Light fog disrupts flights in Delhi

Condolences or congratulations? U.S. Rep. Fred Upton has received both since House Speaker John Boehner appointed him earlier this month to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

In other words, it appears there’s nothing super about serving on the so-called “Super Committee.”

“I didn’t ask for it. … We have a gun at our head. No one wants across-the-board sequestration cuts,” the 13-term St. Joseph Republican said Monday during a stop in Niles. His latter reference was to the automatic cuts that will take place should the joint select committee’s recommendations not be enacted.

The committee has yet to meet on the minimum $1.2 trillion in cuts it’s charged with finding over the next 10 years, but Upton said he already has had preliminary discussions with fellow committee members via telephone. All reduction proposals submitted to date, from the much-publicized “Gang of Six” proposal to the Simpson-Bowles report that collapsed near the end of the recent debt-ceiling crisis, will be on the table, Upton said.

The stakes are high, in part because lending agencies are likely to enact another downgrade should an agreement not be reached, Upton said.

“It’s like (finding) the new G.M. for the Cubs,” joked Upton, a long-suffering Cubs fan.

Regarding a recent national article that appeared in The Tribune and some other newspapers that intimated Upton’s appointment as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee prompted a change in his stance on environmental issues, he argued he has always believed environmental protection must be balanced against its economic impact.

That stance was front and center, he said, when he led the fight against President Obama’s cap-and-trade legislation, which proposed a cap on carbon emissions by making them a commodity subject to purchase by businesses.

Outdoor Lighting: BetaLED luminaires light Napa Maxwell Bridge
A signature site for motorists along the Napa River in Northern California, the Maxwell Bridge is now illuminated with LED-based fixtures from BetaLED that deliver 31% energy savings.

Napa, California, located north of San Francisco, has completed an LED-lighting installation on its Maxwell Bridge that crosses the Napa River. The bridge was rebuilt in 2005 and is a local architectural landmark. The transition from high-pressure-sodium (HPS) lights to BetaLED solid-state lighting (SSL) has reduced energy use by 9180 kWh per year – a 31% savings.
Uniform surface lighting on the Maxwell Bridge
Uniform surface lighting on the Maxwell Bridge

While energy savings were an important goal for the LED project, the city was also concerned with the aesthetics. “The real test of success was when we lit the bridge. There was just no comparison of the quality of the LED lights to the HPS lights. This confirmed for us that the whole project was worth it,” said Steve Crego, City of Napa Electrical Supervisor.
Aerial view of LED lighting
Aerial view of LED lighting

Nearby photos include both before and after aerial shots and a shot captured on the bridge surface. That surface photo demonstrates both the uniformity and brightness of the LED installation. The city said that the lighting improves pedestrian safety and motorists’ visibility and notes the importance of continuous light levels for the entire length of the bridge.

“The 90-LED LEDway street lights recently installed along the length of the bridge deliver enhanced color quality, uniformity and optimized illumination performance to help increase visibility and safety,” said Kevin Orth, Vice President of Sales for BetaLED. “The City is realizing significant energy savings from the retrofit while meeting the Caltrans highway lighting specification.”
HPS lighting on the bridge
HPS lighting on the bridge

Napa worked with the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) utility in choosing and installing the LEDway lights. The 60 new 90W SSL luminaires replaced 200W HPS lights. “Because of PG&E’s extensive experience in street light installation and maintenance we’re able to help municipalities with project design, installation and billing updates – saving them time and money,” said John Sofranac, PG&E street and outdoor lighting manager.

The city began contemplating a relighting project in 2009 when it received a grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE) and established the City of Napa Sustainability Program. The bridge project was just completed this spring.

Other Napa projects

According to the local Napa Valley Register newspaper, the Maxwell Bridge is just part of the LED story in the region, although perhaps the most visible one. The bridge project was part of a larger 148-light retrofit with LEDs that also included some local streets.

Moreover, Napa is planning to convert 146 additional street lights according to the local paper. Once that second project is complete, the city could save $23,000 annually in energy costs. The city’s Crego also expects significant maintenance savings.

