Blog Archives
Bruno Pavcic Retires After 23 Years of Service
Announcing the Winners of the 2018 McWane Scholarship!
McWane awards ten scholarships ($2,000 x 4 years) annually to children of McWane team members to assist them as they pursue a college education. The scholarship program is administrated by the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham and students can apply online. We are pleased to report that there were 60 eligible applicants this year.
The winners of the 2018 McWane Scholarship are:
Hannah Frank (Duane Frank, Sales Manager McWane Ductile, Coshocton, Ohio)
Tianna Voelkert (Camilla Voelkert, Sales Coordinator Amerex, Trussville, Alabama)
Isabella Zornes (Rodney Zornes, Electrical Engineer McWane Ductile. Coshocton, Ohio)
Taylor Thorington (John Thorington, Chief Technology Officer Synapse, Huntsville, Alabama)
Alyssa Tedrow (William Tedrow, Supervisor Manchester Tank, Bedford, Indiana)
Dolores Ortiz-Rodriguez (Delores Martinez, Labor Tyler Union, Anniston, Alabama)
Danica Butler (Brett Butler, Maintenance Electrician McWane Ductile, Provo, Utah)
Juliana Ortega (Juan Ortega, Pipe Processor Tyler Pipe Company, Tyler, Texas)
Calee Cameron (Joshua Cameron, Master Electrician Tyler Pipe Company. Tyler, Texas)
Adriana Rabearivelo (Reddy Rabearivelo, Bibby Ste. Croix, Ste. Croix, Quebec, Canada)
Congratulations to this year’s winners! We wish you the best of luck as you continue your education.
Clow Valve Hosts Foundry Tour For Local Students
On Tuesday, March 27, our Clow Valve facility located in Oskaloosa, Iowa hosted a tour of the metal casting operation for local high school seniors enrolled in industrial technology courses. Maintenance mechanic B.J. Bowie conducted the tour. The students were particularly interested in learning more about careers, types of jobs and skills needed to work in advanced manufacturing as well as opportunities available in skilled trades.
Clow Valve welcomes any opportunities to show the future workforce our state-of-the-art facilities and educate them about the potential career opportunities that are available in manufacturing and skilled trades.
Pictured: MCF Maintenance Mechanic BJ Bowie and local high school seniors.
Futurecom Holds Annual Christmas Luncheon
Futurecom team members held their annual Christmas luncheon on December 7 at Destiny Banquet Hall in Woodbridge, Ontario. Team members enjoyed a wonderful lunch and were treated to a murder mystery production of Silence of the Hams put on by BigTime Productions.
Team members were active participants in the production including Dave Ray, Senior Director of Engineering, who performed an Academy Award winning death scene. Other team members participated by showing some fantastic dance moves.
The entire Futurecom team would like to wish all our customers and vendors a very happy holiday season and a prosperous 2018!
AB&I Hosts Students From Oakland Unified School District
AB&I partnered with Emiliano Sanchez and the Oakland Unified School District to host several middle school students and approximately 65 students from two Oakland high schools on November 2. The goal is to continue educating students about the career opportunities available in manufacturing and the important role it plays in our lives. Many students think of manufacturing as an old industry with no advanced technology. Advanced Manufacturing and Career Technical Education Day gives us the opportunity to showcase the role technology plays in our foundry today and hopefully inspire the next generation of manufacturers.
AB&I manufacturing ambassadors talked to the students about how they started their careers at AB&I, what they are doing now and why they like manufacturing. Environmental team member Mike Olvera talked about how he found his passion in the environment through an internship in high school. He discussed all the regulations he has to follow and stay up-to-date on and how he has to apply them by working collaboratively with engineering, maintenance, production and other departments to implement changes. Rich Watson, Jose Martinez, Jaime Miramontes, Alfredo Costa, Roberto Ramirez led tours for two groups of students, teachers and chaperones. Prior to the tours, Jennifer Grundell coordinated the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE), including head phones. AB&I also presented each student with a t-shirt that Jenny designed and a 4” cast iron skillet.
At the conclusion of the tour, the students went to Laney College for lunch and an introduction to the various manufacturing programs available at the college.
“I appreciate the partnership with AB&I and the willingness of the manufacturing Ambassadors and the team to share their experience and knowledge with the students,” said Emiliano Sanchez.
Allowing manufacturers an opportunity to open their doors and show, in a coordinated effort, what manufacturing is clears up many common misconceptions. By working together during and after the event, manufacturers can hopefully begin to address the skilled labor shortage they face, connect with future generations, take charge of the public image of manufacturing, and ensure the ongoing prosperity of the industry.
Scott Willis Named New Zinwave CEO, Ian Sugarbroad to Retire
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Scott D. Willis as the new Chief Executive Officer of Zinwave, effective January 4, 2016. Ian Sugarbroad will step down from his current role on January 4, but will work closely with Scott on a full-time basis for several months to facilitate the transition of his responsibilities. During this period he will move to the role of Vice-Chairman of Zinwave and will remain a member of the Zinwave executive team. Once the transition is complete, Ian will report to Key Foster in a special advisory role where he will provide input on a wide range of strategic, technical, and operational matters that relate both to Zinwave and to McWane Technology Group. This role will enable Ian to take his first step toward his long-term plan to retire to Florida with his wife, Dominique.
Scott joins us from Goodman Networks, where he was Executive Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. He brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and relationships developed over his 30-year career in the telecommunications industry. Scott previously worked for Ericsson, Nokia, BellSouth, Sprint, and several smaller global corporations in the communications field.
