for a while, and in my opinion, they ran it like a well-oiled machine (intentional metaphor).
The first commercial presentation was from Beth Griegel with Advancion. She just recently joined the company, the industry and STLE. She is planning to attend the 2026 STLE Annual Meeting: Innovating Through Tribology & Lubrication, May 17-21 in New Orleans, La. We welcome her, along with more than 100 other first-time attendees, and appreciate her willingness to jump in.
They had a section business presentation, and one of the slides mentioned that over the past several years, they have given out over $100,000 in scholarships. TLT recently featured the most recent recipients in the March issue. Another interesting item was that they track past winners, and they highlighted a couple of people who won around 10 years ago that were either in the industry, or “industry-adjacent.” The tracking helps to validate that their intentions are having the desired effect.
In my presentation I mentioned that as part of the Outreach leg of our strategic plan, we are increasing our involvement with STEM programs. The STLE Philadelphia Section’s scholarships (and STLE’s national ones) target college age people. We would all like to get ideas on how to try to interest grade school and high school students. Some local sections already participate in STEM nights in their communities, which is a great start.
I would like to thank the STLE Philadelphia Section for the invitation, and I hope to see everyone at the annual meeting.
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.