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Awarded for training support

Alberta Glass in Calgary, Alberta, has won the prestigious ‘Employer of
the Year Award’ from the Alberta Learning Apprenticeship and Industry
Training Board. This award recognizes excellence in training
apprentices and demonstrated support for the apprenticeship and
industry training system.

From left: Brian Bickley, chairman of Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training; Honorable Dave Hancock, Minister of Alberta Advanced Education; Paul Heyens, co-owner of Alberta Glass; Ray Greenland, Alberta Provincial Apprenticeship Committee presiding officer; Grant Gibson, Alberta Apprenticeship; Calgary field representative, Shirley Dul and Assistant Deputy Minister of Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training. Absent from photo is George Kennedy, co-owner of Alberta Glass.

Awarded for training support
Alberta Glass in Calgary, Alberta, has won the prestigious ‘Employer of
the Year Award’ from the Alberta Learning Apprenticeship and Industry
Training Board. This award recognizes excellence in training
apprentices and demonstrated support for the apprenticeship and
industry training system.

Alberta Glass was selected from one of 167 trades that represent the
Alberta apprenticeship training program. Alberta Glass currently has 16
apprentice employees that are enrolled in the glaziers program which
represents over 15 percent of the total glazing apprentices that are
trained at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in
Calgary, the home of the 2009 world skills competition.

Alberta Glass is a very strong supporter of glazing industry training
and the company has appointed Marc Blakney, journeymen technician, as
the Glaziers PAC employee representative and Ray Greenland, as the
Glaziers PAC presiding officer, to sit on the Provincial Apprenticeship
Committee as advisors to the glazing trades in Alberta.

The company is owned and operated by George Kennedy and Paul Heyens.

Best managed three years in a row
A Canadian manufacturer in the glass and architectural metal industry
has received one of the highest awards available within the industry
for the third consecutive year.

Alumicor Limited, a supplier of architectural aluminum products, was
first selected as one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies in 2003. It
was re-qualified in 2004 and re-qualified again in 2005. The award
ceremony took place during a gala in Toronto, Ontario, on February 6,
2006.

Lakis Georgiou.

This prestigious national award competition is open to all
predominately privately held Canadian companies and it is the third
time Alumicor has received this honour.

“We have the best team in the business; a team that deeply appreciates
the continuing support of our customers and suppliers. Our competitive
advantage continues to be our people,” says Lakis Georgiou, president
and CEO.

Alumicor has been in business since 1959 and currently operates out of
four manufacturing plants in Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Toronto.
The company is active coast-to-coast in Canada through sales offices in
most major cities and is also active in the US and the Caribbean. It
has a broad product line that includes doors, storefront systems, fixed
and operating windows, curtainwall products, skylights and drive
through windows. The company also has a state-of-the-art anodizing
facility.

The External Insulation Promotion Council delegation from Japan views the production of the 325 series fixed/awning by Duxton Windows and Doors at its production facility in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Japanese delegation tours Canadian window maker
Duxton Windows and Doors in Winnipeg, Manitoba, hosted a tour group
from Japan in January on the first leg of a North American inspection
tour to study high performance building envelope and enhanced
insulation practices.

Dr. Hideki Shibaike, an associate professor at Kyoto University, led
the designated group representing the External Insulation Promotion
Council for the building envelope industry in Japan. The tour included
two days in Winnipeg where the group visited the University of Manitoba
C.A.S.T. building as well as take in a number of other presentations
and building inspections.

The group toured Duxton’s production facility to learn about the
advantages of pultruded fiberglass window systems, as pultruded
fiberglass windows are not very common in Japan at this point in time.
However, the technical experts who were present recognized that the
material offers many advantages for the window industry on their island
nation noting its low embodied energy, high performance for full range
of hot to cold climate exposure as well as its colour flexibility and
energy efficiency.

Metallizing line increases capacity
CPFilms has a new state-of-the-art metallizing production line at its
manufacturing facility. The new equipment will significantly increase
the company’s capacity. The new line is housed in a specially
constructed 9000 square foot addition to its Martinsville, Virginia,
plant facility.

The metallizing line features digital optical monitoring capabilities
to control the consistency of the metal deposition on the film. Plasma
treatment capability is incorporated to meet the increasing market
requirements for enhanced adhesion of metal depositions to film
substrates.

The company says this new metallizing line will help to continue to
grow and enhance its solar control window film business, as well as
take advantage of emerging new business opportunities in the precision
coating segment. In addition to producing solar control window films
for commercial, automotive and consumer markets, other applications now
supported by the new metallizing line include packaging, graphic arts,
automotive badging and specialty labels.

