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May 8, 2015 – PELLA, Iowa– Ring-O-Matic Inc., an Iowa based manufacturer of vacuum 
excavators, is pleased to announce the appointment of Brian Metcalf as CEO.
For the past eight years Metcalf has been president of HammerHead Trenchless Equipment of Lake Mills, Wisconsin, a Charles Machine Works company. A Pella native, Brian has previously held leadership positions at both Vermeer Corporation and Pella Corporation.
“I’m excited to be returning to the Pella area and I am honored to be joining the Ring-O-Matic family,” said Metcalf. “Ring-O-Matic has nearly a 60-year history full of unique innovations to meet the needs of customers. The company is well positioned as a privately held company for an expanded role in providing unique customer-driven solutions in trailer- and truck-mounted utility construction vacuum excavators, industrial vacuum excavators, and car wash pit cleaners.”
Vacuum excavators are powerful suction machines used to remove material and debris from the surface or below it.
As CEO, Metcalf will direct his attention to developing a sustainable strategic growth plan to position Ring-O-Matic as the preferred supplier of vacuum excavators, as well as its complement of related support products to meet customer requirements at jobsites worldwide. He will also determine how additional resources will focus on creating product offerings to achieve operational excellence and expand the market.
“We are enthusiastic to have Brian on board,” said Bob Zylstra, Ring-O-Matic’s owner and chairman. “Brian’s been in the industry for nearly 25 years. He has significant experience in all aspects of our business and industry. We’re fortunate to have his leadership, vision, and experience at Ring-O-Matic as we begin our next chapter.”
Metcalf said, “I’m excited to join Ring-O-Matic and look forward to leading our team in support of its existing loyal customers and in earning the business of new customers worldwide.”
For more information, contact:
Ken Kraus
Ring-O-Matic, Inc.
641-632-7752
Ring-O-Matic, Inc. of Pella, Iowa, USA, manufactures a full line of vacuum excavation machines and car wash pit cleaners. Ring-O-Matic’s product line has a strong reputation for reliability and ease-of-use. Ring-O-Matic offers worldwide sales, support, service and parts through a network of authorized dealers. For more information about Ring-O-Matic products, please call 800-544-2518or visit www.ring-o-matic.com.
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CH2M HILL— a global engineering firm specializing in government, industrial, infrastructure and energy projects —announced today that it has adopted a refreshed brand and logo designed to better reflect its clients’ needs and its own ambitions for growth. The company has also adopted a simpler brand name, CH2M.
CH2M was founded in Oregon nearly 70 years ago by three young engineers and their professor to solve local water challenges. The company’s brand name is a nod to the values and hearts of its founding fathers — Cornell, Howland, Hayes and Merryfield — literally “CH2M.”
“Through the years, CH2M has evolved from a regional engineering and consulting firm associated with first-of-a-kind projects to a global leader associated with some of the largest, best-known infrastructure programs for public and private clients,” says CH2M Chairman and Chief Executive Jacqueline Hinman.
Hinman said that the time was right for CH2M to make this move. “The last time we rebranded the company was in the 1990s,” said Hinman. “Since that time, CH2M has grown from 5,000 to 25,000 employees, working in more than 50 countries, with annual revenues of almost US$6 billion. Our distinctive new look reflects the energy and passion of the firm and its zest for bringing the smartest approaches to the markets and industries we serve.”
CH2M partners with its clients to tackle some of the world’s most complex and intimidating challenges. Whether it’s designing major railways in the US and UK or massive sewerage tunnels in Abu Dhabi; supervising nuclear cleanups in the US and Scotland; optimizing LEAN manufacturing processes in Asia-Pacific; or providing operating and maintenance services for oil & gas clients on Alaska’s North Slope, CH2M thrives on solving tough, global problems.
CH2M’s leadership believes that the rebrand and new logo, coupled with a refreshed business strategy launched in January, will help to deepen the relationships between their clients and CH2M’s sales and project delivery teams. In the past year, the company has focused its strategy on strengthening the culture of collaboration and sharing across its five business groups and around the world, to bring seamless solutions and full depth of the company’s capabilities to individual clients.
