RACINE - Claiming it can compete globally from its manufacturing base in southeastern Wisconsin, where it invented the first garbage disposal 90 years ago, InSinkErator on Thursday announced a $63 million raft of new investments that include new headquarters and research labs.
"We can be competitive here. We do it every day," said InSinkErator President Chad Severson. China, Britain, Australia and New Zealand are among the growth markets that InSinkErator expects to drive demand for made-in-Wisconsin disposals.
InSinkErator, owned by St. Louis-based Emerson Electric Co., will build a new $34 million headquarters and lab facility in Mount Pleasant, which is 5 miles from the flagship manufacturing plant, where officials unveiled the final design plans for the new prairie-style environmentally efficient building. Another $29 million is earmarked to expand the Racine manufacturing facility "and make room for future growth."
Company officials portrayed InSinkErator as a champion of made-in-America manufacturing, emphasizing that 90% of its suppliers are based in the United States, and all final assembly is done in American factories.
The company's basic food-waste pulverizing product is a staple in American homes, hidden under the kitchen sink. With new research and development labs, however, InSinkErator is broadening its aims into alternative energies, another global growth sector. Under a process it dubs Grind2Energy, InSinkErator will work with large-scale producers of leftovers such as stadiums or supermarkets and convert the leftovers into a slurry, which can be turned into fertilizers or biogas, Severson said.
The latest leg of expansion is part of a total $150 million in investments that Emerson is making in southeastern Wisconsin over the 2015-2019 timeframe. Those investments also include: $24.9 million to build a Kenosha facility, which opened in 2015, and $60 million in sustaining investment funding for various other needs.
InSinkErator employs 1,200 people in Racine, Kenosha and Sturtevant, making it a major employer in the region. InSinkErator is in the throes of restructuring its American operations but plans to leave its overall headcount in the region stable, officials said.
The new investments come as welcome news in Racine, where the unemployment rate is estimated at 5.3%, the second-highest of the state's 30 largest cities. Beloit has the highest, at 5.7%.
The new 85,000-square-foot headquarters, to be located in Mount Pleasant, also in Racine County, will be ready to open its doors next year near I-94, giving its executives access to the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor. It will house 175 engineers and professional staff.
"The I-94 corridor is going to be a very good jobs hub," said U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, speaker of the House of Representatives, who joined the announcement in his home district. “Manufacturers like InSinkErator are the backbone of our economy.”
Ryan used the occasion to reiterate his support for a proposed overhaul of the U.S. tax code this year, meant to lower tax rates for American companies to become more competitive, and for the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.
“I truly believe there is no better place to do business in America than the Badger State," Ryan said.
Emerson has closed on the purchase of 11.5 acres at the southwest corner of Highway 20 and Industrial Drive in Mount Pleasant and has received local approvals to build on the site. Construction of the new headquarters and lab building, which has been designed to qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, is scheduled to begin in June.
InSinkErator will receive financial incentives from the Racine County Board of Supervisors, which approved Emerson’s $4.65 million loan request, and the Village of Mount Pleasant Board of Trustees, which approved $600,000 in tax increment financing assistance.
“Southeast Wisconsin continues to be an important area of operations for Emerson’s InSinkErator business,” said Bob Sharp, executive president at Emerson's Commercial & Residential Solutions division.
Emerson expects to have its new InSinkErator headquarters open in July 2018 and reconfiguration of the Racine plant completed by fall 2019.
| A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel release || May 12, 2017
There are still a few places left on Neil Markham's 17 May and 21 June 2017 AutoCAD Essentials Training Course.
The course gives students the opportunity to acquire knowledge and understanding of the essential core topics working with the AutoCAD software. The teaching strategy is to start with a few basic tools that enable the student to create and edit a simple drawing, and then continue to develop the skills necessary to demonstrate competency such as:
A CADPRO Systems “Certificate of Attendance” will be issued following your Instructor-led Training.
Autodesk will issue a “Certificate of Completion” direct to the student once the Autodesk course valuation’s completed at the end of the training.Courseware
Autodesk eBook training manual (Internet access required) will be provided at the Instructor-led training.eBooks are license based and your property once activated
Continue here to contact Neil and gather more information.CADPRO Systems Ltd
Transport Minister Simon Bridges says a new lane along a section of Auckland’s Southern Motorway will help ease bottlenecks and improve journeys for thousands of motorists.
The additional southbound lane has now been opened to traffic between Hill Road and the Takanini interchange, and between the Takanini southbound on-ramp to the Pahurehure Inlet as part of the Southern Corridor Improvements project.
“The $268 million project is one of the Government’s accelerated transport projects for the Auckland region and will add extra lanes in both directions as well as upgrading the Takanini Interchange,” Mr Bridges says.
