GNB Bugle Vacuum Excellence Defined

October 2009

Inside this issue:

The Power of Passion 1

10th Beijing Interna-tional Vacuum Exhibi-tion (IVE)

2

GNB’S 4th Annual BBQ Highlights

2

Common Myths About Your Sleeping Habits

3

All the Solar you Need to Know is on Facebook

3

GNB Rolls Out Web Office

3

VSG Achieves Suc-cess With GNB Prod-uct Sales!

4

Building Your Envi-ronment with Success

4

GNB’s Western US Sales Support

5

GNB’s National Sales Manager Bruce Pow-ell Retires

5

GNB Gets New Trav-eler System

6

GNB’S Cost Effective Custom Products

6

Meet Vaughn Boyman 7

The name of this newsletter is GNB Bugle. Whenever we win a larger order at GNB, we are excited. So excited, that our expert trumpeter (and human resources person), Amy Long, plays Reveille on a bugle over our loud speaker system. How-ever, many of our representa-tives, stakeholders and custom-ers cannot hear the exciting news and share our revelry. This newsletter is another method of communication and announce-ment, and thus it is aptly named GNB Bugle.

The Power of Passion By

Ken Harrison, President

Do you remember what it is like to feel the pas-sion of love—that desire to be with another per-son, who is continually on your mind? All of us go though seasons in life where we are passion-ate about something. Passion is an intentional obsession with something we enjoy. Some peo-ple are passionate about sports, some are pas-sionate about cars and motorcycles, and others are passionate about a favorite hobby. When you are passionate about something, you want to spend much of your time involved in it: you read about it, you study it, you think about it, you live it and you even dream about it.

September is strategic planning time at GNB, and we desire to become more passionate about our jobs. We want to relentlessly pursue excellence in all we do: in manufacturing productivity, in quality, in customer service, in eliminating waste and in pursuing the next order.

If every employee at GNB becomes consumed with their desire for self-improvement, how strong could we be as a company? If we have the fire in our eyes—the same fire you see in a race horse that is looking down the track…if every sales person (internal and representative), is willing to go to the extra effort to close their next order, what would our sales be?

Such an ambition for excellence is not common, yet who would like to be an average person working for an ordinary company? It is my dream

that GNB aggressively pursues excellence until it consumes all of our thoughts, our e-mails, our meetings and time. We should want it so badly that we absolutely have to have it, and we will do whatever it takes to achieve it. In this pursuit for excellence there are some necessary steps: 1) we must study what others have done and learn the best practices that are possible, 2) we must innovate so that we press harder and extend the best known practices to new levels, 3) we must implement the best prac-tices into our lives, 4) we must replicate the practices until they become habitual, and 5) we must interre-late all good habits until we have a complete business model that outperforms all previously known.

No matter if you are a customer, a sales representative, a stakeholder, a supplier, an employee or just a member of our community, it is my goal that we are able to stir one another up and intensify our pursuit of excellence for GNB. In short, I want everyone to become pas-sionate about their professional improvements.

The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the abil-ity to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISON has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life. – Tony Dungy

Page 2 GNB Bugle Vacuum Excellence Defined

10th Beijing International Vacuum Exhibition (IVE) By

Jiashu Liu, Director for Asian Operations

The Chinese Vacuum Society (CVS) and Vacuum Equipment Industry Association of Chinese General Machinery (VEIACGM) held the10th Beijing International Vacuum Exhibi-tion (IVE) at Beijing International Convention Centre, from May 19th to May 22nd, 2009. GNB joined with 198 exhibitors from all around the world to present our products and capabilities.

In the past, GNB has delivered numerous products to China including a number of 52–inch gate valves and one fast respond-ing 63–inch gate valve for a Chinese client in 2008. GNB is working to expand our sales in China; therefore, we are also looking for manufacturing partners in China which will be com-petitive in the domestic market.

At Beijing IVE, many Chinese customers expressed special in-terest in the following GNB products: gate valves larger than one meter and special slit valves. Many companies in China are focusing their efforts toward the PV Solar cell industry and large vacuum furnaces. GNB has a number of opportunities, especially if we can provide prices that meet the requirements of our customers’ budgets. At the exhibition, a large number of GNB’s past customers and potential customers visited our booth. GNB already has estab-lished good relationships with many Chinese vacuum product users, and at the show we continued to present GNB’s excel-lent quality of products for potential Chinese customers.

