Andy Ashburn

Industry Advocate

Andy Ashburn

Industry Advocate

Andy Ashburn was born in Winston-Salem, NC and spent his entire career writing for and about America’s durable goods, manufacturing industries merged technology with citizenship. One infamous writing in the American Machinist magazine’s 100th Anniversary edition traced manufacturing technique from the birth of the “American System” of interchangeable parts through mass production to modern robotics, becoming a basic text for several college courses on the history of technology.

Ambitious projects were the Ashburn style, devoting a special issue of the already-influential American Machinist Magazine to the role for industry in dealing with the hard core unemployed. This issue won the 1969 National Magazine Award. The first of four awards for the magazine. After retiring from McGraw-Hill Publications in 1987, Ashburn remained active in the manufacturing industry, writing monthly columns for a German newspaper and guest editorials in American Machinist.

Career History

McGraw- Hill, Editor-in-Chief

Education

University of Michigan, Degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration

Awards

  • The June 1969 issue of “American Machinist” National Magazine Award.
  • Over 400 editorial opinion columns on issues from industrial policy to factory pollution.
  • Received several American Business Press Neal Awards for individual articles or editorials.
  • Eighth ABP Crain award from distinguished editorial career 
  • First McGraw-Hill Award for a distinguished editorial career.
  • AMT’s Honoree
  • Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers 
  • Distinguished Contribution Award of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers
  • American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
  • Board of the National Research Council

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