ABOUT TURTLE & HUGHES

Executive Summary

Turtle & Hughes is a $195,000,000 multi-commodity procurement company with 23 locations in theNortheast and the South serving the industrial, construction, commercial, electrical contracting, export and utility markets. The company provides a broad range of maintenance and repairoperations (MRO) services including integrated supply, single-sourcing, systems contracts, plant crib management, blanket orders, and other less formal resupply agreements. The company'sreplenishment specialists achieve one of the lowest material-cost-to markup ratios in the industry by bringing product to customers with a gross margin of 16%. One of the unique strengths of the organization is its staff of in-house technical specialists. Many aregraduate engineers who fill the gap left in the field now that there are fewer manufacturer technicians and specialty distributors available to support plant floor technology. Some of the areasthese specialists work in are:

l  Abrasive technology
l  Lighting design, layout, and selection
l   Software engineering for custom reports
l   Power transmission and cutting tool selection
l   Process control software support
l   Vision and sensing layout
l   AC and DC variable speed drive selection
l   Programmable control support
l   Material handling and storage equipment selection
l   Switchgear and power turnkey support For engineered projects,

Turtle & Hughes serves the needs of turnkey companies undertaking industrialplant construction throughout the U.S. and abroad. This support includes construction site trailers for dispersal of materials and tools to provide better control on the jobsite. In commercial construction, the company plays a critical role as a resource for major contractingcompanies undertaking office building, shopping center, and infrastructure projects. Turtle & Hughes provides a full range of materials as well as switchgear, motor controls, and lighting engineering forthese projects. In this area, the company also works with smaller project contractors, and provides maintenance products and services. In the export market, the company serves the domestic construction companies with overseas projects,foreign contractors, export agents, and the MRO requirements of U.S. companies abroad. On the Pacific Rim, the company works with and agent, Turtle & Hughes Korea, Inc., based in Seoul, South Korea. In1999, the company also opened offices and warehouse facilities in Skoja, Macedonia, and in Pristina, Kosovo, to support contractors rebuilding the infrastructure in that region.