GNB Booth at Beijing International Vacuum Exhibition

Jiashu Liu at the GNB Booth

GNB’S 4th Annual BBQ Highlights By

Amy Long, HR Specialist

What a great day had by all! The weather was perfect! The food was fabulous! Eric Raymond makes a killer brownie! It was a day of laughter, smiles, catching up, softball, frisbee, and volley-ball. Others just relaxed under the shady trees to

stay cool. It is fun to see all the kids get along so well and oh how do they grow up so quickly? It is always nice to have the GNB families join us. We wanted this picnic to be a special retirement send off of for our Sales Manager, Bruce Powell, for over 15 yrs of excellent service. We wished Bruce off with one of his favorite pas-times…..a game of softball. He will be missed. Thanks to all that helped set up and the sharing of yummy side dishes and desserts.

“ Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.” – Madame Curie

GNB Bugle Vacuum Excellence Defined Page 3

Common Myths About Your Sleeping Habits By

Colleen Sackett, AP/Receptionist

People need to get more sleep! A new study found that the av-erage North American gets only six hours and 40 minutes of sleep each night – an all-time low! So let’s help you get more sleep by busting open three common sleep myths, courtesy of

MSN Health.

Sleep myth #1: If I have a lot of energy, I can survive on only five hours of sleep a night. FALSE. Just because you feel wide awake, that doesn’t mean your brain is. In fact, new re-search from the University of Pennsylvania found that sleep dep-rivation puts your brain into “microsleep” mode. That means it randomly shuts down during the day for at least half a second, leaving you feeling unstable and disoriented! To find out if you’re getting enough sleep, try going to bed on a Saturday at the same time you would on a Tuesday, but don’t set your alarm clock. If you wake up the next day at your normal time, you’re fine. However, if you doze the day away, that means your body needs more rest.

Sleep myth #2: A hard workout before bed will help me sleep better. That’s also FALSE. Studies show that strenuous exercise raises your core temperature, and it’ll take between four and six hours for your body to cool off enough to allow deep sleep! So save your workout for the morning, when you need energy the most. Then try taking a hot bath an hour be-fore bedtime. Your body will cool down faster, and doctors say

it’s easiest to fall asleep when your temperature goes from warm to cool very quickly.

Sleep myth #3: It’s no big deal if I keep waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. FALSE again. Waking up more than once every night could be a sign that you have obstructive sleep apnea. That’s where the soft tissue in your throat tempo-rarily suffocates your breathing during sleep! When that happens, your heart pumps faster, and excess fluid builds up in your veins, trigger-ing a natural diuretic which makes you need to use the bath-room more often. So to help keep your air passage clear, try sleeping on your side more. Otherwise, you’ll need to see a doctor about wearing a special device that forces oxygen into your throat while you sleep.

*The information above was obtained from the John Tesh web-site www.johntesh.com.

All the Solar you Need to Know is on Facebook By

Ken Harrison, President

The solar industry is exceptionally dynamic. Everyday there are articles published about the latest funded project or a break-through in technology. Although many of these articles are commonly published by PV World, Solar Buzz and Greentech Me-dia, there are many interesting articles in other far reaching pub-lications such as The Wall Street Journal, Assembly Magazine and Manufacturing.net. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was one place where you could find the latest solar news from a large variety of information sources? Now there is. Around the world, GNB along with our sales partners watch for the latest developments within the solar industry. Nearly everyday someone sends me a

relevant article, and it became very time consuming to share this information. Therefore, GNB has created a Facebook group called Solar Race to Grid Parity. This group is open to anyone who wishes to join and all members are able to post their comments and post links to the most interesting arti-cles they can find. Content changes daily, so if you want to know the latest, go to Facebook search for Solar Race to Grid

Parity, and join today.

