My questions for Todd A. Grimm and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers are simple enough.  In short, I want to know given how deeply involved Todd is with the non-profit organization as a for-profit consultant, how do they make certain that Todd avoids any manner of financial conflicts?

The question might never have arisen given that most large trade organizations rely on active, involved, volunteer members to propel them.  That these members also achieve exposure and recognition that bolsters their private businesses is almost a given.

But Todd's visceral dismissal of me as a potential 'competitor' such that he did not want to even talk to me when I approached him at the recent RAPID 2008 in Orlando got me thinking: How can someone so integral to SME and its activities wear his own financial interests so openly?  And how, really, do I threaten him as a competitor?


Take a moment to consider Todd.  According to his official bio - the only bio I might add that was printed twice in this year's official RAPID 2008 event directory - he has been an adviser to SME's RAPID conference for eight years.

Among other things, that means he has a say (perhaps not the say) in who serves on SME panels and who gets to keynote SME events.  It also means he has a say in who doesn't get invited to serve at these events (His competitors perhaps?).

Since Todd, a keynote speaker this year, was unwilling to even stand still and talk with me face-to-face in Orlando, because as he explained he views me as a potential competitor, it does beg the question/s of whether SME is only a "tool" to promote some of its members.  (I, too, am a paid member, but I guess that doesn't impress Todd.)

More than one SME staff member has tried to explain to me that Todd wasn't unwilling to speak to me because I might be a direct competitor to him.  Rather, Todd was dismissive of me because he and SME believe I might be a direct competitor to the entire Society.

Funny.  The explanation that Todd fears me for my potential competition with all of SME is even scarier for what it represents than that Todd fears me only for my prospective competition with his own prosperous RAPID marketing consultancy.

Is SME that vulnerable that one person - talented as I am -- is a threat to it?  And what is/was my threat?  That I offered to provide FREE advice during RAPID 2008 on how to raise the media visibility of SME-member companies?

Lord knows that SME, itself, and Todd specifically are not doing the job of generating great press for our industry.   SME writes, acts and thinks like a 1960s-era trade association when it comes to public relations and self promotion.  I blame it directly for the fact that its member-companies are as invisible to the world as they are.  (And if you are a member company, you should be asking yourself what has SME done to help promote me and my company to the world at large?)


Rather than compete with SME, I paid to join the group and offered my services for free to it and its members.  Let me work from within, I requested.

But SME rejected that idea.  In fact, SME's Lisa Dodge, to whom I made the offer to provide SME members free media relations training during RAPID 2008, asked me a bunch of snippy questions about my intent, then never responded to my offer.

SME's Lisa Dodge: 'Stop the Interview!'

While Todd was walking away from me at SME, Lisa and her colleagues were doing everything possible to obstruct my efforts to promote the RAPID industry.  In fact, at one point when I was in the middle of interviewing Northrup Grumman's Boris Fritz on camera about his remarks at RAPID 2008, Lisa actually cut into the interview to stop it (see photo at left), questioning my journalistic credentials.

What I was able to save of the interview with Boris is now posted on the L-VMA web site and on YouTube, where it has already been viewed more than 50 times.

How many video clips from the conference did SME post on YouTube to promote our industry to newcomers?  Do the folks at SME even know what YouTube is: A customized conduit, perhaps, made on an additive fabrication machine?

Lisa and SME were not done with me, yet.  They monitored me as I walked the exhibition space at RAPID 2008 as if I were an interloper who at any moment might 'steal' an SME member and stopped me a second time to ask me to produce proof on the spot that I am, indeed, a journalist.  (If I'm not, I sure do a good imitation).

Then when I returned from the conference, SME's own PR person, Lori Dick, told me she wants "independent" proof that I actually worked at one time for The Wall Street Journal as a columnist and investigative reporter.


Lori's questioning of my bona fides tells me how awful she is at understanding and working with the media.  How simple for her to enter my name in a Google search and after dismissing all of my references to myself, see how many other news organizations, such as The New York Times, refer to me as a former WSJ reporter - not to mention that many of my WSJ articles still appear on the Internet. (Major PR Hint: Don't question the legitimacy of a journalist unless you've first thoroughly researched his/her background yourself. Journalists don't like that.)

To get back to the point, both SME and Todd Grimm feel threatened by me and L-VMA, the volunteer organization I launched to promote the Additive Fabrication industry.

My investigative reporter's instinct tells me that both SME and Grimm have grown very cushy with the arrangements that are in place and they don't want some 'outsider' putting their activities under a microscope.

Leave well enough alone.

But 'well enough' at SME is not good enough.

Who decided that Todd Grimm, who is scheduled to become the 2009 Chair of SME's RTAM Community Steering Committee, should be a keynote speaker for this year's conference and exhibition?   Doesn't this group already know Todd and what he has to say?

How about some fresh blood and fresh ideas? 

Moreover, I'd like to know who else who spoke at this year's RAPID conference is a client of Todd's?  Does SME load its panels with friends and clients of its steering committee members?  Both SME and Todd are mum on this issue.

Even as I was preparing this post the mailman came and delivered to my house a flyer for SME's bookstore.  The book that is most visible on the cover is Todd Grimm's User's Guide to Rapid Prototyping (black cover, center).

Flyer for Todd's 'Rapid' Book

Now clearly, Todd makes money when SME sells copies of his book, doesn't he?  And is it ethically correct for SME to use its non-profit postage rate to promote Todd's for-profit book, given Todd's deep role and influence in the organization?

I will be asking the IRS these and other questions about SME in the coming days and weeks.  So far, the written questions I've asked to Todd and most of the written and verbal questions I've asked to SME have been ignored.

As a veteran journalist, that comes as no surprise.

SME and Todd Grimm won't begin answering any uncomfortable questions until other SME members begin posing them or until an independent auditor - such as the IRS, comes knocking at their door and says, 'Gee, L-VMA has a point, what steps do you take to prevent SME from functioning as the tax-advantaged marketing arm of T.A. Grimm & Associates, Inc.?"

Be patient.  We will get to the bottom of all this together.