Still Napa is a good example of the potential that remains for LED installations and far-greater energy savings. Even when the city completes its next project bringing the total of LED lights to 294, that number is a small percentage of the 6000 lights that the city owns.

Millbrae LED installation

In related news in the Northern, California region, the city of Millbrae has completed its first major LED-street-light project also using BetaLED fixtures according to the New Streetlights website. A $112,630 DOE Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) funded the installation of 278 LED street lights.

Millbrae projects annual energy savings of $10,000 via a 68,791 kWh reduction in energy usage. That corresponds with a reduction in greenhouse gases by 36,047 pounds per year. The LED lights will use 50 to 60% less energy that the HPS lights that were replaced.

An Anadarko-based American Indian tribe unveiled a solar energy project on Wednesday that tribal officials said would save it thousands of dollars and could lead to new jobs coming to southwestern Oklahoma.

The construction of the 37.5-kilowatt solar array on the roof of the Delaware Nation’s complex north of Anadarko will supply 30 percent of the complex’s electricity, tribal President Kerry Holton said. The solar array should be finished by next month and a sign already hangs outside the headquarters building that reads “These buildings are powered by the sun.”

To pay for the project, the Delaware Nation received a $250,000 federal grant from stimulus funds and Holton said the tribe matched that amount. He said the tribe will recoup its costs within five to eight years.

The tribe also has started manufacturing LED lights at a plant in Anadarko and could branch out into assembling modules for solar arrays in the near future, Holton said.

“Green technology is the wave of the future and it certainly fits in with our culture. We might as well embrace that and make it a part of our economic development,” Holton said.

Kylah McNabb, a renewable energy specialist with the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, worked with the Delaware Nation on obtaining the grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. McNabb said it’s thought to be the first major solar energy project started by a state-based tribe.

“This project truly has the potential to set an example for Oklahoma, to set an example for the other tribes about what can be done when you take a focus on green initiatives and really put your mind to it. This is a technology that works,” she said.

Holton became the president of the 1,500-member tribe - which has its roots in the mid-Atlantic Delaware River lands - in 2006. In 2008, the tribe began working on an economic development plan, from which sprang an initiative focusing on renewable energy. The tribe hoped to use the focus on renewable energy to generate jobs in Anadarko, a city that bills itself as “Indian City USA.”

While other Oklahoma tribes have focused on wind-energy projects in recent years, Holton said the Delaware Nation wanted to wait until wind technology had developed further to do that. He said the tribe also has looked into geothermal energy and the Delawares have both geothermal and wind projects in the future.

But for now, the tribe’s focus will be on using solar power and installing LED, or light-emitting diode, lighting in its buildings. Steven Jenson, the president and CEO of tribal-operated Lenape Lighting and Manufacturing, said using LED lights would reduce energy use by more than 57 percent over conventional lighting.

“The idea is to get the best of both worlds - which is to produce additional power as well as using less power at the same time,” said Bob Magyar, the managing director at another tribal-owned business, Trenton, N.J.-based Unami Solar LLC, a solar power developer.

Sandy, Utah-based Lenape Lighting and Manufacturing specializes in LED lighting. Some of those lighting products now are being manufactured at an Anadarko plant, where Holton said about 12 people now work, with projections that number will rise to 100 within a year.

Escondido, Calif.-based Eco One Energy LLC built the solar array for the tribe and Holton said talks are under way for the tribe to begin assembling solar array parts for the company, although he didn’t know when that might happen.

Patricia St. Germain, a Golden, Colo.-based project officer with the U.S. Energy ( USEG - news - people ) Department’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Programs, said it’s gratifying to see firsthand how the tribe was using the federal stimulus money. She said the goal of the program was to encourage the use of renewable energy, such as solar power.

