Richard will be responsible for all Manufacturing, Manufacturing Engineering, Facilities and Maintenance. Richard will be ramping up his involvement in the business starting immediately, and will become full time with Medin on March 12, 2012.

Richard brings to us over twenty years of Operational, General Management and Engineering experience primarily focused on medical devices. He has held positions with Osteonics and Howmedica (now both part of Stryker), Implex (now part of Zimmer), Datascope, Interplex, and presently is the Director of Operations for Biomet Trauma, Spine and Bracing in Parsippany, NJ. Rich holds 2 US patents, has a BS in Mechanical Engineering Technology, and is a Certified Toolmaker.

Mark DiSilvestro will continue to be responsible for Operations in its entirety until Richard’s start date when Mark will return full time to his duties as Vice President, Engineering and Quality, and will continue to be responsible for the Planning and Supply Chain functions, as well as assuming additional responsibilities that will be the subject of a future communication.

As part of its continued focus on vertical integration and providing customers with the best lead times available in the industry, Medin is pleased to announce the completion of its upgraded anodizing operation. This state-of-the-art and validated operation is capable of clear anodizing, color anodizing (over 35 colors currently available with the capability of qualifying new colors upon request), clear hard anodizing and black hard anodizing. Please contact us with any requests for anodizing services at info@medin.com.

For the 28th consecutive year, representatives from Sales, Engineering and Senior Management will be on hand at booth 1234 from 2/16/11 through 2/18/11 showcasing prototyped cases made from PVD-coated stainless steel available in a wide array of colors among other key product and process offerings.

This standard product is available for situations where time to market is critical. This off-the-shelf product can be configured at your location to contain a wide variety of products and eliminates time associated with design, development, and manufacturing of custom cases and trays. See http://www.medin.com/configurable_cases.html for more information.

On sale worldwide, book by Pope John students tells others how to compete

PARTA - The Pope John XXIII Regional High School Robotics team has published a book titled "FTC Robotics: Tips, Tricks, Strategies, and Secrets," which is now being sold worldwide on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble's BN.com web site, and other bookstores. A search for the term FTC TIPS brings up the book description on those book sellers' Websites.

The book was written, illustrated and copy edited by the students themselves. It contains over 350 tips on how to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge Robotics League. The book was inspired after Pope John's teams won two major championships last season, the New Jersey State Championship and the New York City Championship, and other teams started routinely asking them for advice on how to improve. Guided by their coach, who has experience in publishing, the students produced the book, including taking dozens of photographs, drawing illustrations, creating cover art, copy editing and writing the text, as a way to help other teams improve.

There is no other book on the topic, and sales have been brisk. Although rankings change hourly, at times thebook has risen to as high as number 1 in the "Computers and Technology" category at Amazon.com, and as high as number 3 in the "Robotics" category. In addition, reviews have been extremely positive, and the team has received thank-you letters and e-mails from across the country.

One reviewer on Amazon.com, a robotics coach, remarked: "... This book represents my best find of the year. Well organized and easy to digest, it provides beginner to expert tips in an easy to read format. There is no other similar resource."

"This project has not only helped many robotics teams," said Steve Pendergrast, the Pope John FTC Robotics team's coach, "but has also allowed our students to gain their first professional writing, illustration and editing credits. The students are thrilled to see their hard work universally praised as a high qual -ity resource."

FIRST Tech Challenge, or FTC, is a competitive robotics league for high school students. There are over 1,600 teams worldwide. FIRST is a nonprofit organization founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Seg-way personal transportation system and many other devices.

This regional team includes high school students from a number of communities and schools in northwestern NJ. The club is now large enough to support two full teams in FIRST's FTC league.

This year both teams: ReVolt and Fatal Error have indepently earned spots in the FTC World Championships in Atlanta, Georgia by winning the New Jersey and New York regional championships.

FIRST was founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. Based in Manchester, NH, the 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit public charity designs accessible, innovative programs that motivate young people to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math, while building self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills.