CLEVELAND–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) announced today that Ron Lowry, owner and president of Minneapolis-based Dayton Rogers, was elected 2016 chairman of the PMA Board of Directors during the annual meeting of members on March 12 in Palm Springs, CA. Dave Arndt, president of Pentaflex Inc. in Springfield, OH, will serve as PMA Board first vice chair, and Richard Sade, vice president of S & S Hinge Company in Bloomingdale, IL, will serve as second vice chair and treasurer.

“I’m honored to be elected board chairman and thank 2015 PMA Chairman and Termax Corporation CEO Bill Smith for his great leadership and all that he accomplished over the past year,” said Lowry.

Lowry announced that the theme of his one-year term as PMA chairman is “Manufacturing Matters,” which is aligned with his personal 2016 New Year’s resolution: “Complain less and do more, in every aspect of my life.”

Lowry pledged to use his PMA chairmanship to encourage manufacturers to join him in taking matters into their own hands in two key areas: closing the skills gap and helping elected officials and general public understand the importance of manufacturing.

“Manufacturers need to educate our local communities, including educators and parents, as well as local and national leaders, about the critical role that manufacturing plays in the overall health of the U.S. economy,” Lowry said. “We also need to better explain to our country’s young people how the success of U.S. manufacturing will impact their future, and how they can contribute to that success.

“While manufacturers have gone to great lengths to improve our efficiency and safety and develop career opportunities for the next generation of workers,” Lowry continued, “our nation’s leaders continue to fail to recognize our industry’s value and need to do more to encourage our growth and prosperity. That’s the genesis of my theme, ‘Manufacturing Matters’—to do all I can, and make sure PMA does all it can, to raise awareness and plant the seeds of change.

“We need policies in place that create incentives and drive innovation, expansion and investment here in the United States,” concluded Lowry. “That is critical to our long-term health. If we want to continue to be a first-class manufacturing country, our elected officials must support policies that help our sector.”

Learn more about Lowry’s goals during his term as chairman in the March 2016 issue of MetalForming magazine.

PMA is the full-service trade association representing the $137-billion metalforming industry of North America—the industry that creates precision metal products using stamping, fabricating, spinning, slide-forming and roll-forming technologies, and other value-added processes. Its nearly 900 member companies also include suppliers of equipment, materials and services to the industry. PMA leads innovative member companies toward superior competitiveness and profitability through advocacy, networking, statistics, the PMA Educational Foundation, FABTECH and METALFORM Mexico tradeshows, and MetalForming, Fabricating Product News and 3D Metal Printing magazines.