The American Galvanizers Association (AGA) is hosting this year's TechForum in Dallas, TX at the Adolphus Hotel on October 7-9^th, 2025. TechForum offers technical presentations and discussion topics common to the batch hot-dip galvanizing process, and is an excellent opportunity for peers to meet and exchange ideas on both a business and social level.

To make this event a success, we need your help submitting papers and finding speakers to present on topics, case studies, lessons learned, and technical advancements relevant to our industry. If you would like to present at our upcoming TechForum or recommend a presenter, please submit an abstract for consideration by Friday, June 20^th. Abstracts should be emailed to Technical Director Alana Fossa at [email protected].

Submit

Conference Theme

TechForum features a conference program of papers based on a focused topic or theme within the hot-dip galvanizing process. The TechForum theme rotates every five years according to the schedule below. Ideally, submitted papers will address technological advancements, studies, Lessons Learned, EHS, quality, optimization, and plant management topics within the year's theme. One day of the TechForum will always be set aside for non-theme topics that are relatively timely in nature.

• 2025 (Dallas, TX) - Pre-Process Bay & Material Handling
• 2026 (Denver, CO) - Admin & Customer Service
• 2027 (TBD) - Finishing & Inspection
• 2027 (TBD) - Kettle/Furnace
• 2024 (TBD) - Pre-treatment

For 2025, the AGA membership has expressed great interest in papers addressing the following topics within the focus area of "Pre-Process Bay & Material Handling."

• Crane Maintenance

• Crane advancements and technology

• Progressive Dipping – lessons learned

• Advancements in material handling (techniques or equipment)

• Safety – forklift safety

• Safety - Hand tools & ideas to minimize hand/finger injuries

• Tags: barcode tags, software for barcode / ERP system integration

• Lessons learned: near misses in the fixturing/pre-process bay area

• Racking Material – maintenance, design, and regulatory considerations

• Chain, Wire, and Hooks: zinc pickup, types, ties, standards, maintenance, regulatory, and EHS lessons learned.

• Advancements in forklifts

• Ways to prevent side-shifting with forklifts

• Multi-directional forklifts

• Maximizing space for racking/pre-process bay in plants where expansion isn’t an option

• "How I solved ___ handling issue"

• "How I solved ___ customer venting issue"

TechForum Submission/Speaker Guidelines

The following guidelines provide more detail on how to submit your abstract and what’s allowed in the presentation and required of the speaker:

Abstracts for consideration by the TechForum Committee are due by June 20^th to Alana Fossa at [email protected].

• Include name(s), company, job title, presentation title, and abstract.
• Abstracts should summarize the presentation content in paragraph form (100-200 words), or an outline form is acceptable.
• Presentation slots are scheduled for 30 minutes maximum. It is good to leave time for questions, so suggested length is 20-25 minutes.

Fit the needs of the audience (i.e. galvanizing plant owners, presidents, general managers, HSE managers, and galvanizing plant operations personnel).

Keep the abstract and topic technical, educational, and informative in nature.

Presentation content may not contain any negative reference to any AGA member companies or companies eligible for membership. This excludes commenting on competitors to the hot-dip galvanizing process.

Avoid any overt commercialism or “sales pitches” in the abstract or presentation:

• Abstract/Presentations shall not contain multiple references to company/affiliated company names. Logos and company names are welcome on the first and last slides. Logos/company name shall be removed from all internal slides.

• Abstract/Presentations shall not contain multiple references to proprietary services/products. It is possible to mention or speak about a proprietary product/system once, but then you must refer to it elsewhere using a generic term for the technology.

• AGA has the right to review presentations and remove content of overt commercialism. Our goal is to get your company as much professional exposure as possible within the established guidelines from the TechForum planning committee.