NAPLES,Fla.—At its 75th annual meeting, the Conveyor Equipment ManufacturersAssociation (CEMA) elected Dan Fannin, vice president of marketing at EmersonPower Transmission (Maysville, Ky.), president of CEMA. CEMA also elected newofficers: R. Todd Swinderman, director and chief technology officer at MartinEngineering (Neponset, Ill.) was named vice president; Bill Pugh, president ofRalphs-Pugh Co. (Benicia, Calif.) was elected secretary; and George Huber III,vice president of Industrial Kinetics Inc. (Downers Grove, Ill.) was namedtreasurer. Jerry Heathman, sales and marketing manager at Chantland Pulley& Roller Co. (Humboldt, Iowa); Jay Lee, general product business manager atBaldor Dodge Reliance (Greenville, S.C.); Tom Melton, executive vice presidentof manufacturing at Martin Sprocket & Gear Inc. (Arlington, Texas); andBill Casey, president of SI Systems (Easton, Pa.) were all elected to the boardof directors.
Inaddition, Fred Thimmel, current president, announced 2007 conveyor industrystatistics. Thimmel reported that 2007 shipments in North America were up 4.98%for the conveyor industry. CEMA estimates that shipments totaled $7.82 billionfor 2007, an increase of $371 million from 2006 shipments of $7.45 billion. CEMA estimates that new orders totaled $8.11 billion for 2007, which representsan 8.7%, or $650 million, increase over 2006 orders. CEMA tracks new ordersand shipped sales volume in seven classes of unit handling equipment and fiveclasses of bulk handling equipment.
Finally,CEMA announced several new initiatives to recruit new members. The associationcurrently has 92 member companies, and its goal is to add 10 new members eachyear.