Coal Preparation Society of America

Message from the President

   To our members, corporate members, and vendors that had booths, I want to thank you for your attendance at the Coalprotec 2022 Conference in Lexington, Ky.  With all the covid restrictions and postponements, you all showed up and made this event truly amazing with over 500 in attendance. Thanks to Mel Laurila and Kathryn Dew for their hard work and dedication for making the event go so smoothly.  From the Board and myself, Thank you.

   It is my hope that each of you had the same uplifting and rejuvenated experience while at the Lexington Center with such a great event.  Special thanks also to Rick Honaker which assembled a top notch set of presentations that was beneficial too. All were very well attended.

   Coalprotec 2022 was great.  But I can tell you that we started planning to expect more in 2024 the day we closed out the show.  I am truly excited to see where we go and what we accomplish in the coming years.

  There needs to be many thanks to Joel Franklin for his devotion and leadership during his reign as President of the Coal Prep Society.  As many before, he has maintained the focus through a struggling time for the industry.  The focus of the society has continued through this challenging time, thank you Joel. Looking forward to your continued effort by staying on the Board and being active to help in our efforts as a society.

 Our duties looking forward for all of us all is to maintain our focus on mentoring and attracting energetic talent into our industry.  As most have all noticed, as the world turns, the demand for coal has grown to record breaking levels in sales price and the need looks to be extending into the future, a lot further that most have been led to believe.  As most of the readers of this forum, we know that Coal is the lowest cost and most reliable source of energy that exist. As with all the detrimental things going in the world, the demand does not seem to be slowing.  I truly believe that there are some that are actually starting to realize the need.  Natural Gas prices are high.  Transportation cost are high.  Even the food that we buy and eat everyday is high.   We are all feeling it.  

  In closing, as the new President of this Society, I would like to thank the Board for your confidence in looking to me for leadership, and the membership acknowledging by vote to elect me to the honor of being the President of the Coal Prep Society of America.  I can only hope that I can live up to the expectations and help this society succeed and continue to educate the future leaders in this industry.   I can truly tell you that there are so many that I could thank who have helped me through my career and have been helpful in teaching me the skills to efficiently operate and manage processing plants.  

  May God Bless each and every one reading this and you may work safely each and every day. Feel free to reach out to me with any ideas or comments that you may have at anytime. 

Respectfully,

Jeffrey Walkup