Temple Plant Managers Announce Benchmark Areas of Excellence

Temple, TX -- The Temple Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) held their Quarterly Plant Manager's meeting on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 from Noon until 1:30 p.m. at TEDC's office at 1 South First Street. Area businesses and industries presented their versions of striving for excellence in their respective fields.

Presenters included:

• Ronnie Hobbs and Carl Benson - Pactiv - discussed the methodology and approach to safety at their facility which subsequently earned them the award as an OSHA Star/VPP facility.
  
  
• Bill DiGaetano - Wilsonart - presented WilsonArt's commitment to community involvement and desire to be a good corporate citizen. He stressed employee involvement as the key to success in this arena.
  
  
• Wayne Winekauf - Texas Hydraulics - showed before and after pictures of their facility as it gained operational excellence by becoming a lean manufacturing facility. The adoption of lean manufacturing for continuous improvement at a facility requires a culture change and must involve all from the top down.
  
  
• Skip Carruth and Danyelle Hankal - McLane Advanced Technologies - discussed their success in securing workforce training grants with the assistance of Temple College. These grants enable MAT to offer managerial as well as technical training that would not have been available otherwise.
  
  
• Mark Richner and Tex Burrows were not physically present, but respectively Lock

Joint Tube and Gidden Distribution were sited for excellence in their recent expansions.

Temple business and industry is fortunate to have several resources to access for assistance with any of the items listed above. If your business or industry would like to learn how to reach a benchmark in excellence please contact Temple College, Texas Workforce Solutions or the Temple Economic Development Corporation.

Mayor Bill Jones who was in attendance representing his company Materials Transportation Company said, "This was an excellent luncheon today. . . a number of us are excited about having some local resources for leading edge ideas. I am glad that I was there today. We have some great companies in our community doing some amazing
work."

For more information go to www.choosetemple.com

About Temple:
Temple, Texas is a community with a diverse economic base that includes healthcare, distribution and warehousing, and manufacturing as the foundation. Within 180 miles of a population of 17,800,000, Temple is in a strategic location that is central within the southwestU.S. marketplace.