Archive for April 19th, 2008

With the interest in manufacturer’s displays, Dick Erdel of Hubbell called me to talk about the Hubbell exhibit. The Hubbell display covers (3,500sqft) 7 business units and is modular. It comes in 108 crates! It has to go back in those same crates too when they tear it all down. They use it for a lot of shows and have to keep modernizing and updating. Part of the exhibit is 25 years old, but you could never tell. It takes 3 semis to haul it around the country. This is renewable at its best! Thanks Dick. I welcome any and all comments.

In the next 5 years there is going to be a brain-drain the likes of which has never been seen before. The “Baby-Boomers” are poised for retirement - surveys place the exodus at 50%. Many in the industry refuse to acknowledge it. Some utilities have a plan – hire the retired! Some “new” engineers can hardly wait until the “Old-Guard” is gone and they can modernize the grid. Where do you fit? My friend Wanda Reder, S&C’s VP of Power Systems Services is chairing the “Aging Workforce – Overcoming the Technical Talent Challenge” Super Session on Tuesday afternoon. It will be a very interesting session to say the least. I’d welcome any and all comments.

I was talking with Steven Strand from S&C about planning, designing, building, and staffing an exhibit. He told me S&C has a very large if not the biggest display in the show – Chicago is home and they are proud of it. They started working on the 2008 Chicago Expo the day after the 2006 Dallas Expo closed. S&C started manufacturing equipment the first week of January. Dozens of contractors and employees have been committed to the effort. It will take them 4 to 5 days to set it all up and will be staffed with close to 200 sales people from around the world. That is commitment. I’d welcome any and all comments. Tell me what you think.