“It’s very exciting and it’s very diverse and it’s a remarkable thing, but it’s here in the hearts and the minds of the people in these locations where the work is really done. … This money is not being wasted. It’s being profoundly monitored. It’s being highly regulated. When it finally hits the ground and it finally goes to work, it creates entirely new worlds. Energy connects hearts and communities and dreams. It’s magic,” St. Germain said.

One of the most interesting gaming gear products at E3 2011 wasn’t a mouse, keyboard, or a controller of any kind—it was a pair of LED ‘gaming light’ pods from gaming peripheral maker Mad Catz.

The Mad Catz Cyborg gaming lights, created in conjunction with ambient light specialist company amBX, are a pair of hinged, clamshell-like pods designed to augment your gaming environment by casting ambient reactive lighting that extends and complement the colors appearing on your screen. The Cyborg gaming lights are capable of casting light from a palette of 16 million colors, and they work with any game or movie. They can also be used to enhance your music listening.

How it works
The Cyborg gaming lights basically use a memory-resident software driver to interpret on-screen color information and location, and then extend it by emitting colors to match.

For example, a pair of Cyborg amBX gaming lights aimed at your back wall could cast yellow-orange hues to enhance the fiery explosion you just caused in Bioshock Infinite, or augment the color effects of spells you’re hurling in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

Similarly, the Cyborg gaming lights can extend environmental colors from your screen to your walls, enhancing and immersing you deeper into your game or movie. This could add considerable tension to the haunted ruins or a dead star ship in your favorite survival horror game. And those blood-splattering eviscerations might be even more dramatic accompanied by a spray of red light.

The Cyborg gaming lights provide an even better experience for games written specifically to support them through their   programming/scripting language. This allows a game to use the lights ‘proactively’ and give game makers another way to manipulate and enhance their game’s environment. Funcom’s Age of Conan and Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway are among the first games that have formally announced support for the technology.

Although a pair of Cyborg amBX gaming lights will set you back $99 and consume a single USB port, you aren’t limited to just two of them. You can have as many connected to your PC as your USB connections will allow for, so if you’re willing to lay out the cash you can add 4, 6, 8 or more Cyborg gaming lights to your system or a completely immersive ‘surround color’ experience.

Beyond gaming
The Cyborg amBX gaming light technology also works with movies and music. Augment those fantastic scenes in James Cameron’s Avatar or turn your gaming den into a disco den with a colorful array complementing those lame 2D effects in your favorite media player. (Someone should probably work out a deal to bundle these with Pink Floyd albums, not to mention ensure they come with a seizure warning label…)

GE Lighting has appointed Diederik de Stoppelaar as Director of the company’s new commercial organization - Luminaire Solutions. Diederik will lead a team of industry experts to provide effective lighting design and specification assistance to end users across a number of key market segments.

Diederik will be leading a new team, which will focus on the best in class solutions for the core market segments: Indoor Commercial LED Luminaires, Indoor Core Luminaires and Outdoor Lighting.

Simon Fisher will lead Indoor Commercial LED Luminaires as General Manager for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. He will head both project and indoor product and lighting design teams working across EMEA to drive innovation in LED solutions across industrial and commercial interiors.

As Channel Manager Luminaires Solutions for the Middle East and Africa region, Selcuk Mert will drive all the sales for luminaires working closely with the local teams in the region.

Diederik de Stoppelaar brings with him a wealth of experience of more than 25 years in a variety of strategic roles in lighting including general management positions for Philips Lighting in the Netherlands, France, Germany and the US.

In addition, Diederik has held the positions of Chief Marketing Officer for Thorn Lighting, Regional Commercial Director for Zumtobel and Vice President for Sales, Europe and Africa, for lighting controls company Lutron.

A well-established product designer, Simon Fisher has previously worked for companies including Concord Lighting and ERCO Lighting, before co-founding his own lighting consultants LAPD in 1999. At GE Lighting, he will manage the lighting design and engineering disciplines to develop products and prove lighting principles.

Phil Marshall, President & CEO, GE Lighting EMEA, said, “With the current focus on infrastructure development, the Middle East region is a perfect fit for strengthening our LED business. This new commercial organization led by these exceptionally experienced leaders will allow us to leverage the wonderful technology heritage and LED capabilities that exist within GE to further develop and expand our Luminaire footprint.”

GE Lighting had announced the enhancement of its commercial organization with the new organization unit, Luminaire Solutions, last year. The move was part of its on-going efforts to adjust the Lighting business to changing market dynamics and to better serve the growing LED markets.

GE Lighting has a rich history in the Middle East having established long-standing business association with over 70 key partners over the past several decades. The company established its full-fledged team in the region 15 years ago, and today has over 20 professionals driving the operations.

At the forefront of lighting innovation and bringing industry-altering technologies and products, GE Lighting upholds the legacy of Thomas Alva Edison, who flagged off the lighting industry with the invention of the first practical affordable light bulb in 1878. Noted for lighting efficiency, GE Lighting is also credited with the invention of the first LED in 1962. The company offers the full breadth of indoor and outdoor lighting solutions.

Headquartered in Budapest, GE Lighting’s EMEA operations have over 7,600 employees. The company has over 8,000 lamp types and eight plants in seven cities.

LED bulbs move in and mix up home lighting

In the space of a few years, I’ve gone from one lighting technology to another and now to three lighting types in my home. I suspect others will be in the same shoes as lighting options expand, notably those involving LEDs.

Eager to cut down my electrical load, I essentially converted to compact fluorescent lighting (CFLs) years ago. Recently, though, I’ve replaced CFLs with efficient LED bulbs and even energy-hogging incandescents to address an unfortunate feature of CLFs: turning them on and off frequently degrades their life.
Home lighting diversifies, led by LEDs (photos)

CLFs are still a good deal both financially and environmentally. They use about one quarter of the energy of incandescent bulbs and will last about 10 years, or 10 times as long, according to Consumer Reports tests. But Consumer Reports also found that turning a CFL on and off within less than 15 minutes, something you might do in the bathroom for instance, leads to earlier-than-expected brownouts.

That rapid cycling issue, plus the arrival of good LEDs in the traditional A19 bulb shape, got me rethinking my home lighting and prodded me to use different bulb types for different purposes. I’m still focused on efficiency, so I’m only using incandescent bulbs in places where the light is used in short spurts. I tend to go in and out of the attic quickly, for example, and want full brightness as soon as possible.

I’ve also added a few LEDs, which are certainly more expensive–a 60-watt incandescent replacement costs almost $40–but functionally they have been good CFL replacements and are more efficient per lumen. I have a few Philips LEDs that give off as much light as a 60-watt incandescent or a 14-watt CFL, and they consume 12 watts.

It will take a long time based on energy savings compared with CFLs to recoup the initial cost. On the other hand, LEDs are supposed to last upward of 20 years, and I placed them in fixtures that we flick on and off frequently, which I hope will address the burnouts I’ve experienced with CFLs.

LEDs multiply
You don’t yet see general-purpose LED bulbs at the supermarket or corner hardware store, but more products in the popular 60-watt-equivalent category are coming, and prices are expected to continue falling. In the space of the last few weeks, a couple of new LED companies have emerged, and one anticipated product (well, anticipated by lighting geeks at least) is expected in stores soon.
Light dispersal in LED bulbs (photos)

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Switch Lighting, backed by venture capital firm VantagePoint Capital Partners, plans in the fourth quarter to start selling an LED bulb which has a cooling system that it says will ensure long life–on the order of 20,000 hours, or 18 years, at three hours a day. The company is readying 40-watt, 60-watt, and 75-watt equivalent bulbs, with prices starting at less than $20, according to a representative. To make light dispersal more even, the LED light sources–small coin-size dots–are located near the edge of the bulb glass, a change from the typical “snowcone” shape.
Another company is Pixi Lighting, which introduced an A19 LED earlier this month. It has a color rendering index (CRI) of 90, a measure of light quality, and a color temperature of 3,000 Kelvin, or white light. The 40-watt equivalent, which uses 6.5 watts, has been in an overhead fixture in my house for a few weeks and I find the light quality is good.

Lighting Sciences Group will offer two 60-watt equivalent LEDs with some impressive “feeds and speeds” slated to be available online and in Home Depot nationally by the end of the second quarter, according to the company. Rather than the snowcone shape, the bulb has a thick disk on top of a heat sink to disperse light evenly.

There will be both a “cool white” and “warm white” version. The cool white will give off 950 lumens, have a CRI of 88, consume 13 watts, and have a cool color temperature of 4,900 Kelvin. That product is already available at some Home Depot stores and costs $36.97. The warm white will give off 850 lumens, consume 13 watts, have a CRI of 88, a temperature of 3,000 Kelvin, and cost $34.97.

The design of that product reflects how manufacturers are trying to improve LEDs so that they are suitable for many more uses in a typical home. Until now, LEDs have excelled at directional lighting uses, such as spotlights or downlights in recessed cans in a ceiling. But now GE has an “omnidirectional” LED bulb where the heat sink diffuses light. Cree, too, is working on a 60-watt replacement LED bulb that prioritizes even light along with efficiency (less than 10 watts) and life.

City Market Selects Leading Edge Design Group and Digital Lumens to Drive Dramatic Energy Savings
Digital Lumens, developer of the industry’s first Intelligent Lighting System?, and Leading Edge Design Group, a leading national provider of energy optimization services, announced today the completion of an energy efficient lighting upgrade for the retail areas of City Market/Onion River Co-op. Burlington Electric provided the project incentive.

The deployment of Digital Lumens’ Intelligent Lighting System will drastically reduce lighting operating and maintenance costs, and deliver savings of nearly 100,000 kWh of energy per year — equal to more than 64 tons of carbon. City Market installed the Digital Lumens Intelligent Light Engines (LED-based fixtures with embedded controls) into the shopping areas and uses LightRules (central lighting and energy management software) to configure light levels and monitor energy usage.

“The Digital Lumens Intelligent Lighting System installed by Leading Edge Design Group is delivering dramatic cost savings and decreasing our energy usage, while also giving us accurate data on lighting energy consumption store,” said Brent Demers, Facilities Manager, City Market. “With LightRules we have accurate information on just how much energy we’re using, which helps us manage our overall consumption. In addition, numerous customers have complimented us on quality of light, meaning that we’re saving energy and making our customers happy. That’s a successful project.”

“We are proud of our work with Digital Lumens on the City Market deployment,” said Gary Hubbard, Energy Efficiency Program Manager at Leading Edge Design Group. “The combination of our energy optimization services and Digital Lumens’s innovative LED-based Intelligent Lighting System has helped City Market achieve its sustainability goals while decreasing costs and enhancing the customer experience. We look forward to future collaboration to bring these same benefits to other customers, as well.”

“This deployment brings the benefits of our Intelligent Lighting System to retail environments, and we are delighted that the efficiency-driven City Market team has chosen Digital Lumens,” said Mike Feinstein, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Digital Lumens. “The combination of lighting quality as well as cost savings driven by improved operational efficiency makes our System a great solution for a variety of environments.”
About Leading Edge Design Group
Leading Edge Design Group is a leading national provider of energy optimization services that delivers significant energy savings to the public and private marketplaces through efficient data center designs and emerging LED lighting and wireless lighting control technologies. Founded in 2007 with the goal of pursuing, promoting, and providing the finest energy optimization solutions available, we help our customers minimize the environmental impact of their businesses while improving operational reliability and reducing costs. Leading Edge Design Group is dedicated to encouraging, challenging, and contributing to energy industry innovation with an ongoing commitment to our community and our environment.

About City Market, Onion River Co-Op
City Market, Onion River Co-op, is a 16,000 sq. ft. community-owned food cooperative located in beautiful downtown Burlington, Vermont. City Market is Burlington’s only downtown grocery store, open 363 days per year.

