Having had the good fortune to retire several years ago, in my early fifties, I have most recently been accepting selective contract positions which has included local. national and international entities. Among the local interests I have served

People Get Ready-There's a Siemens Train a' Coming! HOUSTON--March 2, 2004--Written by William Whitney, Senior Correspondent with Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). She is impossible to miss. Everyone that sees her remembers her. She will fascinate and lure you. She is a wondrous apparition come to life. She is the 14-car railroad train called the Siemens Exider. The brainchild of the diversified German conglomerate Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) (Munich, Germany) the fourteen rail car trade show on wheels is clearly the domain of their Alpharetta, Georgia based Energy & Automation Unit. It's hard to imagine an industrial sector not influenced by the global giant Siemens - and still harder yet to imagine the technologies touted onboard the Exider not extending into virtually every niche of manufacturing. Illustrating that fact, Siemens Energy & Automation Director of Marketing and Communications, John Dimmerling says, "If we tried to feature all of the technologies Siemens makes, this train would be miles long!" Click on the image at right to view the photo. But first - the rest of the story. Prior to arriving on the floor of the National Manufacturing Week exposition at McCormick Place, Chicago, Exider's odyssey started in 2002 and covered more than 120 cities in 22 countries - including a 16-city tour of China. Beneath the sleek surfaces of the 1,000-foot long blue train lies a high tech platform packed with 224 plasma screens and monitors, 189 DVD players, four servers, nine miles of cables, and two miles of data transmission lines. In short, this adventure is a front row Gee Whiz look at cutting-edge industrial automation products, solutions, and applications. Specifically targeted are customer applications in pharmaceutical and chemical industries, automobile manufacturing, commercial power distribution, and other customer sectors. Exider is a marvel and unique vision of automatic control engineering with all of the awe of boarding Captain Kirk's Enterprise! The United States is Siemens second largest market employing approximately 65,000 Americans with annual sales in excess of $16 billion annually. The company is heavily diversified here, as well, with interests in information & communications, automation & controls, energy & power, transportation, medical, and lighting. Click on the image at right to view the photo. And, it's no accident that Exider's ten-week United States tour started in Chicago as they employ more than 3,000 people locally. Their Chicago customers include the recent Soldier Field expansion (Chicago, Illinois), Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE: ADM) (Decatur, Illinois), William Wrigley Jr. Company (NYSE: WWY) (Chicago, Illinois), McDonalds (NYSE:MCD (Oakbrook, Illinois), Walgreen (Deerfield, Illinois) (WAG), Boeing (NYSE:BA) (Chicago, Illinois) and International Steel Group (ISG). According to Thomas Kopanski, Vice President of the Automation & Motion Division, the train is an expression of Siemens' confidence in the U.S. economy and how automation and improved productivity is contributing to a healthy future for domestic manufacturing. Onboard the Exider the guests are showered with an eclectic array of animation, slick video, cut-away controllers and practical simulations that address process and discrete manufacturing, machine tool components, commercial, and residential power distribution and engineering for 21st century manufacturing control technologies. For the technically disabled each car is - thankfully - staffed by articulate and knowledgeable company presenters that patiently field even the most innocuous questions! Additionally, each of the stops will feature a series of wide-ranging technical seminars designed specifically for industry professionals. The remaining stops on the tour are scheduled for Atlanta, March 16-17 at Stone Mountain Park; Washington, D.C., March 22; New York, March 24-25 at Penn Station; Boston, March 29-30; Detroit, Michigan April 2 at Greenfield Village; Houston, April 6-7 at the Southwest Electrical Exposition-George R Brown Convention Center; Los Angeles, May 14; San Francisco, May 18; and Seattle, May 24. Exider will add two more stamps to her passport with integrated stops at Grupo Siemens S.A. de C.V., Mexico (between Houston, Texas and Los Angeles, California) and finally coming to rest at Siemens Canada Limited after pulling out of Seattle, Washington. As the NMW show closes up shop, Exider puts her wheels back on and heads out into America to inspire and awe thousands more from coast-to-coast. Don't miss a date with her - Exider is a lot more than the first railroad train to circumnavigate the Earth. The Siemens Exider is nothing short of a modern day Industrial Revolution. Industrialinfo.com (IIR) is the leading provider of global industrial market research. We specialize in helping companies develop information solutions to maximize their sales and marketing efforts. For more information send inquiries to industrialmanufacturing@industrialinfo.com or visit us online at www.industrialinfo.com

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