As this issue of Coatings World hits your desk, we’ll be winding down from a long stretch of travel including back-to-back-to-back shows, covering NPCA’s annual meeting in Nashville, ICE 2006 in New Orleans and ChinaCoat 2006 in Guangzhou. (If you were unable to attend any or all of these events, tune in next month for comprehensive coverage from all three shows.)

In addition to gathering all the latest news, trends and new technology information to help satisfy your coatings palettes, these events allow us to get up close with you, our readers. Speaking of readers, this issue is, in essence, dedicated to you as it features the fifth incarnation of our one-of-a-kind R&D Salary Survey (page 26).

For our annual salary survey we again polled chemists, lab managers, R&D directors and support staff about how much they make and their concerns about job security and compensation, as well as other issues including conerns about their workplace environment.

Once again, we were extremely pleased with the industry’s response. Each year our survey is attracting more and more participants. As more of the industry’s chemists are voicing their opinions and providing data to our survey, we are able to offer a better picture of what working conditions are really like in the coatings formulation trenches.

So thank you to all who participated for making this another successful installment of the Coatings World R&D Salary Survey. If there is something specific you want us to poll our readers for next year, E-mail me at [email protected].