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Despite the fact that we depend on gasoline to get us from point A to point B, few of us could say how that liquid gets from the ground to our gas tanks. We buy milk from the store; we get fuel from a gas station: simple! But the milk wasn’t made in the store, nor the gas at your local ExxonMobil, so how did it get there? Let’s start with the basics—of gasoline that is, not milk.

Once upon a time, American families would wake up in the morning to fresh milk waiting on their front stoop. Dedicated milkmen delivered that delicious liquid to growing boys and girls everywhere, making it no longer necessary to keep a cow in the backyard. Today, milk delivery has all but disappeared, with a meager 0.4 percent of consumers still paying for this service. But never fear: the milkmen of yesteryear are still hard at work hauling milk, just in a different capacity.

We all have a vague sense of oil: it comes from the ground, is changed into a useful fuel source or petrochemical, and eventually benefits our lives. Oil headlines regularly splash across the news, and we notice when gas prices fluctuate.  But what does the average American actually know about the refining process itself? In truth, we probably know more about cooking oils than we do about crude ones.

The transportation sector includes companies that move people, products, and other goods across the United States to various destinations, and it takes millions of workers to make it all possible. Several specific sub-sectors are included in the transportation category, including air, rail, marine, truck, transit and ground, scenic and sightseeing, and support activities. As an integral part of transportation, infrastructure and logistics are also counted as part of the sector. These categories and subcategories are made up of private and public companies like airlines, shipping...

2019 wasn’t exactly a banner year for the trucking industry. From trade deals gone awry to an unexpected tariff war to driver shortages and regulation changes, the industry grappled with a host of challenges—some predicted, some not. Combined, these issues led to around 640 trucking companies filing for bankruptcy in the first half of 2019 alone. The year ended on a somber note, with heavy-hitter Celadon closing its doors as the biggest bankruptcy in trucking history.

If you’ve ever been on a worksite where a pressurized air hose suddenly becomes disconnected or a hose failure occurs, it’s not something you want to experience again. The quick exhaust of air causes the hose assembly to whip around violently, creating a potentially dangerous situation for all those around, not to mention the possibility of damaging equipment.

When using a portable air compressor on a worksite, what component should (almost) always be part of the job? The answer is a safety check valve (SCV), properly installed between the compressor and the hose. In fact, if your air hose has an inside diameter of more than a ½ inch, OSHA requires a SCV to be installed at the source of the air supply to shut off the air automatically in case of hose failure. (If a check valve is not being used, OSHA requires a safety cable, such as Dixon’s King™ safety cable, to be attached to the hose.) But selecting the right safety check valve is an...

One of my favorite quotes/speeches comes from our 26th President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt.  His “man in the arena” speech was given after he left the Presidency in 1910 during a visit to Paris.  It is too long to recite in its entirety here, but it begins like this:

Ah, the simple joys of summer: warm evenings on the back patio with friends, fresh tomatoes on a BLT, and the sweet smell of chlorine after a long afternoon at the local pool—it doesn’t get much better than that. But that pool-perfume we associate with swimming has more applications than just summertime fun. In fact, chlorine is a fascinating chemical, essential to everyday life, and used in the production of everything from life-saving medication to the phone in your hand. Hold on to your swim caps—let’s dive in.

It wasn’t so long ago that two thirty-somethings stood on a beach near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, witnessing the first powered flight in the history of the world. The year was 1903: Wilbur Wright was airborne for roughly three seconds. A century later, homosapiens have been transformed from a species incapable of flight to one that has walked on the moon--it’s hard to imagine so much innovation in only a few generations.

Stop, drop, and roll: most anyone who hears this phrase knows exactly what to do and why: they’re on fire! As acts of fire prevention, we clean our chimneys, install smoke detectors (and change their batteries), and instruct children never to play with matches. But is fire safety really that simple? Not exactly. And it becomes even more complicated when added risks—like proximity to flammable substances or large crowds—are part of the equation. So how can we prevent fires? Enter: the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Let’s have a little Q&A. 

Paint is pretty powerful. Not paint-ings, like Picasso or Monet. Just paint. Painting beige walls a “dusty rose” transforms a room from a boring home-office to an expectant nursery, while a coat of “sage green” on wooden cabinets takes a dated kitchen into the twenty-first century. Paint can change a familiar space into something totally unrecognizable, but it can also serve as a form of self-expression: agonizing over two shades of green allows those of us who are artistically challenged to tap into our inner Rembrandt.