After five years editingMission Critical and eight prior to that covering the industry as editor ofEnergy User News and EnergyandPower Management, I have decided to make a career change. In fact, for the first time, much of the information that appears in this issue was prepared and developed by someone other than me in — this case, our extremely talented and capable managing editor Caroline Fritz.

Caroline will continue to play a role in Mission Critical, which means that continuity and quality should not suffer in the short term. And, she will bring a new perspective and fresh ideas that should help BNP Media improve the product in the longer term.

In addition, Caroline is well aware that Mission Critical’s success has based on its policy of promoting new ideas and working well with all industry associations. In practice this means seeking out thought leaders and encouraging them to use our page to promote their ideas, even when these are ideas are subject to disagreement. You can see this activity in each issue, particularly in the first part of the book, in which our columnists have helped develop and explain many new ideas.

Before turning over the helm completely though, I would like to thank Caroline, BNP Media, our publisher Peter Moran, and our sales team plus our board of advisors and columnists for giving me the opportunity to help make Mission Critical the product it is.