Stephen Sharretts is the CEO and third-generation leader of Sharretts Plating in York, Pennsylvania, an electroplating operation that has lasted 100 years and weathered the industry’s many storms.

Natalia Stephen is the owner of Compound Metal Coatings and CEO and Owner of PVD Advanced Technologies, both located in Ontario, Canada, and looks forward to her 25th anniversary in 2026.

Marko Duffy is Managing Director at TDF Metal Finishing in Danvers, Massachusetts.

Imran Shamsi is Vice President at Premier Metal Processing in San Diego, which offers anodizing, electrolytic nickel, bright tin, chemfilm, electroless nickel, electropolish, passivation, and zinc to customers across various industries.

Mark Morris is President of J&M Plating in Rockford, Illinois, which is a large fastener coating and small stamping operation.

John Cutchin got his start in the finishing industry at 18, when he would bronze baby shoes in his hometown of Easley, South Carolina.

Adam Thomas, Vice President of the family-owned company R.J. Thomas Manufacturing. is a Cherokee, Iowa, manufacturer of Pilot Rock park equipment that was founded in 1959.

Jo’Van Wiggins is the Chief Operations Officer of EMI Quality Plating in Evansville, Indiana, a 50,000-square-foot business that is central to many manufacturing operations in the U.S.

Since 2017, Doug Orantes and his wife, Loida, have been trying to get Aero Plating in Lancaster, California, off the ground.

Jim Leidig is the General Manager of Matrix Finishing in Harrington, Delaware.

Ashley and Jason Hunsaker are owners of HTS Coatings in Madison, Illinois, which offers thermal spray coating for corrosion protection.

Guillermo Aguilera and Brenda Tapia are owners of Metal Chem in Chatsworth, California, a shop that offers chem film, passivation, anodizing, electroless nickel, zinc, and phosphate conversion on the plating side, as well as Mil-Specs, urethanes, epoxy, and polyester hybrids on the powder coating side, in addition to liquid coatings.

Jeffrey Rubin is President of Testrite, a manufacturer of visual display products located in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Park Kersman is President of Lorin Industries, which he purchased from his family in 2006. His grandfather founded the Muskegon, Michigan coil and batch anodizer in 1943, which has over 400,000 square feet of space.

Gary Burton has spent over 50 years in the metal finishing industry, working on all sides of the spectrum, including as an applicator and with suppliers.

Carl Troiano is owner of Trojan Powder Coating, which has facilities in Florida and New York.

We chat with James Lindsay, Ph. D., a retired research engineer from General Motors who has volunteered for numerous surface finishing industry groups over the past several decades.

We had a chance to talk with Bob Bertelsen, owner of A Plus Powder Coaters in Northeast Ohio.

Keshav Kumar is owner of Plateronics Processing in Chatsworth, California, which offers anodizing, chem film passivation, electroless nickel, and various other plating substrates, including gold, silver, tin, and zinc.

Alex Budd was offered a job in metal finishing while completing his MBA six years ago, and he realized it might be his calling.

We talk with Elite Metal Finishing's Steve Allen about his challenge of getting the Oceanside, California, shop to attain Nadcap accreditation in chemical processing. In the finishing industry, this effort is not for the faint of heart, especially for someone relatively new.

We talked with Joe Zabielski from Ronatec about the new Paladin high-phos electroless nickel chemistry, which the company says offers outstanding corrosion protection and hardness.