“Our refreshed brand goes much deeper than just a new logo and shortened nickname,” said Hinman. “It combines our client-centric mindset with our commitment to technical excellence and innovation. The challenges facing our clients don’t fit neatly into boxes any more. That’s one of the reasons our clients choose to work with us. We’ve been thinking outside-the-box since day one.”
The company’s move to rebrand and reposition itself is designed to meet those numerous and evolving challenges.
“The world needs cleaner drinking water, shorter commute times, more reliable energy sources, resilient infrastructure, and a healthier environment,” Hinman said. “The challenges facing those entities tasked with meeting these needs grow more complex every day. Our new brand is a catalyst for starting a different conversation with our clients about their challenges. By combining capabilities from across the company, we help our clients by not just addressing these problems, but transforming them into exciting new opportunities.”
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Release Date: 05/11/2015
Contact Information: Peter Cassell, cassell.peter@epa.gov, 312-886-6234
(CHICAGO) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that an additional $3.5 million has been made available for work in the Spirit Lake portion of the St. Louis River Area of Concern on Lake Superior near Duluth, Minnesota.
EPA will provide $2.275 million through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and U.S. Steel will provide $1.225 million to study options for cleaning up contaminated sediment in Spirit Lake. The funding will also cover design costs for the cleanup option that is ultimately selected. Construction and cleanup work in Spirit Lake could begin in late 2016.
During the past five years, Great Lakes Restoration Initiative funding has been used to accelerated work in “Areas of Concern” throughout the Great Lakes Basin – and to complete all required cleanup work in six Areas of Concern. The United States and Canada designated 43 Areas of Concern under the 1987 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in an effort to target sites contaminated primarily by industrial activity that occurred before modern environmental laws were enacted.
More information on the St. Louis River and Bay Area of Concern: http://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/aoc/stlouis/.
More information on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative: www.glri.us.
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When locating utilities under a street, there’s the hard way, and there’s the easy way.
The hard way of potholing for a horizontal directional drilling job is to saw cut and then dig with an excavator.
The easy way is known as core drilling. A crew uses a vacuum excavator equipped with a core drill to open a small hole, usually around 8 inches, to spot a utility. That smaller hole is less disruptive than saw cutting and results in lowers amounts of spoils, backfill and restoration costs.
Laclede Gas Company, the largest natural gas distribution utility in Missouri with about 625,000 customers, takes the easier, more efficient route.
“Using a vacuum excavator and core drill saves quite a bit on cost,” says Laclede’s Ray Hill.
He offers an example. With core drilling, the only pavement being disturbed is what’s drilled, usually 6, 8 or 12 inches in diameter. After removing the core, the crew vacuums down and finds the utility. They then haul away the spoils, backfill the hole and usually patch it with the same piece of concrete they removed.
With the break-and-dig method, a crew must replace at least a 4-by-4-foot slab if it’s a sidewalk and possibly a 15-by-15-foot slab if it’s a street, according to Hill. All of that material has to be trucked out, and then the larger surface area must be repaired.
Laclede has Vermeer vacuum excavators by McLaughlin. The vacs feature a McLaughlin core drill attachment that uses the vac’s hydraulic pump to power the saw, eliminating the need for a separate power source. Furthermore, the crew does not need to anchor the base of the core drill into the pavement because of a patented design in which the vac’s suction pressure keeps the base securely in place.
Jeff Wage, vice president at McLaughlin, says the core drill market is rapidly gaining momentum as awareness of the technology increases and as space becomes more constricted in urban settings both below ground and above.
Contractors also like that it’s a more cost-effective approach than saw cutting.
“Your excavation quantity, your haul-off quantity, your backfill quantity, your compaction quantity and your asphalt quantity is all significantly less with vacuum excavation and core drilling than it would be with a saw cut and open excavate method,” Wage says. “Core drilling with Vacuum excavation also reduces the amount of time of road closures and traffic disruptions and provides a superior and smaller reinstatement of the road surface when compared to excavation and patch methods.”
For more information about McLaughlin products, visit www.mclaughlinunderground.com or call (864) 277-5870. Check out the company on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mclunderground.