GNB Rolls Out WebOffice By

Tim Gates, International Inside Sales Manager

GNB is excited to announce a new web-based tool now avail-able to inside, outside, and global sales representatives. WebEx WebOffice is an award winning collaboration suite that uses the power of the Web to make it easy for everyone to work to-

gether – both anytime and anywhere in the world. By making collaboration easier and more cost-effective for all its sales and marketing partners, GNB will again step up its reputation as an industry leader in customer sales and service.

Page 4 GNB Bugle Vacuum Excellence Defined

Building Your Environment with Success By

Diane George, CAD Designer

Getting the “job done” may not be exclusive to your place of employment but also play a roll in your daily life. For example, when talking to your teenagers who are negotiating the keys to the car for a road trip to Vegas, going to the doctor and getting a medical referral, buying a new car, or getting your neighbor to help fix your adjoining fence. These are some things that may help when trying to accomplish tasks in your everyday life. As listed in, Secrets to Staying Productive and Achieving Success, at www.tesh.com, John Tesh gives advice from Donald Trump and his practices to accomplish success. One advice, “do not let fear settle into your life”. Trump doesn’t let fear consume his faith in himself to fix a situation. He breaks down the problem into smaller manageable tasks and calls it “concerns.” Another advice, when it comes to the job Trump only accepts work that excites him. Trump believes that, “enthusiasm is what gives you the resiliency to overcome obsta-cles.” He finds ways to incorporate passion into his job. Last

advice, Trump believes that people are very busy, and over-loaded with information. When in conversation with business associates, neighbors and friends; Trump will get to the point quickly letting them know ex-actly what he needs. Instead on droning on and on, he says as much as he can with few words; he gives himself an internal deadline. He feels that with these practices he accom-plishes more. These are some things that may help when trying to ac-complish tasks in your everyday life.

VSG Achieves Success With GNB Product Sales! By

Larry Gilbert, Sales Representative & Thomas Dobler

The Vacuum Solutions Group, Inc. was founded in August 1998 for the purpose of providing excellent sales representation for a select group of companies that manufacture vacuum related products. Their target markets include research, thin film coat-ings, and a wide variety of industrial applications. Founding mem-bers included Bob Flynn and Larry Gilbert who had worked to-gether for another manufacturer’s representative for over 5 years in the Northeast States. As a result of continued success-ful growth in supporting their customers and principals, VSG proceeded to expand by first opening up the Southeastern sales region, to be followed a few years later with the mid Atlantic sales region. The addition of Tom Finnerty and Brandon Frazier and their years of experience in our industry, greatly helped VSG build the customer relationships that today are the founda-tion of our success. VSG offers a wide range of products to its customers that in-cludes: Custom Fabrication, Chambers, Valves, Baffles, Throttle Plates, Flanges, Seals, Bellows, Gauges, Traps, RGA’s, Cryostats, Cryopumps, Water Vapor Cryopumps, Gas Chillers, Etch End Point Detectors, Optical Monitor Systems, Ion Sources, Sputter-ing Sources, Planar Magnatron Sources, Substrate Heaters, Throttle Valves, Hermetic Vacuum Feedthroughs, Viewports, Turbopumps, Ion Pumps, Titanium Sublimation Pumps, XY and XYZ Manipulators, Rotary and Linear Motion Feedthroughs, Sample Handling with Heating and Cooling, E-Guns, Power Sup-plies, XY Sweeps, and Research Vacuum Coating Systems. In addition to sales of components, VSG is able to provide cus-tomers with complete solutions to their needs that includes assisting with vacuum system design, consultation to optimize

vacuum system performance, start up, technical support, and after sale assistance. In 2007 GNB selected VSG as our sales representatives. VSG was quick to introduce customers to our vacuum valves, baffles, and chamber fabricating capabilities resulting in significant sales involving vacuum furnace applications as well as solar cell manu-facturing. By providing a dedicated support team that includes management at the factory, GNB is able to give customers the confidence they need that their project will be com-pleted to ex-pectations and on schedule. Larry Gilbert commented, “GNB quickly became our #1 line and in 2008 was largely respon-sible for us achieving re-cord sales for VSG”. As the 2009 recession slowly turns around and business again begins to regain strength, VSG is very confident that we will continue to

see sales growth for GNB products.

