NFPA Sets a New Agenda for 2026-29 – Focusing on Strategic Growth and Engagement
By Markus Rauchhaus, Chief Executive Officer, Nott Company 
Once every three years, the NFPA Board of Directors comes together for a deep dive into the health and performance of the organization to set a strategic agenda for the next three years. As Chair of the NFPA Board for our 2026-27 fiscal year, it was my honor to lead a number of these important discussions at the June 2026 meeting of the Board.
First and foremost, the last three years have been extremely successful ones for our organization. Among the many successes the Board recognized:
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NFPA membership is more diversified than ever before, with the new Controls, IoT and Data membership category representing one of the many constituencies helping our association best represent the accelerating pace of technological change in the fluid power industry.
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All segments of the membership are heavily engaged in the various networking and engagement programs, including our Annual Conference, making them hugely successful as opportunities for the industry to come together for education and business advancement.
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Our Business Intelligence and Statistics program remains second-to-none, providing our membership with information on the size, scope and direction of the fluid power industry, and now includes new analysis tools that better enable members to take action for improving their businesses.
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Our Technology Forum programs have grown significantly – with participation in our standards meetings, technology task forces, technology conferences and webinars, and our affiliated trade shows growing and including more of our OEM customers than ever before.
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We launched and aggressively scaled up two key workforce education and engagement initiatives – now supporting programs at 7 Fast Track Hubs and 13 Power Partner Universities across the country. This work includes the growth of our hands-on design/build competition, the Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge, now including 30 universities competing at 3 events, with 31 member companies engaged as hosts, sponsors, mentors and/or judges.
Building on this success was a critical objective of the Board’s discussion, as we analyzed both the capabilities of the organization and the larger industrial environment in which our members operate. After much discussion, three high-level objectives were set to help us continue achieving our mission of strengthening the fluid power industry:
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Member Forum: NFPA provides an effective forum for its members where they provide and receive relevant business intelligence and statistics and where they develop, network and advance their collective interests.
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Technology Promotion: NFPA provides opportunities for its members to promote fluid power technology to end users, OEM customers, and allied technology partners.
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Workforce Connections: NFPA connects its members with technical college and university students educated in fluid power and promotes careers in the fluid power industry.
In Member Forum, clear objectives were set for member recruitment and growth, for the engagement of our members in our networking and engagement programs, and for the growth and delivery of our business intelligence and statistics programs. We recognized a diversified membership of stakeholders across the entire fluid power value chain, actively engaged and sharing information within NFPA, as absolutely essential to our future success.
In Technology Promotion, clear objectives were set for the growth of and member engagement in our technology forum programs – the ones that best put our members in the position to promote themselves and their technologies to a growing base of end users, OEM customers, and allied technology partners. The engagement of more of these stakeholders in our roadmapping and promotional activities will be a key aspect of our plans in this space.
In Workforce Connections, clear objectives were set for increasing the engagement of our members in our Fast Track Hubs, Power Partner Universities, and Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge. These programs have dramatically increased the pool of young talent ready to go to work in the fluid power industry. Our focus in the years ahead will be on better connecting your company to these candidates.
Our Board is excited by the many opportunities that lie ahead, both for NFPA and the fluid power industry as a whole. Many thanks to my fellow Board members for the help they provide in shaping our organization’s and industry’s future. I’m looking forward to working with the Board, staff, and NFPA members to continue growing our organization. I am open to questions and comments as we continue to forge ahead and bring enhanced value to members. I can be reached at Markus.Rauchhaus@nottco.com.