“The Southern Corridor connects Auckland and Northland to the rest of the country. The improvements will improve safety and journey reliability in the short term while supporting the rapid population growth in the south of the region in the next thirty years.
“It’s great to see the sections of extra southbound lanes now open in preparation for the opening of the Waterview Connection to ensure there’s enough capacity for the additional traffic joining State Highway 1 from State Highway 20,” Mr Bridges says.
Further improvements will extend the extra lanes both southbound and northbound, while the upgrade of the Takanini Interchange will provide new ramps for better traffic flow and easier access to the motorway. The project is due to be completed in 2019.
| A Beehive release | May 12, 2017 |||
Associate Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Louise Upston has welcomed the passing of the Education (Update) Amendment Bill today.
The Education Act has been updated to streamline the way government careers services and information are provided. As a result of a Government review of the careers system, Careers New Zealand is being disestablished and staff and functions will transfer to the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) on 1 July 2017.
“This is a positive step towards an improved careers system that will strengthen connections between education and employers, reduce fragmentation and duplication across government agencies and make pathways into further study and work clearer,” Ms Upston says.
“A refocused careers service within the TEC will make use of the commission’s ability to work with tertiary providers and employers so they co-ordinate with schools on the skill needs of the labour market.
“Students and their families can expect to have access to better and more consistent careers services and information as well as a continually expanding and improving suite of online tools,” Ms Upston says.
Employers will benefit from stronger connections with schools and tertiary providers and a more direct link to the skills pipeline, and careers education that links teaching and learning to the application of skills, knowledge and competencies in the labour market.
| A Beehive release || May 12, 2017 |||
Two reports released today by NIWA and the Ministry for the Environment on the technical background to the Clean Water proposals will help inform input into the plans to clean up New Zealand waterways, Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith says.
“The Clean Water plan is very ambitious in nationally grading our rivers and lakes for water quality for recreation and requiring 90 per cent to be swimmable by 2040. This has never been done before in New Zealand or overseas, but it is an important step in addressing our water quality issues.
“The grading system has generated significant debate and these reports provide more information on how the grading system compares internationally and the level of precaution they are based on.
“These reports show that the only other jurisdiction that attempts to grade waterways for swimming is Europe. Their grades of excellent, good and sufficient match the New Zealand grades of excellent, good and fair, although the New Zealand proposals for the bottom fair category are more cautious. This analysis shows that if New Zealand adopted the European grading, more rivers would be deemed swimmable.
“The report also notes that the USEPA criteria of waters either being swimmable or not is a bit more cautious, but notes that this has not been applied across all states in the US and requires a small sample size of four, rather than the 100 in the New Zealand proposal.
“These reports also provide more detailed information on the levels of risk from swimming in the different grades of rivers and lakes. The average infection risk when a person makes no assessment of the state of the waterway before swimming is rated at 1 per cent for the blue category, 2.4 per cent for the green category and 3.1 per cent for the yellow category. If a person follows the advice of not swimming during high flows, determined as three times normal flows, the risks drop to 0.3 per cent for blue, 1.3 per cent for green and 2.0 for yellow.
“These reports also confirm that the changes to the National Policy Statement in moving from a wadeable standard of a median 1000 E. coli/100ml to swimmable with a median of 130 E.coli/100ml for 90 per cent of waterways provides for a significant improvement in the microbiological water quality in our waterways.
“The gradings of waterways into different categories for swimmability inevitably involves choosing some arbitrary thresholds. The balance in setting these levels is to ensure we provide sufficient protection for people to swim safely while also ensuring we do not set a level that discourages people from enjoying the outdoors when the risks are low.
“I welcome further submissions from water quality scientists, and others with an interest, on the details of the gradings outlined in these additional reports by 25 May. We want to build wide support for the grading system to enable the focus to be on the significant task ahead in driving improvement.”
The reports can be seen at: https://niwa.co.nz/technical-background-report-swimmability and http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/fresh-water/swimming-categories-e-coli-clean-water-package
| A Beehive release || May 11, 2017 |||
Mass Scam Follows Xtra Security Overhaul
MSC Newswire has taken up with Spark how a counterfeit email seemingly from Spark itself and with the subject line title "Dear Xtra Spark Email User” had been able in fact to make the transit of Spark’s own security-enhanced messaging service.
The issue was taken up with Spark in the morning of Monday May 8. No response had been received by the close of the business day on Thursday May 11.
Astonishingly while MSC Newswire was talking to the Spark official and referring online on their mailbox to this counterfeit email unwanted pop-ups appeared (see screen grab top of this story.)
