The Powder Coating Institute (PCI) held its annual business meeting on May 17-18 in Marco Island, Florida. This meeting was very important to the members to review the state of the industry and trends for future business. The last two years have seen the slowest growth in the powder coating industry since PCI began keeping statistics. Is it better now, and will it continue to get better? We are all wondering if recovery is inclusive for all industries and geographic areas or isolated to specific sectors, and whether or not it will last.
No one can really predict the future, especially with world events in such a state of unrest. It would be overboard to say that we came away "pumped," but there were some positive signs. For beginners, the attendance was the same as last year. No gains, but more importantly, no losses. That tells us that the members are still committed and expect some return on their time and efforts from participation in PCI.