The magazine in your hands is the result of months of behind-the-scenes work. It starts with the new paper. From here on, we’ll print on glossy paper each month. That means the features and product information you depend on will look livelier and brighter. Pictures will print more clearly. Text will have more definition. Ink will stay where it belongs — on the page. Drilling contractors have dirty work on their hands. Their magazine shouldn’t contribute to that by leaving their hands stained with ink.

After deciding to update the paper, the hard work started. Our talented designers got to work. They spent months reconsidering every part of the magazine from the cover to the classifieds.

We have a new logo, to start. Under the new logo, we clearly lay out our markets: water, energy, construction, environmental and mining. National Driller was born as a water well magazine. We won’t forget those roots. But many of the same readers working in water also work in other areas of drilling. Many of the advertisers that support us supply or manufacture for several drilling sectors. Our readers and advertisers have diversified. In my time as an editor, I’ve worked to serve all these markets (if even in some small way). Now, we’re formalizing this direction by putting it on the cover. That’s how passionate we are about all aspects of drilling. We put it right next to our name for all to see.

Our designers then took the same polish to the rest of the magazine, giving it a more modern look that I think you’ll like. Readers can expect much of the same within these pages, but in a nicer presentation. You’ll see the same columns you’ve come to expect. We have our regulars: Porky Cutter, Wayne Nash and John Schmitt. We have topical columns, like Drilling Fluids and Tech Topics. We even have a few newer columnists, like David S. Bardsley (who returns next month) and Doug Walker (welcome aboard, Doug). We’ll continue to offer the latest product and industry news. We’ll still bring you interviews with industry leaders and features about interesting drilling projects.

National Driller recognizes that, in the generation or so we’ve served readers, time has changed drilling. Wayne Nash writes this month about how much drilling in the Bakken has changed in just the few years he’s worked there (page 40). Yes, that’s a shale patch. But that change has affected the whole industry and all the sectors within it. If your business is turning to the right for water, geothermal, oil, gas, monitoring or construction, chances are that business has evolved in your lifetime.

Products and techniques change all the time. Technology makes drilling cleaner and, more importantly, safer for those in the field. It’s time for National Driller to reflect those changes.

While contractors regularly see safety and equipment updates in this industry, those drillers remain the same. They’re the same hard-working people who want to do the best job they can for the client. They put on their hard hats, zip up their PPE and go to jobsites to do work most people wouldn’t. Here at National Driller, we want to work as hard as our readers to represent and serve those readers. This redesign helps us toward that goal.

I think we clean up nicely. I hope you agree.

As always, if you have story ideas, feedback, rants or raves, I want to hear about them. Send an email to verduscoj@bnpmedia.com.

Stay safe out there, drillers.

CORRECTION

In a story for June’s print issue (“Building a Unified Front”), Tom Huntington of WaterFurnace International was omitted from the list of board members for the group Geothermal Exchange Organization (GEO). The online version of the story has been corrected and can be viewed at www.thedriller.com/geothermal. National Driller regrets the error.