From left to right: Tom Finnerty, Larry Gilbert, Bob Flynn and Brandon Frazier.

Page 5 GNB Bugle Vacuum Excellence Defined

GNB National Sales Manager Bruce Powell Retires By

Chris Long, Controller

Bruce Powell has decided to retire from GNB and move into another phase of his life. He served as the Western Region Sales Manager from 1994-2006 before being promoted to National Sales Manager in late 2006. Before coming to GNB, Bruce worked for John Crane Belfab from 1982-1994, Sargent Indus-tries from 1981-1982 and Texas Instruments from 1977-1981. Bruce also served in the US Air Force from 1971-1975 as well as the California National Guard for many years.

His plans for retirement are to travel and spend time with his grandchildren. That and play a little golf too. Bruce has been known to take quite a divot on the golf course! He will now have more time to take care of the honey-do’s that his wife Linda has been gathering for the last 15 years!

Bruce is a model of consistency for others to follow. His organi-zation skills and attention to detail are second to none. He was a very valuable asset to GNB and will be sorely missed. We all wish him the best in his future endeavors!

GNB’s Western US Sales Support By

Brian Kott, President US Tech West & Thomas Dobler

US Technologies West (formally US, Inc., est.1976) is a Manufac-turers' Representative for the Vacuum Technology Industries in the Western Region of the United States of America. With of-fices in San Jose, Portland, and Phoenix, USTW has been sup-porting the vacuum related industries for over 30 years. US Technologies West supports all areas of vacuum technology: solar, semiconductor, electronics, lasers, optics, magnetic media, aerospace, medical, government and university labs. With an educated technical sales and knowledgeable support staff, USTW can help stream-line customers’ vacuum and technology related needs quickly and accurately.

USTW has been supporting vacuum system builders for 25+ years and working with GNB for the past 2 years. The USTW

sales staff play an important roll in GNB’s support for selling vacuum valves and chambers. Their products range from process deposition and etch equipment to vacuum hardware and related. They also support metrology equipment designed for thin film and vacuum related customers. The employees of USTW have long term histories within the vacuum industries and know how to properly support different applications with the products we represent.

USTW has enjoyed working with customers for the past 30 years and look forward to the next 30. The US Technologies West company philosophy of "SALES AND SUPPORT" is what has earned us the customer loyalty that we have today.

“If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.” – Maya Angelou

Page 6 GNB Bugle Vacuum Excellence Defined

GNB Gets New Traveler System By

Russ Hedman, Plant Manager

All production work going through the shop to various machines and processes are accompanied a drawing and a document called a traveler. This traveler outlines the steps necessary to com-plete the job in sequential order. So if we want to make a part from some steel plate material for example, the traveler might say: rough machine, final machine, drill holes, tap holes, clean up the part, and etc.

In the past, travelers have had basic instructions as described above. However the operator often needed more than the ba-sics to complete the job. The new traveler does this and much more.

The engineering group has refined a process to complete proc-ess documentation that allows individual detail parts to be fabri-cated and flow through the shop more efficiently. All essential information is now available on the traveler so the operator can complete the job without having to seek additional information. This smart traveler has been tested for several months and is so much better than the old traveler. We expedited the switch and now all jobs going through the shop are using the new trav-eler system.

The new system has contributed to improving on time delivery performance and reducing lead time through the shop.

GNB’S Cost Effective Custom Products By

Ken Harrison, President

When someone asks for a product catalog, I usually hand them one page of literature that says, “Valves, Accessories and Cham-bers.” When it comes to catalogs, GNB is different than our competitors. We don’t try to make customers design around our products, but rather we design our products to suit our customers. If we would provide a catalog showing our capabili-

ties and all of the product options we offer, the catalog could be more than 5,000 pages in length.

Instead of an extensive catalog, we choose to listen to our customers and create unique solutions to meet their needs. For example, we recently had a customer ex-plain that they typically purchase our infinite positioning throttling valve, but they really only use three positions.

