Welcome to the New (and Old) ID

We’ve all heard that old, sentimental saying: If you love something, let it go. If it returns to you, it was meant to be.

Maybe it’s the cynic in me but I must say, personally, that this is almost never true. When I made the gut-wrenching decision to leave my 1988 Ford Taurus behind when I left for college, its next road trip was to the junkyard. (And if you’re reading this, Dad: couldn’t you have, at least, let me grab my mix tapes?)

Anna Wells, ID Executive EditorIn all seriousness, though… when I left my position as editor of Industrial Distribution back in 2015, I thought it was probably goodbye forever. And I was legitimately bummed, because I had spent five years getting to know the marketplace, even morphing into what I now refer to as a “distribution nerd.” But the opportunity to join a startup publisher that catered to readers in the industrial supply chain was too good to pass up, so I set out to join Industrial Media and never looked back.

That is, until, we learned that Industrial Distribution was looking for a buyer, and it was a quick decision to bring it in-house and re-launch the only title that’s been reaching industrial distributors and their supply chain partners since 1911.

As many of you well know, acquisitions are a lot of work. Outside of the many logistical details of on-boarding a new brand, we’ve been busy working to re-launch our website and daily e-newsletters, which you can expect to see later this month. And before the dust settled, we decided to create some more dust:

We hired another ex-ID editor – Mike Hockett – a name you’ll likely remember if you’ve been a regular reader in recent years;

We contacted Jack Keough – the editor who preceded us both – and convinced him to reprise his column, A Closer Look (check out this month’s installment from Jack on page 30 of our digital edition);

And, we dug into our pool of contacts and set out to develop the annual Big 50 List so we could publish it in the Fall, as we’ve done in years past (find more on page 12).

I’m very excited to be back at the helm of this magazine — one whose pages have been home to the expert insights of hundreds of industry stakeholders over the years. And we will continue to adapt, because this constantly evolving marketplace requires it. In support of that, we hope you’ll let us know if there are topics, trends, businesses or people that deserve to be highlighted. Outside of that, if you’re not receiving our e-newsletter by December, please drop by our website (www.inddist.com) and sign up. We’ll be visiting inboxes daily with the latest company news, M&A activity, market data and new product information, and you won’t want to miss it.

In summary, welcome to the new (and old) ID. It’s great to be back.