I came across this story earlier this week and was reminded just how important it is for metal fabricators to open their doors to the community, in particular elected officials and government bureaucrats.

In this case, Karen Mills, an administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), visited ALCOM Inc., a Waterville, Maine-based fabricator of recreational trailers and was energized to take the tale of this growing manufacturing company back to Washington, D.C. ALCOM is about to leave its 47,000-sq.-ft., rented facility and move to a newly constructed, 70,000-sq.-ft. building in Winslow. Part of the financing for this expansion is coming from a $1.14 million SBA loan, which is a small sliver of the millions of dollars provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

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If it's one thing that I'm certain of, it's that highly educated people will have the best chance of achieving standards of living that exceed that of their parents, a scenario that many in today's world see slipping from their collective grasp. This belief pertains to skilled trades as well; specialized skills open the doors to higher paychecks.

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A friend sent me a link to a band he heard on an Internet radio station. The band hails from downstate Illinois, and one of the bands I really admire, Uncle Tupelo, came from the same part of the country. So I gave it a quick listen.

A day later I purchased the CD, The Places We Lived. (Downloading music is for people who don"t appreciate the artistic effort required to create a package—songs, cover design, and liner notes—of music. I"m a dinosaur in this sense. And I"m OK with it.)

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