This is the first post in my series about my experience as a B2B business writer.

I decided to start with metal fabricating because I was asked this week by a prospective client if I had ever written about it. The prospect was referred to me by my editor at The Fabricator, a publication I’ve contributed to for many years. (I’ve also contributed to The FABRICATOR en Español). Last year, in fact, I wrote the entire contents of the FABTECH EXPO show daily, North America’s largest metal forming, fabricating, welding, and finishing event.

My experience with metal fabricating goes back to the late ’80s when I began my career as a marketing manager for Panasonic Factory Automation (PFA). (I left Panasonic in 1992 to launch my freelance business). One of the divisions within PFA sold welding robots, and I wrote a myriad of metal fabricating case studies for the group, including one about cylinder fabrication that made the cover of the very same Fabricator magazine that I would later serve as a contributing editor.

While metal fabricating is far from my largest area of concentration, it has certainly been a topic I’ve visited repeatedly over the past quarter century.