Emerson Exchange-- what's new?

mulling over whether I wanted Thai beef or some Mexican concoction when Dave Holmes from Emerson drags me over to see an old friend, Barb Boynton, now business development manager for a company called Exlar Corp. And who the dickens are they, you ask? Well, let me ask you something. Do you hate pneumatic actuators? Don't you wish for something clean, precise and easy to maintain? Yeah, me too. So, that's what Tim Erhart, chairman of Exlar, and Barb's boss, thought in 1990 when he founded this company that is now poised to become an overnight success (yeah, right... work hard and it might happen to you, too). What he did is to take a linear actuator from the motion control world, and mate it to a control valve. This really cool technology has to be seen to be believed. Snick, it is open. Snick, it is closed. Snick, it moves to the appropriate position. No hunt, no overshoot or undershoot. They can do up to 16" valves on standard order. Way cool.