CHICAGO — To honor the memory of Wendy B. McDonald, one of the power transmission/motion control industry's true pioneers, the PTDA Foundation established the Wendy B. McDonald Award. The award acknowledges a woman who has established herself as a critical contributor to her company's success and has affected positive change within the power transmission/motion control industry. The 2016 recipient of the Wendy B. McDonald Award is Linda Miller of B & D Industrial.
Miller wasn’t seeking a career in power transmission/motion control distribution when she joined what was then Bearings & Drives in 1975. She had just moved to Macon, Ga., from Jackson, Miss., and was simply looking for a job. She had been referred to Bearings & Drives by a previous employer. From her first job as a clerk/typist, Miller began attending IBM training and was rewarded for her information technology skills by being named manager of information technologies in 1982. As Miller trained others on the new systems being installed, she also learned about the people she was training. It was a natural next step to name Miller as B&D’s first manager of human resources in 1996 (in addition to her IT responsibilities). Her contributions to the company in this dual role were recognized with her election to vice president later that same year.
In her acceptance speech during the PTDA 2016 Industry Summit in San Diego, Calif., Miller thanked many people in her life and said, “I do love this industry. Without the people in this room, the world would not exist as we know it today. Nothing would be processed. Nothing would be manufactured. And, nothing would move. In my book, that’s pretty heavy, so I want to say thanks to each and every one of you for contributing to the lifestyle we’ve come to enjoy.”
Mrs. McDonald's son, Scott MacPherson, was on hand to present Miller with the award. For more information, visit www.ptda.org/WBMcDonaldAward.
