Back when I was a cub reporter, I wrote a story about two crazy teenage boys who made their own videos, featuring their brand of zany humor. It was a memorable interview, and after the story was published, I received a characteristically memorable thank you. “I’ve gotta give you props,” one of the teens wrote to me in an email.

As a recent college grad, I was slightly embarrassed to have no clue what he meant. Was props a good thing? Or, had I totally botched it? I had to ask around the office and found, to my relief, that he was happy with the outcome. In case you are as lost as I was, Merriam-Webster says props is a slang term that, “is said to publicly thank and give special attention to someone for doing something: credit or recognition.”

Today, I’m giving out some props. I’m starting with the maintenance managers group, TEAM M3, which I recently profiled in the November issue of Ethanol Producer Magazine. I think what that group is doing is very cool. Recognizing that sharing information (and even parts) will help them, rather than hurt them.

Even the acronym and the full name is interesting. Today’s Ethanol Advanced Maintenance, Maintenance Managers’ Meetings. Now that’s clever. Of course then there’s the plant managers group. While the name is less catchy, I give them points for seeing a good thing and not being afraid to jump in and reproduce TEAM M3’s success.

At the very end of the story, I mentioned that TEAM M3 had set up their Ethanol Network website so another group could be added to their maintenance, plant managers and environmental, health and safety groups. A lab managers group.

Turns out, that’s not a new idea. Last week, Donna Haugen, lab manager at Golden Grain Energy LLC, let me know that the lab managers already have their own, similar group. Midland Scientific sponsors a conference where lab managers gather much like the maintenance managers do. And, they have a similar email list, which has been active for more than three years. Glad to hear it and props to the lab managers, as well!

The group emails are useful for a variety of things, Haugen told me. Sometimes the lab managers ask for help working through a problem, discuss things they have done to improve plant efficiency or go over how certain enzymes or other ingredients have worked in the plant. Other times talk turns to preferred types of instruments, when one member will be purchasing new instruments, troubleshooting problems with instruments or, like the TEAM M3 groups, borrowing parts. Specifically, she said that discussions on HPLC columns (high-performance liquid chromatography) and HPLC standardization, was helpful to her.

Haugen also put me in touch with Laurie Kimber, lab manager at Absolute Energy LLC. Kimber said one big benefit of the group is validation sample testing. “We are able to test a sample on our equipment and then take or send samples to another plant to verify that our equipment is performing correctly,” she said. “Occasionally we may take a sample for testing and then pick up one of theirs to test at our plant.”

When lab employees (lab techs and assistants are also welcome in the group, she said) have questions, they can email the list that is exclusive to lab employees or a larger list, which includes vendors. “Normally, questions posed to either of these groups are addressed within a short period of time—I would say hours, but more often than not it is minutes, as most of us are constantly monitoring emails for various reasons,” she said.

There are 125 members in the lab managers group, said Kylie Keegan, marketing coordinator for Midland Scientific Inc. “Since we are a lab supply distributor, we prefer to stay out of the conversations and choose to provide this as a service for the industry because they are such great customers of ours,” she said. “To piggyback off of this, we also host an annual Fuel Ethanol Laboratory Conference every year—a conference full of speakers, networking, exhibitor booths and more catered specifically to the lab managers.”

To join the group, ethanol plant lab managers should email Keegan at kkeegan@midlandsci.com.

The way these groups cooperate and help each other out, making themselves stronger in the process, impresses me a lot. Although it takes a slightly different form, it reminds me of the companies that share benchmarking data, to help each other grow and improve. In particular, the benchmarking program facilitated by Ascendant Partners is formatted to develop relationships and encourage information sharing, much like lab managers and TEAM M3 groups I’ve now written about. 

Kimber described the groups’ spirit of cooperation and relationship building in a way I really appreciated. “I believe that the ethanol industry is truly more symbiotic than any other that I know of,” she said. “We realize that we all need to survive to reinforce the positive effects of renewable energy.”

It makes me wonder. First off, if your ethanol plant personnel aren’t involved in these groups or similar groups, why not? As far as I can tell, getting involved is only going to have positive effects.

Secondly, are there other departments in a typical ethanol plant that should have their own groups? Operations staff? Accounting? Commodities? Grains departments? Purchasers? Perhaps there are others I haven’t thought of. What’s stopping groups from being formed to help the employees in those departments? I’d love to see the success that these groups have built be reproduced on an even larger scale.

If it’s already happening and I just don’t know about it, please let me know. I want to give your groups props too.