Month: February 2011

Tax Time Is Here Again

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Everyone in the U.S. knows it’s tax time.  Some people will wait and wait until the deadline then be rushing to get to the post office before midnight, others will already have their taxes done as the same day they get their last W2 or 1090-something.  There are always the ones who don’t worry about paying taxes at all and end up like the video below.  (In case you didn’t guess it’s an MC Hammer reference).

Now I can honestly say that I have never had to do my taxes by hand.  When I was younger my mother and sister took care of them and even through college I got lucky.  Then once I was out of college, living on my own, and had a house I got to do my own taxes.  Now my mom didn’t just throw me to the wolves.  She came to my house with her computer which she had some tax software on and helped me walk through it.  This was when I realized how important keeping records are.  Luckily my girlfriend, now wife, was a good record keeper so we had everything needed.   That year came and went, we got our separate returns and life was good.

Then we got married, so that year our taxes changed.  That year I bought my own software and decided I should be able to handle the taxes no problem. Little did I know anytime you change anything in your life the IRS will find a way to make you pay and make it confusing.  So I ended up inviting my parents down for dinner and just happened to be working on the taxes when they got there (not planned at all, I promise).  My mother, being the wonderful person she is, helped me limp through it and explained it wasn’t that bad.  Once again we got our return and were on our way as usual. 

Fast forward to last night, my wife and I now have a daughter who was born last year, we still own a home, I worked three jobs last year total, and we couldn’t remember what we had done for energy credits.  I sat down with my netbook at the dining room table, hooked up an extra monitor so I didn’t have to squint and prepare my stack of papers.  After about an hour of trying to sort through all the questions and reading the help files I swore to myself that I was going to make notes on all the questions I have trouble answering EVERY year – I didn’t.   I did however decide that if the software companies want to make even more money they should throw in a six-pack with purchase.  I never would have guessed that “staying hydrated” while doing taxes would have made it go faster.  

Needless to say our taxes are done and being sent to good ol’ mom to try to make sure we don’t get one of those foreign cars with the silent “T” on the end – You know an AudiT (that’s a Family Guy reference from season two for those that care).  I didn’t procrastinate this year which was a plus for getting my taxes done but somehow it seems that as long as I have done my taxes no two years have been the same.   

Here at EXAIR we are also changing constantly, even more than my taxes.  We release new products faster than some companies can think of what they might want for lunch.  Not only that but we make sure the products are fully researched and developed before we send them out.  Yet another reason we are still here and continuing to provide you a quality product, not to mention some good daily reading.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_BF

Nobody is Hiring

Published on by Bryan Peters1 Comment

“Nobody is hiring” – that’s a phrase that we hear over and over in the news media.

Is it true?  I think in many cases that it is true.  Business owners, especially in manufacturing, are cautious about adding to their workforces after the past two years of austerity.

But it isn’t 100% true.  The myth about the death of manufacturing in the United States isn’t true.  Manufacturing as a whole is growing again, and those companies that have positioned themselves for growth are indeed adding to their employment rosters.

Here at EXAIR, we’ve added two new people in the past couple of weeks, and two more are on the way before the end of February.  EXAIR is growing.  In fact, business is booming.  Brand strength has never been higher.  And the small steps that we take every day, every week and every month continue to position us for future success.  To our knowledge, few if any companies can match our track record of innovative new product introductions.  Our service is second to none.  And our team is the most experienced in the industry by a quantum leap.

Business at EXAIR is good, and we talk to manufacturers every day that are saying the same things.  Those small, individual successes are combining to revitalize an industry long left for dead.  Kind of like the city of Detroit.  I thought this Super Bowl commercial was one of the strongest that I have seen in a long time.

Manufacturers ARE recovering.  Jobs ARE returning.  Companies are picking themselves up, dusting themselves off and getting back to business.  Those that positioned themselves correctly before and during the downturn in order to be ready to take advantage of economic growth are already reaping the fruits of their difficult labor.

And we are proud to be a small part of that resurgence.

To paraphrase Eminem, “this is U.S. manufacturing, and this is what we do”.