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<p>CALGARY, – Pure Technologies Ltd. announced that it has closed its previously announced acquisition of Wachs Valve and Hydrant Services, LLC (“Wachs Water”), a leading provider of flow control maintenance and support, leak detection, and related asset management services to the water sector in the United States.</p><p>”I’m pleased to officially welcome Wachs Water to the Pure family,” said Jack Elliott, President and CEO of the Company. “The closing of this transaction is another milestone in our Company’s history and we look forward to the synergies our two businesses will realize together. Through Wachs Water, we have enhanced our distribution channels for the deployment of our proprietary technologies and solutions, while adding significant management capabilities and field services personnel to help manage our growing water utility customer base within North America.”</p><p>As stated within the Company’s news release dated February 17, 2015, the total purchase price was US$18.5 million, consisting of US$13.5 million in cash and US$5.0 million in common shares of Pure (totalling 878,640 shares), to be issued in equal tranches on the 6-month, 12-month, and 18-month anniversaries of closing the transaction.</p><p><strong>About Wachs Water Services</strong></p><p>Wachs Water’s roots reach back 132 years to the creation of the Wachs Company in 1883. The Wachs Companies have been trusted solutions providers to water utilities for over 60 years. Wachs Water Services was founded in 2001, as a service company focused on helping water utilities increase control of their aging distribution networks. Wachs Water currently provides the following services to the water and wastewater pipeline sector:</p><p style=”margin-left: 15pt;”>· <em><u>Information Management</u></em><em>: Developing and maintaining GIS databases on water and wastewater flow control systems;</em></p><p style=”margin-left: 15pt;”>· <em><u>Valve assessment, maintenance and flow control</u></em><em>: Helping utilities to understand the operation of their valve systems and to reduce the consequence of pipe failure through timely and appropriate valve control in the event of a failure;</em></p><p style=”margin-left: 15pt;”>· <em><u>Leak Detection</u></em><em>: Providing leak detection and non-revenue water management services to water agencies;</em></p><p style=”margin-left: 15pt;”>· <em><u>Wastewater collection system assessment and prioritization</u></em><em>: Providing a multi-technology assessment capability to help owners prioritize cleaning and CCTV inspections.</em></p><p>For additional information on Wachs Water, please visit: <a href=”http://www.wachsws.com/” target=”_blank”>www.wachsws.com</a></p><p><strong>About Pure Technologies Ltd.</strong></p><p>Pure Technologies Ltd. is an international asset management, technology and services company which has developed patented technologies for inspection, monitoring and management of critical infrastructure around the world. Pure’s business model incorporates four distinct but complementary business streams:</p><p style=”margin-left: 15pt;”>· <em>Sales of proprietary monitoring technologies for pipelines, bridges and structures;</em></p><p style=”margin-left: 15pt;”>· <em>Recurring revenue from data analysis, site maintenance, and from technology licensing;</em></p><p style=”margin-left: 15pt;”>· <em>Premium technical services including </em><a href=”http://www.puretechltd.com/applications/pipelines/index.shtml” target=”_blank”><em>pipeline inspection</em></a><em>, </em><a href=”http://www.puretechltd.com/solutions/leak_detection/index.shtml” target=”_blank”><em>leak detection</em></a><em> and </em><a href=”http://www.puretechltd.com/solutions/condition_assessment/index.shtml” target=”_blank”><em>condition assessment</em></a><em>;</em></p><p style=”margin-left: 15pt;”>· <em>Specialized engineering services in asset management, non-revenue water and condition assessment for water and wastewater infrastructure.</em></p><p>® Registered Trademarks, property of Pure Technologies Ltd.</p><p>SOURCE Pure Technologies Ltd.</p><p>To find out more about Pure Technologies Ltd. (TSX: PUR), visit their website at <a href=”http://www.puretechltd.com” target=”_blank”>www.puretechltd.com</a> or contact Paul Moon, Investor Relations; (403) 266-6794 or investor.relations@puretechltd.com.</p>
excavators, is pleased to announce the appointment of Brian Metcalf as CEO.