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THE HISTORY OF WHEELABRATOR TECHNOLOGIES INC.

THE BEGINNING
Wheelabrator was founded in 1908 in Ohio as the Sand Mixing Machine Company. In 1910, the company's name was changed to the American Foundry Equipment Company. The name was changed again in 1932 to The Wheelabrator Corporation after the company developed the airless centrifugal wheel, a simple mechanical unit that used controlled centrifugal force instead of compressed air for abrasive blasting. The rapidly spinning wheel hurled a variety of carefully sized abrasives at steel, concrete, and other industrial surfaces that needed cleaning, hence wheel + abrator. (The Wheelabrator triangle logo is a stylized version of that device.) The technology was adapted to strengthen leaf springs in automobiles, reduce the cost of contouring Boeing aircraft wings, and clean barnacles and rust off of ship hulls.

In 1913, American Foundry introduced one of the first industrial air pollution control devices. Known as the "American Dust Arrestor," its fabric screens, much like window screens, trapped dust particles from foundry casting cleaning operations. In the following years, numerous high-temperature, corrosion-resistant filter fabrics and cleaning principles were developed through one of the industry's first and most advanced air pollution control research programs. This product line later grew into Wheelabrator Air Pollution Control Company (Wheelabrator APC).

WHEELABRATOR-FRYE INC.
In the late 1960s, Wheelabrator-Frye Inc. was founded. Wheelabrator-Frye combined Frye Industries, which produced specialty printing inks and copy paper for business forms, and The Wheelabrator Corporation.

In the late 1970s, Wheelabrator-Frye acquired MPB Corporation, a maker of precision bearings; Whiting Corporation, whose giant cranes were used in nuclear power plants and energy-efficient evaporators; and Neptune International Corporation, provider of residential water meters and industrial flow meters.

WASTE-TO-ENERGY PIONEERS
The passage of the federal Clean Air Act of 1970 spurred demand for air-pollution-control equipment such as baghouses (or fabric-filters) and acid gas scrubbers, produced by Wheelabrator APC. It also set in motion a three-decade long regulatory and legislative process to discover alternatives to old, polluting waste incinerators. Wheelabrator acquired Rust Engineering Company, leading designer and builder of pulp and paper plants, from Litton Industries in 1972. The acquisition of Rust, which held licenses with the Swiss engineering firm, Von Roll AC, helped Wheelabrator become a pioneer in the waste-to-energy industry.

On the basis of this expertise and in the face of a new and demanding marketplace, Wheelabrator opened the United States' first commercially successful waste-to-energy facility in Saugus, Massachusetts, in 1975. Over the next 25 years, the company would become the nation's most successful municipal waste-to-energy contractor, introducing operational procedures, energy recovery technologies, and air quality control systems that established new standards for reliable design, construction, and safe operation.

A DECADE OF GROWTH
Wheelabrator's earnings continued to grow, and by the end of 1982, the company was completing another large-scale transaction, a merger with The Signal Companies, Inc., based in La Jolla, California. Signal's diversified products and services included aircraft engines, process engineering, audio and video systems, computer memories, Mack trucks, and real estate development. Hampton, New Hampshire became the headquarters of Signal Engineered Products Group, one of the two main operating units of the company. Midwest operations of Signal such as Universal Oil Products (UOP) and Wolverine tubing reported to Hampton. At that time, UOP held U.S. licenses with a German company for waste combustion furnace and grate technologies that rivaled Wheelabrator's system. As a result of the merger, Wheelabrator acquired several former UOP waste-to-energy projects and the UOP German licenses were divested.

In 1985, Signal agreed to a merger with Allied Corporation, another acquisition-minded company, to create AlliedSignal Inc. Allied had operations in aerospace, automotive components, chemicals, electronics, and engineered materials. AlliedSignal then decided to streamline its operations by spinning off some assets into a new company, The Henley Group, Inc. In 1987, Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. emerged as a publicly traded company. In addition to its leading waste-to-energy services, Wheelabrator Technologies now offered full-service engineering and construction services through its Rust International unit; diverse manufacturing capabilities through Wheelabrator Corporation; large and small-scale air quality control systems; independent power project development; coal handling and transportation projects; and water and wastewater treatment operations and equipment.

WHEELABRATOR "POWERS" UP
In the last twenty-five years, Wheelabrator has built and operated waste-to-energy plants in Saugus, MA (1975), Pinellas Co, FL (1983), Westchester Co, NY (1984), Baltimore, MD (1985), North Andover, MA (1985), McKay Bay (Tampa), FL (1985), Claremont, NH (1987), Millbury, MA (1987), Bridgeport, CT (1988), Concord, NH (1989), Gloucester Co, NJ (1989), South Broward Co, FL (1991), Spokane, WA (1991), North Broward Co, FL (1991), Falls Township, PA (1994), and Lisbon, CT (1995). In October 2003, Wheelabrator assumed the operating contract for the waste-to-energy facility in Hudson Falls, NY.

In the late 1980s, Wheelabrator entered the independent power production (IPP) market with the construction and operation of small power plants primarily using waste fuels. The first, Sherman Energy Plant in Sherman, Maine, uses scrap wood fuel from the adjacent Sherman Lumber Company mill. The wood-fired Shasta Plant in Anderson, California, one of the largest wood-fired power plants in the U.S., soon followed. Another non-conventional fuel IPP, Wheelabrator Frackville Energy in Frackville, PA, uses a circulating fluidized bed combustion boiler to burn waste from a half-century-old anthracite coal mining operation. The resulting ash from the Frackville facility is used to reclaim abandoned coal mines in eastern Pennsylvania. Wheelabrator's IPP portfolio also includes two natural gas turbines, Wheelabrator Norwalk (CA) and Wheelabrator Lassen (CA); and Wheelabrator Ridge (FL), an urban waste wood and tire-fired plant.

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WASTE MANAGEMENT, INC.
In July 1988, Wheelabrator and Waste Management Inc., the world's largest waste management company, entered into a merger agreement to acquire common stock shares of WTI amounting to a 22% ownership interest.

In 1990, Wheelabrator Technologies became a majority-owned subsidiary of Waste Management. Over the next several years, the non-energy related businesses were sold. Today, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Waste Management, Wheelabrator develops, owns and/or operates waste-to-energy and independent power projects throughout the United States.

Wheelabrator's waste-to-energy projects currently total 16 facilities nationwide with a combined processing capacity of more than 21,000 tons per day of municipal solid waste and an electric generating capacity of 609 megawatts (MW).

Wheelabrator's five independent power projects have the generating capacity to produce an additional 227 MW of clean electricity. Combined, Wheelabrator's facilities provide enough clean electricity to power more than 900,000 homes.

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