Scott has led a number of large global businesses over the course of his extensive career. He is recognized as a strong sales and marketing executive with a proven track record in market-leading sales growth. He has extensive general management experience setting strategic direction, confecting corporate alliances, and overseeing complex operations for both large and small organizations. He also has built and grown new businesses to significant scale. We are confident that Scott’s leadership capabilities and experience in our target market segments (operator, neutral host, and enterprise) will help Zinwave seize the significant growth opportunities that are within our grasp.
Scott graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in finance, received his MBA from Wake Forest University, and received continuing executive education certificates from the graduate schools of business at Stanford and Columbia. Scott will be based in Dallas, TX, where he lives with his wife (Kelley), daughter (Savannah), and son (Chance).
We are excited for Scott to join the Zinwave and the McWane family of companies. We are confident he will lead the organization to achieve the ambitious goals that we have outlined for the business.
Please join us in welcoming Scott to the team.
McWane Gulf Exhibits at 2015 Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition
(Also pictured are Max Felix, Sasi Pillai, Farookh Anwar, Anshu Gaur, and Sooraj Krishnan from the McWane Gulf Sales team)
McWane Gulf participated in the 2015 Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition (WETEX). They participated in the American pavilion which was inaugurated by U.S. Consul General in Dubai Robert Waller. They were very impressed that McWane is investing in the UAE.
We were the only investor amongst exhibitors in the U.S. Pavilion so when His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Finance Minister of the UAE, President of DEWA, and Patron of WETEX and CEO Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA (Dubai Water and Electricity Authority) were visiting the American pavilion, they were introduced specifically to us.
McWane Gulf General Manager/Vice President Ray Schofield explained to the VIPs about our investment in the UAE and we were well received at this Exhibition and got great exposure for our upcoming factory.
Nighthawk Launches Consumer Engagement Utility Portal
Nighthawk announced last week that they are launching a Consumer Engagement Platform that will utilize the award winning “Cloud” based service. It is a full engagement and communications platform that delivers messaging and real time usage data in a variety of easy to understand graphs as well as opportunities and tips for customers to reduce their monthly costs and usage. The multi-tenant platform enables electric, water and gas utilities for a complete approach to resource optimization. All customers would like to save money on their utilities. The Consumer Engagement Portal equips them to meet this goal.
This engagement directly meets the demands of customers to better understand utility usage, become better stewards of the environment and most importantly lower utility costs. Customers become directly engaged with the utility and are more receptive to communications delivered through the platform.
Nighthawk’s Consumer Engagement Portal is a game changing platform with analytical features and customized comparisons of similarly sized homes without requiring the homeowner to complete long surveys or enter extensive information. The portal allows utilities to provide customers with the granular data they are requesting about daily usage and how they compare to similar neighbors. Powered by Nighthawk’s “cloud” based WebConnect™ platform the new portal offering is both more robust and more affordable than others available.
The portal also offers easy to understand graphs including the display of weather and how it relates to utility usage. Previous periods can be selected and compared to the currently selected period. Alerts for cost and usage thresholds can be configured to text or email notifications when they are exceeded. Comparison data displays usage by similar homes in the zip code broken out to highlight savings enjoyed by the most efficient neighbors. Utilities gain the opportunity to send temperature and weather related messaging in addition to suggestions for conservation.
Nighthawk’s Consumer Engagement Portal takes advantage of the fact that when people are given the ability to understand usage patterns and shown the savings enjoyed by neighbors they are much more likely to adopt those savings habits themselves.
These savings and the increased communication between utility and customer equate to a virtual demand response program requiring no additional equipment or maintenance. It is the most cost effective form of demand response. Nighthawk’s Consumer Engagement Portal can be configured to work with your existing billing and meter systems. Nighthawk utilizes cellular communication combined with ERT reading technology to collect data from new or legacy systems. Their flexible database and open API solution allows for quick implementation and is offered as a fully hosted turnkey solution for utilities of any size.
We’re excited about this new platform and know that our customers will be as well.
Synapse Wireless to be Featured on The Peggy Smedley Show
Synapse’s own CTO, David Ewing, has been invited to participate on The Peggy Smedley Show, which will be broadcast live on Tuesday, November 18th at 12:15 pm CST.
As the voice of M2M and connected devices, The Peggy Smedley Show is an entertaining, yet fun, resource for listeners looking to understand the issues and challenges of implementing the newest technologies both in the workplace and at home. Broadcast live each Tuesday from 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. CT on wsRadio.com, host Peggy Smedley brings her years of experience, knowledge, analysis, and sense of humor to each show. The Peggy Smedley Show features discussions with top-tech thinkers and newsmakers, offering in-depth analysis, while sharing the hottest connected-device stories and trends.
To listen live on Tuesday, please visit www.peggysmedleyshow.com.
University of Alabama Students Visit M&H Valve in Anniston, Alabama
STEM Students from the University of Alabama
On Friday, February 28, a group of eleven STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) students from the University of Alabama visited M&H Valve Company in Anniston, Alabama, for a plant tour. M&H will be selecting a student from this group to participate in an internship this summer.
The University of Alabama STEM Program focuses on attracting high-quality undergraduate students majoring in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. The program is an innovative approach to engage students early on as undergraduates and employ nontraditional-classroom methods to allow top students to complete the MBA in one additional calendar year. The purpose of the path is to provide high-achieving students with the business knowledge needed to successfully manage businesses.
McWane is always proud to assist the younger generation in reaching their goals. We hope the STEM students from the University of Alabama enjoyed and benefited from their visit!
McWane, Inc. 