Oldcastle on-board with certified laminator program
Oldcastle Glass is now the industry’s largest participant in a new
Certified Laminator Program by PPG Industries.  Under the new program,
Oldcastle Glass will significantly expand its ability to meet the needs
of the architectural glass market. Five Oldcastle Glass laminating
locations are currently certified, including the company’s Montreal,
Quebec, facility.

PPG’s Certified Laminator Program is designed to provide a quality
driven supply channel for transparent solar control laminated glazing
products; offering architects, building owners and glazing contractors
the highest possible levels of quality, reliability, performance and
service.

The company says its participation in the program will enable it to
provide high performance glazing solutions to the industry,
particularly in specialty applications with a particular focus on areas
with high light transmission in the skylight, hurricane, seismic, blast
mitigation and fall-out protection segments.

Acosta

Appointments
C.R. Laurence has added Juan Acosta to its architectural sales team.

Dow Automotive has appointed Bernie Defreitas as its product market
manager for North American glass and plastic bonding, small packaging
within Dow Automotive. Defreitas holds a bachelor of science degree in
marketing and finance from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Saint-Gobain BayForm has recently made two significant staff
appointments. Paul Scott has been appointed territory sales manager for
the western Canada region and based in Calgary, Alberta. He previously
served for 13 years as a divisional manager for BayForm.

Defreitas	Scott
Delk	Taylor
Stange	Peltier

Tom Delk has been appointed to the position of general manager with
overall responsibility for BayForm’s entire operations. He recently
relocated to the BayForm office in Toronto, Ontario, from Bensenville,
Illinois.

United States Aluminum has expanded its marketing department by hiring
Gary Taylor as its marketing co-ordinator to facilitate communications
with the 14 locations that United States Aluminum operates in Canada
and the US. He is a graduate of the marketing and graphic design
programs at Mohawk College in Brantford, Ontario, and has worked in the
graphic communications field in the Toronto area before joining United
States Aluminum in Dallas, Texas.

United States Aluminum has also appointed Rick Stange to manage its
service centre and Scott Peltier as the paint line supervisor at its
manufacturing facility.

Strainoptics has appointed Crowther Machinery, located in Dorval,
Quebec, as its sales representative for Canada. Strainoptics is the
exclusive manufacturer of the GASP portable polarimeter used
internationally for measuring surface stress as an indicator of temper
in toughened and heat-strengthened glass per ASTM C1279 and other test
methods.

Vetrotech Saint-Gobain to market All-Glass fire rated door
Vetrotech Saint-Gobain has taken over marketing responsibilities for
its All-Glass Fire Rated Door product. The All-Glass door was
previously marketed and distributed by Grand View Glass & Metal, an
Ontario, California-based company with whom Vetrotech Saint-Gobain has
a partnership.

The company says the All-Glass fire rated door is currently the only
such product available in North America and was the first ever
developed in the world. Vetrotech Saint-Gobain supplies the glass
materials and, as of recently, handles all marketing responsibilities,
while Grand View Glass & Metal, leading glass-entry specialist,
supplies the hardware and manages distribution.

The All-Glass door has a 20 minute fire rating which makes the product
ideally suited for use in office door applications located in
one-hour-rated corridors and utilizes Vetrotech Saint-Gobain’s
Safeglass, a float glass product made of earth alkaline silicate,
manufactured exclusively by Vetrotech Saint-Gobain. Safeglass has a
high softening point, increased viscosity and improved resistance to
thermal shock. These features ensure that the All-Glass door withstands
heat better than conventional fire-protection glass. The product
conforms to ANSI Z97.1-1984 and CPSC 16 CFR 1201 Category 2 and meets
NFPA 80 Specifications.

Quanex buys Besten
Quanex Corporation, a manufacturer of value-added engineered materials
and components serving the building products and vehicular products
markets, has purchased Besten Incorporated, a privately held company
located in Cleveland, Ohio.

Targetting the window and door industry, Besten is a manufacturer and
supplier of the equipment used for assembling and glazing insulating
glass components. The company has worked closely with Quanex’s TruSeal
Technologies business in developing automated insulating glass systems.

The company says Besten complements TruSeal’s glass sealant product
line and further expands the quality products and services that the
company’s Engineered Products business can provide customers. -end-

April 2006: When you have news of concern to the glass industry, please
send it to: Chris Skalkos, Glass Canada, 145 Thames Road West, Exeter,
Ontario N0M 1S3. Email: cskalkos@annexweb.com