PAINTSQUARE BLOG CONTRIBUTORS

On Plane Crashes and Corrosion Mitigation Procurement
By Warren Brand

I’m fascinated by failures. Some would say obsessed. While Chicago Corrosion Group’s focus is primarily in the corrosion mitigation field, I study modes of failures from every conceivable industry.... READ MORE

Learning to Serve
By Warren Brand

When I started my corrosion mitigation consulting firm in 2010, I had one fundamental principle in mind: to do exclusively what is in the best interest of our clients, even above our own.... READ MORE

Thermoplastics: The Genie is Peeking Out of the Bottle
By Warren Brand

You heard it here first, folks. Paint is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet.... READ MORE

Understanding MIC (and the H₂S Connection)
By Warren Brand

Understanding run-of-the-mill corrosion on steel is complex enough. I remember my confusion when first learning about the interaction between an anode, cathode, metallic pathway and electrolyte.... READ MORE

The Questionable Promise of Superhydrophobic Coatings
By Warren Brand

Imagine for a moment painting a surface that never gets dirty. Or one that’s perfectly cleaned whenever it rains or is simply rinsed down with water.... READ MORE

The World’s Largest Movable Structure You’ve Probably Never Heard About
By Warren Brand

It’s called The New Safe Confinement (NSC). Picture a massive, movable hangar-like dome designed to cover the highly radioactive remains of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine.... READ MORE

Normalization of Deviance
By Warren Brand

It brought down both Space Shuttles, is responsible for the disaster at Deepwater Horizon and is an insidious issue for many corrosion mitigation failures.... READ MORE

Outgassing: It’s Not Just Hot Air
By Warren Brand

I am intimately familiar with the fine art of “eye-rolling.” As the followers of my blog know, I have three daughters, ages 16, 19 and 22.... READ MORE

Between a Rock and a Rusty Place
By Warren Brand

My eldest daughter, Jessica, 21, excitedly called me a few months ago to tell me about a new hobby she’s taken up: bouldering. If you’re anything like me, you’ve just had the response, “Huh? Is that a... READ MORE

Our Industry’s Aversion to Risk: Nothing Is Risk-Free
By Warren Brand

I was 18 and SCUBA diving off a pristine, white, sandy beach in the Red Sea. My dive-buddy was a highly experienced world-traveling... READ MORE

Are Your Clients Arguing from Ignorance or Authority?
By Warren Brand

For those of you who follow my blog, you’ll know I live with four women—three daughters (15, 19 and 21) and my wife, whose age will remain confidential as I prefer to remain married.... READ MORE

A Tale of Two Contractors:
The Hidden, Staggering Costs of Inefficiency
By Warren Brand

It was early spring of 2007 when my old coating company got the call from Grainger World Headquarters to line the interior of four, identical, stainless steel cooling tower basins.... READ MORE

Kindness: The Missing Ingredient in Any Successful Coating Application
By Warren Brand

It was 2010 and I had just turned 50 when I walked away from a family business. In doing so, I sacrificed roughly three years of salary. I had tried as best I could to change the culture of our family... READ MORE

A Tale of Two Clients
By Warren Brand

There’s a concept in martial arts that the first time a student sees a... READ MORE

Can We Save Our Corroding Infrastructure?
By Warren Brand

It's time for a new way of thinking. Let’s first start with a story from a 60 Minutes exposé that aired... READ MORE

A Pleasant Surprise in the Permian Basin
By Warren Brand

The three-hour drive through the scrub of the Northwestern Shelf of the Permian Basin was hot, long and fascinating.... READ MORE

Specifications: Does Anyone Still Care?
By Warren Brand

When I was nine or 10, my summers were spent with gun-toting workmen, driving around Chicago in old blue Metros, lining the exterior bottoms of 275-gallon tanks in the city’s basements.... READ MORE

Standards: Guidelines or Gospel?
By Warren Brand

In coatings, as in every other profession, you can go by the book or you can go with what real life demands. Sometimes, those are very different paths.... READ MORE

Seeking Sense from the Experts
By Warren Brand

It takes an enormous amount to get under my skin. But I just attended a conference for the benefit of Illinois DOT and came away appalled.... READ MORE

Failure? Analyze This (or Don't)
By Warren Brand

So, I get a call from the manager of a tony high-rise condo on Chicago’s Gold Coast.... READ MORE

Driving Data from Disco to Digital
By Warren Brand

For nearly 30 years, I’ve watched, fascinated, as technology in the coatings industry has advanced.... READ MORE

Lead: Much Ado about Nothing?
By Warren Brand

I can think of few corrosion protective materials more durable, functional and versatile than lead. Setting aside the health issues for a moment, the history of lead is truly remarkable—like the Swiss... READ MORE

Coating Inspectors: Are We Necessary?
By Warren Brand

Over 30 years in the industry, I’ve been on most sides of many paint issues. I’ve owned a painting company; I’ve represented coatings; and I’m a coating consultant and inspector with an SSPC-PCS, NACE... READ MORE

‘Solutions’ That Also Teach Lessons
By Warren Brand

It all started over coffee with a friend. I had wondered to Dean, a coating rep, how it was that Chicago—the U.S.’s third-largest market—had never hosted a local corrosion conference... READ MORE

How Much Does a Bad Paint Job Cost?
By Warren Brand

I’m passionate about everything pertaining to our industry. I have one company that consults on technical aspects of coating selection and application, and another that focuses on business development... READ MORE

I Try to be Flexible...
By Warren Brand

We are in the process of getting a water tank—85 feet in diameter and roughly 80 feet tall—back in service.From start to finish, we have about four weeks.... READ MORE

The Perils of O-Ring Thinking
By Warren Brand

When it comes to failure, there are causes, and then there are causes.... READ MORE

Beyond the Cold Wall: A Penetrating Look
By Warren Brand

Thanks to everyone for reading, thinking about and commenting on my last blog on the Cold Wall Effect. For better or worse, the column seems to have raised more questions than it answered.... READ MORE

The Cold War over the Cold Wall Effect
By Warren Brand

Reality is not always as firm a thing as we would wish, alas, even in the realm of coatings science. Take the Cold Wall Effect: to some experts, a key cause of coating failure; to others, a myth.... READ MORE