Continuing Growth and Progress

Diana Peters, CEO of Case of Success, Co. (Vancouver, WA), recently offered to provide free Internet advertising for SAM. Peters' company provides an Internet advertising exchange and she is pro-U.S. manufacturing. SAM is happy to have her on the team.

SAM also is working with a group called Economic Globalization (Mansfield, CT). Concerned about job loss in the U.S. as a result of work moving overseas, they will be joining SAM's letter-writing campaign and other SAM-sponsored programs. Also joining in SAM's efforts is the Manufacturing Association of New York City. Oliver Lednicer, president of the organization, solicited SAM to write a feature article in their upcoming newsletter. Their group also will be working on SAM's letter-writing campaign.

On the trade show front is the Manufacturing and Economic Recovery Conference (MERC). A special keynote speaker at MERC is U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce, Grant Aldonas, who will discuss the efforts underway in Washington to enable American manufacturers to be competitive with foreign companies. He will particularly discuss what the government is doing to help spark the economy and manufacturing. Alan Tonelson, author of The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade Are Sinking American Living Standards, will talk about the various U.S. industries that are moving to China. Former space shuttle astronaut, Dan Brandenstien, now a vice president with Lockheed Martin's space program operations, also joins the list of speakers.

Also included will be author Mike Collins—Why We Can Compete—vice president of manufacturing for Lockheed Martin, Ed Linhart—a representative from Harley-Davidson Motrocycles and a slate of manufacturing CEOs and other noted politicians including (unconfirmed) Representatives Donald Manzullo (IL), William Lipinski (IL) and Virgil Goode (VA), all members of the Congressional Manufacturing Caucus. The conference features roundtables, one-on-one discussions for manufacturers to speak with some of the leading technology providers in the world and a variety of panels with politicians and the extensive list of experts.

SAM's Legislative Scoreboard, published monthly in Moldmaking Technology magazine, has gotten quite a bit of interest. The newest criterion to be added to the list of guidelines is support of small businesses. Eighty percent of the manufacturing industry in the U.S. is made up of small businesses and SAM wants to ensure that those representatives on the list have these specialized companies in mind when voting on bills.

The second edition of the SAM Legislative Scoreboard is a list of only the most recent added supporters. You can see the full list of legislative supporters and a detailed listing of their voting records and the criteria used to determine a legislator's placement on the scoreboard on SAM's website at www.SAM-USA.org.

Thanks for the continued support!