Stainless crude steel production (in '000 metric tons):
First nine months of 2008 compared to same period of 2007.

Source: International Stainless Steel Forum (ISSF)

Hackney Ladish Bought By Precision Castparts
Precision Castparts Corp. (NYSE:PCP), a Portland, OR-based global manufacturer of complex metal components and products has agreed to acquire Hackney Ladish, Inc. The cash acquisition was expected to be completed by the end of this month. Hackney Ladish will be assigned to Precision's Forged Products segment. The company serves the aerospace, power generation, automotive, and general industrial and other markets.

Crane Buys German Valve Maker
Crane Energy Flow Solutions  announced that it has purchased all of the capital stock of the Krombach Group, based in Kreuztal, Germany with estimated 2008 sales of $91 million. The purchase includes manufacturing and foundry facilities in Slovenia and ownership of a joint venture in China. The Krombach Group supplies engineered valves and standard valves to the power, oil and gas, chemical, tank wagon, and water and environmental technology markets.

F.W. Webb Acquires Instrumentation Rep Firm
New England distribution giant F. W. Webb Co. has acquired O'Connor & Senecal Inc. of Sutton, MA, a manufacturer's representative of major instrumentation product lines, the principle one being Endress and Hauser. Alan Senecal and his team will become an integral part of Webb's Kentrol/Sevco automated valve division. Daryl Schoellkopf will be responsible for the combined OSI and Kentrol/Sevco operations.

Emerson Acquires Bay-Tec Engineering
Emerson today announced that it has acquired Bay-Tec Engineering of Napa, California. Bay-Tec becomes part of Emerson Process Management , expanding Emerson's capabilities for providing technical and management services for the consultation, design, engineering and implementation of process automation systems for the life sciences, refining, and other industries. Terms of the deal were not announced. Bay-Tec's expertise covers a wide range of process automation technologies including digital automation systems, safety instrumented systems (SIS), programmable logic controllers (PLCs), human machine interfaces (HMIs), and advanced control applications.

China Line Pipe Found Subject To Duties
U.S. small diameter welded steel line pipe producers Tex Tube Co. TMK IPSCO Tubulars, Northwest Pipe, ACIPCO, and Stupp Corp. applauded the unanimous affirmative injury determination that subsidized imports of small diameter welded line pipe 16" O.D. and under from China injured or threatened the domestic industry. The vote will allow the Dept. of Commerce to issue a countervailing duty order to offset Chinese government subsidies ranging from 35% to 40%. The petition was filed last April.

McClain Gets Expanded Role At ITT
In her new role as president of ITT Fluid and Motion Control , Gretchen McClain will oversee all of ITT's commercial businesses, including those in the Fluid Technology and Motion & Flow Control segments. The presidents of ITT's eight commercial businesses and its China & India operation will each report directly to McClain. McClain joined ITT in 2005 to lead the company's Residential & Commercial Water business. Prior to joining ITT, McClain was a division vice president and general manager at Honeywell Aerospace. She joined AlliedSignal in 1999, which later merged with Honeywell. McClain spent nine years with NASA earlier in her career, where she had a pivotal role in the development and launch of the International Space Station.

Curtiss-Wright Names Co-COOs
Curtiss-Wright Corp. announced the promotion of David Linton, president of the company's Flow Control segment, and David Adams, President of the Motion Control segment, to the newly created positions of co-chief operating officers. Adams will also assume responsibility for the Metal Treatment segment. Edward Bloom will be retiring as President of Metal Treatment in April 2009 after 35 years of service and will stay on as a consultant to the company.

Piping & Equipment Announces Personnel Changes

Tony Cornell (left) has been named regional manager western operations and manager of Houston operations, in addition to being manager of transportation operations. The western operations includes Houston, Freeport, Beaumont, Transportation and Automation operations.

• Georgia Branch (right) has been named regional manager central operations in addition to being manager of Gonzales operations.

Michael Wilson (left) is regional manager eastern operations and manager of Decatur operations. The eastern operations includes Decatur, Mobile, and Panama City.

• Tom Pettit (right) has been named manager of strategic accounts responsible for all SupplyForce contracts, engineering and construction Houston accounts, as well as continuing to manage Affiliated Distributors activity.

AGC Invites Support For Infrastructure Lobbying
The Associated General Contractors of America launched a national effort designed to show broad support for needed new infrastructure investments that include improving education and health care facilities, cleaning up water supplies and improving levies. The association is asking supporters to log onto to www.agc.org/letsbuild and add their names to a petition in support of vital new infrastructure investments that will go to the next Congress and the office of the President-elect.

Al Markus To Speak To Canadian PVF Council
PVF industry consultant Alvin Markus will be conducting a workshop on Jan. 29 on "An Introduction to Pipe, Valves & Fittings" at the next meeting of the Canadian Industrial PVF Council, an offshoot of the Canadian Institute of Plumbing & Heating . The meeting will be held in Oakville, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto.

Grand Challenges Of The 21st Century

The National Academy of Engineering convened a panel earlier this year to tackle this subject, and one of its conclusions was that solar energy would become the planet's dominant energy source within 20 years.

NAE's panel deliberated at a time when oil prices were accelerating toward $150 a barrel. This reporter can only guess that they might play a different tune if they met in today's environment where global oil prices have plunged by an astonishing two-thirds from their peak. Nonetheless, it makes for provocative reading to see what leading engineers see as the greatest science and engineering challenges of our time. Click on the NAE challenges link and you'll get a chance to vote on what you think tops the list.

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Tech Tip #13 by Gregg Marshall
To help you make the most of the Digital Age.

Everyone has a flash drive, right?

Beyond carrying important documents, like a scan of your passport, you can carry a complete office set up that will run on any Windows computer you can find, such as a spare at a client or the hotel's business center.

Rather than worry if they have the right applications, carry them with you on your flash drive.

The first implementation of this was U3, a proprietary system for running applications off flash drives, created by Kingston Memory. Its problem was, being proprietary, not many applications bothered with modifying their programs to work with U3.

Now there's an open source (aka free like Linux) option called Portable Apps (http://portableapps.com/). It provides a similar environment as U3, but has better support, especially by open source applications.

So along with Portable Apps, you can have Open Office (very compatible with Microsoft Office and free), Firefox (quickly becoming my favorite web browser) with its bookmarks, Thunderbird (a good Outlook alternative), GIMP (a Photoshop alternative), Audacity (audio editing software)-in other words, everything you need to work. And all free.

Even my tricked out collection of almost everything barely takes half of a 1 gigabyte flash drive.

Programs and data stay on the flash drive. You plug it in, do your work, and when you are done, remove it. All trace of your visit goes with you.

Are you sure you need to lug that notebook on every trip? Even a 2-lb. Mac Air is heavy compared to a 1-oz. flash drive.

Gregg Marshall, CPMR, CSP, is president of Rep Connection Inc. He can be reached by e-mail at gmarshall@repconnection.com, or visit his LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/greggmarshall.

Anvil's New CPVC Pipe Hangers
AnvilStar™, a division of Anvil International, has introduced a new line of CPVC pipe hangers for use in fire protection sprinkler systems. Finished in galvanized steel, they consist of one- and two-hold straps, a two-hole 90-degree side mount strap, and a two-hole standoff strap for use with CPVC pipe sizes 3/4" to 2". All are UL listed, and come with beveled edges to help protect the pipe from rough surfaces.

Clark Solutions' CSLFB Ultrasonic Flow Transmitters are ideal for measuring flow in most clean liquids and many liquids with entrained solids. Applications include monitoring flow rates of chilled or heated water as part of a green technology program as well as in municipal, process, and industrial systems.