3.5 Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost since 2001

I just heard an amazing statistic that since 2001, 3.5 MILLION manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States! This is where standards such as MTConnect really matter for the United States. We must increase the productivity for the manufacturing technology industry and MTConnect is the absolute first step because until manufacturing technology systems can speak the same language, the industry will continue to languish. The great news is that, as you see below, MTConnect is doing tremendously well thanks the the huge success of IMTS 2008.

The most important group in any standards effort are the customers. The customers are absolutely starting to demand MTConnect. Below are the MTConnect Participants who are the thought leaders in manufacturing technology and are changing the world in a very positive way by embracing open and royalty-free standards (the list below is as of September 26th, 2008) that came from the MTConnect homepage.

MT Connect Technical Advisory Group: Members Assembly & Test Worldwide, Inc. Digital Technology Laboratory Corporation FANUC Robotics America, Inc. GE Aviation GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Inc. The Gleason Works I/Gear Software, Inc. LMAS, UC Berkeley MAG Industrial Automation Systems National Institute of Standards and Technology Mazak Corporation Parlect, Inc. Remmele Engineering, Inc. Bosch Rexroth Corporation Sun Microsystems, Inc. TechSolve, Inc. MT Connect Technical Advisory Group: Observers Hurco Companies, Inc. Okuma America Corporation Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. MT Connect Contributors/Implementers Agie Charmilles CNC Engineering CAMTEK Division of Vero CNC Engineering Drake Esprit Flow International GibbsCAM Haas Automation, Inc. Hardinge, Inc. Huffman Corporation Infimatic LNS America, Inc. Milltronics Manufacturing Corporation Mori Seiki, Inc. NUM Omax THINC Partners Refresh Your Memory Star-SU Sunnen

Bragging on my middle son Michael's academic achievments :-)

Bragging on my middle son Michael's academic achievments :-)

My middle son Michael Edstrom graduated with a 3.95 GPA from Broad Run High School in Ashburn, VA last month. Michael will be joining his brother, John, at Virginia Tech next year. Michael was in the top 10 percent of his class. The top ten percent was from a 3.94 to a 4.46 average. It was a class of champions, as brought out by this article:

"Dr. Ed Markley is not one given to hyperbole.

In 13 years as Broad Run High School's principal -- and 27 years as a principal overall he's not been one to heap on meaningless praise.

That's what made what he said to the 342 members of the Class of 2009 on Saturday, June 20th, particularly meaningful. This is probably the most outstanding graduating class that we've ever had.

First of all, you're great people, almost to a person. I couldn't ask for better kids.

Markley then recounted how this class led a school that received consecutive Governor's Awards for academic excellence, won four state athletic championships this year alone as well as producing a state champion in debate and earning $1.6 million in scholarships. By any measure, he said, this class was exceptional."

Broad Run's 2009 valedictorian was Nam Nguyen with a grade point average (GPA) of 4.46. The salutatorian was Corinne Lepe with a GPA of 4.39.

The top 10 percent of the class, with GPA's ranging from 3.93 to 4.46 included:

• Laurie Adams
• Justin Alexander
• Gi-Tae Baik
• Robert Bobbitt
• Allison Bogle
• Vanessa Bornholdt
• Nicole Bruno
• Catherine Casares
• Monica Chiu
• Michael Edstrom
• Nancy Ellsworth
• Kathryn Finney
• Jessica Foster
• Kelly Friedmann
• Hubaida Fuseini
• Michelle Gabro
• Elizabeth Geary
• Kelly Giltner
• Jacqueline Glass
• Kaleigh Ham
• Katherine Hayden
• Devon Hudson
• Cortney Jiggetts
• Christine Jordan
• Diana Kao
• Mari Kent
• Rohan Kothakapu
• Nicole Lavella
• Han Lin
• Julie MacDonald
• Wesley Malychev
• David Mann
• Jean Manuel-Tayag
• Scott Miles
• Mary Mitesser
• Alyson Mullee
• Patrick Murphy
• Jenny Nguyen
• Thang Nguyen
• Shannon Northcott
• Stephanie Parker
• Eric Pasztor
• Marissa Petty
• Michael Pokrass
• Ashley Pruett
• Michael Schweikert
• Erik Shamloo
• Sravan Tumuluri
• Christopher Tydings
• Megan Waterman
• Bradley Whitwell
• Ashley Williams
• Jaewon Yang
• Eric Zoepfl

It was truly an amazing group of kids. For the list of the top ten percent, see here.

Posted at 10:25AM Jul 09, 2009 by edstromvette in Personal | Edit | Comments[0] | Permalink

Sun is #13 in Top 100 Best Places to Work in IT for 2009

This is very cool recognition:

Sun is number 13 in Computerworld's list of the "100 Best Places to Work in IT 2009".

Having been here at Sun for over 22 years, I absolutely believe it. I wonder where we were ranked during the dotcom heyday? If you know, please leave a comment here on my blog....