City Market provides a critical service to the residents of Burlington and the larger community by providing conventional, organic and local products at a fair price to all. Over 3,000 customers pass through our doors each day in search of the quality products offered by City Market.

The Co-op is also extremely dedicated to supporting the local economy and enhancing the sustainability of agriculture. We work with over 1,000 Vermont vendors to feature the widest selection of local products in the state. 73% of the vendors we do business with are located in Vermont and over 60 cents of every dollar in sales stays here and circulates in our local economy. We are member-owned, so in profitable years the profits generated by Co-op members are returned to our members through an annual patronage refund.

LED Light Bulbs’s improvement efforts to descrease consumtation of energy
Due to the measures noted above, there have been recent efforts to improve the efficiency of incandescents. In 2007,Due to the measures noted above, there have been recent efforts to improve the efficiency of incandescents. In 2007, the consumer lighting division of General Electric announced a “high efficiency incandescent” (HEI) lamp project, which they claimed would ultimately be as much as four times more efficient than current incandescents, although their initial production goal was to be approximately two times more efficient. the consumer lighting division of General Electric announced a “high efficiency incandescent” (HEI) lamp project,Due to the measures noted above, there have been recent efforts to improve the efficiency of incandescents. In 2007, the consumer lighting division of General Electric announced a “high efficiency incandescent” (HEI) lamp project, which they claimed would ultimately be as much as four times more efficient than current incandescents, although their initial production goal was to be approximately two times more efficient. which they claimed would ultimately be as much as four times more efficient than current incandescents, although their initial production goal was to be approximately two times more efficient. The HEI program was quietly terminated in 2008 due to slow progressLED Light Bulbs
U.S. Department of Energy research at Sandia National Laboratories initially indicated the potential for dramatically improved efficiency from a photonic lattice filament. However, later work indicated that initially promising results were in error.Thomas Edison began serious research into developing a practical incandescent lamp in 1878. Edison filed his first patent application for “Improvement In Electric Lights” on October 14, 1878. LED Recessed Lights
After many experiments with platinum and other metal filaments, Edison returned to a carbon filament. The first successful test was on October 22, 1879, and lasted 13.5 hours. Edison continued to improve this design and by November 4, 1879, filed for a U.S. patent for an electric lamp using “a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected … to platina contact wires.” Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament including using “cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways,” it was not until several months after the patent was granted that Edison and his team discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last over 1200 hours.Prompted by U.S. legislation mandating increased bulb efficiency by 2012, new “hybrid” incandescent bulbs have been introduced by Philips. LED Fluorescent
The “Halogena Energy Saver” incandescent is 30 percent more efficient than traditional designs, using a special chamber to reflect formerly wasted heat back to the filament to provide additional lighting power.

Android meets LED bulbs in Google smart-home push

By the end of this year, people will be able to buy an LED light bulb controllable from an Android device, part of Google’s move into home automation.

At the Google I/O conference today, Google demonstrated how Android devices, including tablets and smartphones, can act as a hub for controlling multiple devices in the home, including lighting, appliances, thermostats, and music.
Coming to a home network near you: a Lighting Sciences Group A19 LED bulb controllable by Android devices.

Google concocted a lighting demo system with Lighting Sciences Group, which developed an LED bulb that can talk to Android. It uses a new mesh network wireless protocol rather than Wi-Fi, ZigBee, or the other proprietary home automation protocols.

The hope is that software developers will create applications that use the home automation system of connected devices. The demo at Google I/O was of a person playing a shooting video game with the lights turning on and off as shots were fired, said Eric Holland, the director of electrical engineering at Lighting Sciences Group.

“Lighting is very visible and prevalent so it made sense for it to be first foray for the platform,” Holland said. “Every one of the lights has a radio integrated inside the lamp so there’s no additional equipment.”

Many companies are building home automation systems built around connected objects, which give people a way to set up schedules around lighting and heating/cooling. People can also turn plugged-in items on and off from a central point, such as a tablet or small dashboard.