Most of the valves we sell have reed switches that are triggered when the air cylinder is fully closed or fully open. To meet this customer’s need, we simply added a third reed switch that can

be set at any point along the length of the air cylinder. When the valve stroke triggers the 3rd reed switch, the valve stops and a brake is set. It is a simple and cost effective method of meet-ing the need; a custom product that costs less than the catalog option. We engineer prod-ucts for many appli-cations. In addition to the more common PVD and CVD proc-esses, there are products used for explosive bonding of dissimilar materials, plastic metal forging, gallium arsenide manufacturing, and nuclear fusion re-search. These are unique solutions to meet customers’ needs—it just another way that GNB is striving to be Vacuum Excellence Defined.

Pneumatic/Electric Box for 3–Position Valve

GNB 3-Position Brake Valve

Eric Raymond, Engineering Supervisor

Page 7 GNB Bugle Vacuum Excellence Defined

Meet Vaughn Boyman, Production Manager By

Amy Long, HR Specialist

1. Where were you born? Los Angeles, Ca 2. Where did you grow up and what was it like there? When I was four years old my father was a cop in L.A. and having the time of his life in a little event called the “Watts Riots”. He decided that he didn’t want to raise his family in that type of atmosphere. We moved to Ukiah, CA and I grew up in what I would call heaven for a little kid. It’s a beautiful little town surrounded by mountains, redwoods and vineyards. It was a great place for hunting, fishing, camping and hiking. You know everyone in town and they all know you. It was the kind of place that you were proud to call home. You left your house unlocked and if you didn’t come home at dinner it was because you were having too much fun, not that you were kidnapped. 3. As a child, did you have pets? We had many dogs and cats. Because we lived in the country, we had many opportunities to acquire all types of wildlife that any sane parent wouldn’t allow you to bring home and call them pets. We had a wild pig, many snakes, turtles, ducks, chickens, rats, hawk, fish, canaries, etc. Many pets “ran away” according to my parents. The only one that I know really got away was the hawk. My older brother, Wade, thought he could train it to hunt for him. He had tethered one foot and wore a 99 cent gardening glove as he tried to train it to return to him. The hawk broke free on his fourth training session. He came by often and would perch in our tress, but never again to perch on Wades scarred and scabbed arm. 4. What did you enjoy doing as a child? Any activity that got me outside. All sports, hunting, hiking, riding my bike, acquiring new wild pets.

5. What is your favorite outdoor activity? Riding my motorcycle.

6. What were some of your first jobs? I started mowing lawns and doing odd jobs at the age of ten. I picked grapes for a day and a half. The Band-Aids cost more than I could make. I had a calling to be a dishwasher at the age of 13. It was a small restaurant and EVERYTHING was washed by hand. My hands looked old but they were very clean–very important to every thirteen year old boy. I consider my first real job to be the hardware guy at a Coast-to-Coast hardware store. They hired me when I turned 15. I was left alone to run the place, building bicy-cles, mowers and barbeques, stocking shelves, ordering product, running the register and closing up the place. What were they thinking?

7. What were some of the crazy fads you went through? Ukiah is somewhat isolated and it was very country. Fads didn’t have the impact on us that they did in the bigger cities. If you were-n’t wearing jeans, t-shirt and boots you were just passing through. The only fads that influenced us had to do with our transporta-tion. Anything that made your ride faster or look cooler was what we lived for. 8. Did you admire a famous person? What made them admirable? John F. Kennedy. His decision to go to the moon I feel is one of the greatest accomplishments in history. To quote the President, “Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and danger-ous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.” 9. What things do you find yourself doing that you said you'd "never" do. We have a little Shih Tzu dog named Nitro, basically a lap dog. I always thought, why would anyone have a dog that can’t be used for hunting. Especially those little lap dogs, what good are they? Well, I have one now and I have to take back all of the bad things I said about everyone who has one. He cracks me up and is really a great companion. I will NOT ever put people clothes or sweat-ers on him. That would take too much of his toughness away!

Vaughn Boyman in Muskegon, MI

GNB Corporation

3200 Dwight Rd., Suite 100

Elk Grove, CA 95758

(916) 395-3003 (916) 395-3363 Fax

WWW.GNBVALVES.COM

Valves Accessories Chambers

(916) 395-3003 (916) 395-3363 Fax WWW.GNBVALVES.COM