Here is the email. Note the subject line:--
From: Xtra Spark NZ eCare <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>To:Date: 06 May 2017 at 10:14Subject: Dear Xtra Spark Email User
Dear Xtra Spark Email User
This message is to all Xtra Spark Email Service Users. This is a notice and update to our valuable customer’s that a malware was recently detected in your account system so we have implement Anti-Malware software removes and virus free. As a result of that our Internet Tech Support is currently re-upgrading and verifying your email system networking center to identify and delete all email accounts registered unduly. This will enable us increase storage capacities for existing users and create more space for registration of new webmail future users.
To finish and fix your email account system service problem as it’s always up to date, and stops viruses before they reach your email account reply with the following details to upgrade and secure your email account for best internet service supply.
Email Address:
User name:
Password:
Reconfirm Password:
Zip Code:
Warning! Failure to reply with the above information will rendered your webmail account temporarily suspended by technical service admin.
Copyright © 2017. All Rights Reserved.
The pop up on the user's online Xtra mailbox was peddling a variety of services.We contacted via a given pop-up phone number the service advertised. It was from an organisation calling itself Financial Services Complaints Ltd.
The person answering the phone said that they were called Jan and confirmed that they were in the business of pay-day loans. Jan said the firm was based in Takapuna.
This state of affairs follows Spark’s bringing “home” its Xtra email service which was previously run in association with Yahoo. The association soured when Yahoo was the target of international and well publicised email hacks.
Spark’s core security work was undertaken by a third party specialist security company in New Zealand.
Spark has been hunkered down since its Xtra changeover which has been characterised by individual Xtra users having trouble migrating themselves onto the new all-New Zealand service.
Meanwhile MSC Newswire has questioned one of the spyware scammers making a pest of themselves with New Zealand internet users.
The scam spyware presentation said that it was in a position to rid the internet-user's computer of a variety of incriminating material that was now deposited on the user’s computer.
The telephone number 09 8010 177 was identified and was rung back.
The individual at the other end of the line identified themselves as “Tony” and said that they were based in California, and claimed to be legitimate.
| From theThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. || Thursday 11 May 2017 |||
Debt to Income caps (DTI) have been highlighted in a recent IMF report as an important measure to build resilience in our banks and housing market to protect financial stability. The Government needs to be willing to give the RBNZ the power to implement these DTI caps, say the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association (NZMEA).
NZMEA Chief Executive Dieter Adam says, “Financial stability remains an issue for our economy, particularly with a rapidly increasing housing market, despite some recent moderation, and high private debt levels. All parts of the economy are damaged in any financial downturn, especially the tradable sector, such as our manufacturers.
“Loan to Value ratios were a positive step forward in this area by the RBNZ, and adding DTI caps, which have been used in other countries, could help further ensure the quality of debt in the housing sector and increase bank's strength against future financial pressures.
“The IMF’s report on New Zealand stated, “Adding a debt-to-income cap to the macroprudential toolkit would enhance systemic resilience by limiting the risks from growing household indebtedness.”
“It was disappointing that the Minister of Finance removed DTI’s from the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) earlier in the year. The RBNZ should move forward with their research and consultation of DTI’s and the Minister of Finance needs to add these back into the MOU to allow the RBNZ to implement them.” Said Dieter.
| A NZMEA release || May 11, 2017 |||
Prime Minister Bill English will travel to Japan next week to meet with Prime Minister Abe to discuss a range of global and regional issues, before travelling to Hong Kong to promote New Zealand’s economic and trade interests.
“I am looking forward to meeting Prime Minister Abe and discussing a wide range of issues, including trade and security, and initiatives our two countries are working on together in food, education, sport and defence,” Mr English says.
“Strengthening our trade and economic links with Japan will be a focus, including through the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“New Zealand has long-standing and strong ties with Japan. My visit is an opportunity to help New Zealand businesses explore new ways of working more closely with Japan.
“My focus in Hong Kong will be to advance New Zealand’s economic relationship, build on our connections with some of the largest Hong Kong investors into New Zealand, and facilitate greater business and trade opportunities,” Mr English says.
During the visit to Hong Kong Mr English will meet with the current Chief Executive Mr CY Leung and incoming Chief Executive Mrs Carrie Lam.
In Japan, the Prime Minister will be accompanied by Trade Minister Todd McClay, and a delegation of senior business leaders.
Mr English will leave on May 16 and return on May 20.
The business delegation includes: Sir Graeme Harrison (chair ANZCO), Rachel Taulelei (chief executive Kono), John Wilson (chair Fonterra), Whaimutu Dewes (chair Sealord/Moana), Lain Jager (chief executive Zespri), Steve Tew (chief executive NZRU) Ian Simpson (chief executive GNS), Brian Stanley (chair Wood Council of NZ), Graeme Muller (chair NZ Tech), Simon Draper (executive Director Asia NZ Foundation) and Mike Allen (New Zealand Special Envoy for Renewable Energy).
| A Beehive release || May 11, 2017 |||
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242