Bryan Peters
President
bryanpeters@exair.com

And the Plant Engineering Award Goes To…

Published on by Kirk Edwards1 Comment

EXAIR Corporation!…(chirp, chirp, silence, chirp)

EXAIR’s PEEK plastic Super Air Nozzle and PEEK plastic Nano Super Air Nozzle have won the Plant Engineering Product of the Year Award for 2010. The PEEK plastic nozzles offer features not found in other plastics. PEEK material is a great choice where thermal,chemical, and combustion properties are critical to performance. PEEK nozzles will operate up to temperatures of 320F (160C), PEEK is insoluble in all common solvents and extremely resistant to attack by a very wide range of organic and inorganic chemicals. PEEK also offers excellent wear and abrasion resistance.

No red carpet, no flashbulbs, no fans (but feel free to LIKE our Facebook page), no televised presentation, no thanking all the collaborators, no after-party. But we do get this nifty logo for being a winner:

The Plant Engineering Product of the Year Award is voted on by the readers of the Plant Engineering magazine and EXAIR has received the award for three years straight, and six of the past nine years. The other three years EXAIR was a finalist. In fact EXAIR has won a product or engineering award 13 times in the past 14 years. We are unaware of any other company who can say this. It is  proof of our constant product development cycles and regular introduction of new products into the market.

We really prefer to think of our sidewalk up to our front door as the red carpet. The fancy lights the marketing department uses for product images could pass for flash bulbs in a pinch. We rely upon you to play the role of fans and owe the majority of our success to your loyalty and business (we will make sure you can continue to rely on us). We do have some “televised” presentations – check out our product videos. And I must say EXAIR does thank its collaborators (EXAIR employees) in a number of ways; EXAIR’s president and CEO have personally cooked us lunch a number of times – where do you think we learned about providing top-notch service? EXAIR also provides a summer picnic and winter holiday celebration for any who care to take part, including our families. And this year we have heard about our very first after-party – who cares if they are trying to disguise it as another product development meeting…

Thanks to all of you for contributing to our latest award.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
KirkEdwards@EXAIR.com

The Dread Newbie

Published on by Russ Bowman4 Comments
 
Ah, the dread Newbie. We’ve all been the Newbie, and we all know the Newbie. In the Navy, we mercilessly tasked the Newbie with errands such as obtaining a bottle of Prop Wash from the Engine Room, requesting a Military Bearing from the Supply Officer, or simply donning every piece of foul weather gear they could find and waiting for the mail buoy. In the middle of a strategic deterrent patrol on a Trident submarine, that last one was the Holy Grail of stealing innocence.
 
If we weren’t busy indoctrinating them as such, we were constantly berating these “non-quals” for eating our food, drinking our water, taking up our space, and breathing our air (that’s right, you landlubbers – we made our own oxygen on the boat.) It never seemed to take long, though, before these fresh-faced, wide-eyed lads were just as salty as Senior Chief George Cooper, who famously claimed to have spent more time in the washroom (not his exact words) at test depth than the rest of us had spent in the Navy. And, no offense to my respected civilian colleagues, but, to a man, they were the finest group of people I’ve ever been associated with.
 
Ah, the dread Newbie. A blessing or a burden? So much to learn and so much to do before they’re a productive member of the team. But hey, we all have to start somewhere and sometime, right? If not here, then where? If not now, then when?
 
There’s also the “fresh perspective”, “from-the-mouth-of-babes” angle to consider. This may or may not be an urban legend, but I like the story about the truck that was a few inches too tall for the underpass. Its roof was jammed tight against the unforgiving underbelly of the roadway overhead. The police, tow truck drivers, highway safety personnel and emergency professionals of all sorts were out of ideas and at wit’s end. When all hope seemed lost, a boy in one of the cars being held up at the scene asked his dad, “Why don’t they just let some of the air out of the truck’s tires?” The dad, being desperate to get home (I think it was meat loaf night), approached the person-in-charge with the idea. It, of course, worked, and they all lived happily ever after – thanks to the boy who likely didn’t even know he was thinking “out of the box.”
 
Ah, the dread Newbie – it’s me, again.
 
Russ Bowman
Application Engineer 
Phone (513) 671-3322
Fax (513) 671-3363
Web: www.exair.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/exair_rb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/exair