Welcome to the launch of the ENR Energy newsletter. I have to confess: As a reader, I have no use for editors’ notes at the beginning of a new publication. They usually strike me as self-absorbed, and my reflex is to blow past them. I know why I want to read the publication, so I go looking for the stories, the substance.

I wanted to fill this space with an article written by one of you, someone with muddy boots wearing a scuffed hard hat. But energy is such an enormous and diverse industry I realized that, if you didn’t see your piece of it in the first issue, you might make a snap judgment about what kind of news ENR Energy will deliver, and I would lose you. You’re busy, and you get way more emails than you want, I get that. So let me say right here: This is for you.

I’m going to keep this brief, so stay with me. If you engineer or construct powerplants—fossil, nuclear, renewable, whatever—ENR Energy is for you. If you build electric transmission lines or gas or oil pipelines—ENR Energy is for you. If you are active in any engineering or construction connected with oil and gas—upstream, midstream, downstream—ENR Energy is for you. And if you are interested directly or tangentially in energy industry construction—whether as an engineer, contractor, student, academic, regulator or other government official—ENR Energy is for you.

That’s the message I want to leave with you. If you want to know my qualifications to edit an energy newsletter, read on, but what you’ve just read is what’s important.

Since 1969, I have been almost exclusively in energy and construction: Seven years in the field building transmission lines and substations, 16 with a general contractor that did a lot of powerplant construction, 12 years as energy editor for ENR and five freelancing in energy-industry news. For four years, I also served as a judge on the international jury for the Platts Global Energy Awards, the prestigious program known as the Academy Awards of the energy industry.

As editor, I promise that ENR Energy will bring you the news and opinions you need to find and develop business and to understand the industry’s trends and developments. If you know of something we should be covering, let me know and I’ll follow it up. If you don’t see your part of the industry in ENR Energy, let me know that too. I intend to make this newsletter your indispensable source for timely industry information and insights.

One last thing: If you have an opinion or thought you want to share with your peers—a concern about industry practice, an idea on how to advance the industry, an issue the government or an industry association should be addressing or some other topic—write to me at thomas.armistead@construction.com. I would like to put your contribution in this space in a future issue. ENR Energy is for you.