Dichtomatik North America Names New President

BURNSVILLE, Minn., July 23 -- John E. Rice has been named president of Dichtomatik North America, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Plymouth, Mich.-based Freudenberg-NOK. Based in Burnsville, he replaces Jorg Schneewind, who has become vice president of mergers and acquisitions for Freudenberg-NOK. The announcement was made by Dr. Mohsen Sohi, president and CEO of Freudenberg-NOK.

Most recently, Rice led the oil seal business at Transcom-Dichtomatik, which was formed in July 2002 with the acquisition of Burnsville-based Transcom Inc. Rice founded Transcom in 1978.

Dichtomatik North America was also founded in 1978 to complement its European predecessor, Dichtomatik of Hamburg, Germany -- which is known as the largest and strongest European supplier of non-branded, generic and standard cataloged O-ring, oil seal and fluid power seals.

Its 2002 acquisition of Transcom and Nu-Seals Inc. brought the company new expertise in custom molded rubber products, as well as a significant product offering in fluid power seals, helping strengthen Dichtomatik North America's position as a one-stop shop for all types of standard and custom produced sealing products.

The company also purchased 50 percent interest in International Seals de Mexico in April 2002. Under the name Dichtomatik de Mexico, the company's product line was further expanded to offer a complete range of sealing products to the Mexican market.

With these moves, Dichtomatik North America is the only sealing supplier in North America to bring all these products together into a single source.

Dichtomatik North America operates from Burnsville with locations in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Purcellville, Va.; San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Henderson, Nev.; and Queretaro, Mexico. Dichtomatik operates its European business from Hamburg, Germany, with additional locations in England, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and France.

Dichtomatik is the largest generic seal supplier in North America and Europe with principal focus on the replacement market selling through distributors. It also has a growing business for original equipment applications using standard oil seals, O-rings and fluid power seals, and is capable of replacing commoditized brand products with lower cost sealing products produced in the Asian market.

The Dichtomatik group offers an extensive portfolio of standard sealing products for the aerospace, appliance, business machine, automotive, fluid power, marine, medical, off-highway equipment and recreational vehicle markets.

For more information, visit the Dichtomatik website at www.dichtomatikusa.com .