Having many devices communicating using ZigBee or Wi-Fi could create interference problems, one reason why a new protocol is being used, Holland said. Since it is open-source, Google and Lighting Sciences Group hope it will be adopted by other lighting and home automation companies. The networked bulbs will be available by the end of the year at the same cost as their general-purpose LEDs, for which prices range from under $20 to about $35 for a 60-watt equivalent.

Google enters a crowded field of home automation and consumer smart-grid companies that are trying to get a foothold for smart-home products.

Adaptive Micro Systems enters receivership and plans to close Milwaukee headquarters

Adaptive Micro Systems, a designer and manufacturer of electronic signage, LED displays and related control systems, has entered Wisconsin Chapter 128 receivership and plans to close its headquarters and manufacturing facility at 7840 N. 86th St., Milwaukee.

All of Adaptive Micro Systems’ 71 employees will be terminated, according to a letter sent to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development by attorney Michael Polsky, the court-appointed receiver in the matter. Layoffs are expected to begin July 6.

According to the letter, the company has experienced unforeseen business circumstances and was in the process of seeking capital or business to prevent or postpone the plant closure and to continue operations.
Uline
Ladish acquisition set to close this week after shareholder approval

The shareholders of Cudahy-based Ladish Co. approved the acquisition of the company at a special meeting last week, another step in its planned purchase by a wholly owned subsidiary of Allegheny Technologies Inc.

Approximately 99.9 percent of the Ladish shares voted at the meeting were in favor of the transaction. Ladish expects to close the transaction with ATI today or shortly thereafter.

Ladish is a leading producer of highly engineered, technically advanced metal components for the jet engine, aerospace and general industrial markets.

Milwaukee lures another Spanish manufacturer to town

The Spanish firm Sic Lazaro, a producer of industrial counterweights, is establishing its first manufacturing operation in North America on Milwaukee’s far north side.

The company will occupy a 138,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at 7044-7100 N. Teutonia Ave.

Sic Lazaro expects to open in fall 2011 and hire about 30 employees within a year.

Privately held Sic Lazaro targeted Wisconsin as a location because of the state’s manufacturing heritage and base. “We think Milwaukee is an excellent location for manufacturing and an ideal place from which to serve the U.S. market,” said Cliff Ratza, who will manage the company’s Milwaukee plant. “We appreciate the help of the M7 and the City of Milwaukee in providing resources and assistance as we evaluated potential locales.”

Lazaro is the third Spanish manufacturer that M7 has worked with in the past year to locate in the region. The others are wind energy firm Ingeteam, which is opening its North American headquarters and manufacturing plant in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley, and train manufacturer Talgo, located on Milwaukee’s north side at the former Tower Automotive plant.

M7 officials say they are luring European manufacturers because of the region’s strong base of manufacturing companies, suppliers and skilled workers, including a high percentage of engineers. Wisconsin ranks first nationally for concentration of manufacturing employment, and Milwaukee ranks second regionally. The region’s proximity to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is another selling point for European companies.

As part of our global attraction strategy, M7 representatives and Racine County and City of Milwaukee economic development professionals recently attended the Hannover Messe trade show in Germany, one of the largest industrial shows in the world with more than 200,000 attendees.

Milwaukee 7 was part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Invest in America booth at the Hannover Messe trade show in Germany.

More than 30 prescheduled one-on-one meetings with European manufacturers were organized to sell the region’s manufacturing expertise in automation, power, energy and electrical components, which aligns well with Europe’s advanced manufacturing sector. The trade show also served as a base for visits to a number of neighboring regions and countries.

M7 executive director Pat O’Brien said the trip was a valuable step in the region’s foreign direct investment strategy.

“We’re getting the word out about the region, companies are impressed with our manufacturing attributes and we’re adding more European projects to our pipeline,” O’Brien said.

The Milwaukee 7 investment campaign has just surpassed $6.4 million. New investors include: Bank Mutual; Consolidated Construction Company; DeltaHawk Engines; GenMet; Patrick Horne; Northwestern Mutual; and Quarles & Brady LLP.