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Ray Melleady to Lead Neopart's Growing Parts Management Services Group

HONEY BROOK, Pa. Oct. 19, 2009 -- Neopart LLC, a national leader in transit parts distribution, announced the appointment of Ray Melleady as Vice President of its Parts Management Services group.

Melleady joins Neopart from the Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) in Albany, NY where he served as Executive Director, responsible for overall leadership of CDTA's 650 person transit organization. Prior to that, he was director of operations for CDTA. Prior to CDTA, he held various leadership and technical positions with Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and New Jersey Transit. Melleady is also an executive board member and former President of the New York Public Transit Association. He has instructed executive leadership programs for Dale Carnegie and the Eno Foundation and is a member of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Legislative Affairs Committee and active on the Transit Research Board Project E6 - Transit Technician Certification. Melleady is an ASE Master Certified Technician, holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Rosemont College and received an Executive Certificate of Management and Leadership from the Sloan School of Business at MIT.

Phil Gendall, President of Neopart, stated, "We are excited that Ray has joined the leadership team of Neopart. His unique combination of industry knowledge, senior executive experience and outstanding track record of success is ideal to lead the execution of Neopart's customer-focused initiatives. His firsthand experience with the increasingly important supply chain issues facing transits today - such as large obsolete inventories and unacceptable levels of bus downtime waiting for parts - will enable Neopart to communicate and implement solutions more effectively. Furthermore, our intent is to tailor parts management solutions to each transit's needs, and Ray brings a rich understanding of transit operations. Neopart is already unique in offering parts management solutions backed by a deep understanding of transit operations and the transit industry, as has been demonstrated by our recent contract wins. Ray takes us an important step further in this key area."

"I am honored to join the Neopart team," said Melleady. "As an executive director responsible for overall transit performance, I saw the painful drain on resources across our industry caused by typical transit aftermarket parts practices. I've seen millions of dollars sitting in parts inventory while at the same time millions of dollars of buses are down waiting for other parts. Huge inventories lead to large write-offs of obsolete material and the problems of having our industry's large capital investment in buses sit idle is clear. Moreover, the related operating inefficiencies - such as highly trained, expensive mechanics spending time searching for parts or purchasing managers performing redundant tasks - create large unnecessary costs. Transits can meaningfully reduce or eliminate these costs through a parts management program. For these reasons I saw a personal opportunity to join Neopart's effort to help transits throughout the industry. The level of improved availability, delivered with lower inventory and overall lower costs, that Neopart is already bringing to transits is pretty astounding."

Melleady added, "While parts management is a new tool for the transit industry, it is quite common in other industries and has become a hot topic with the leadership of many leading North American transits. Neopart's investment over the last several years in the information systems, product breadth and operating infrastructure necessary to deliver world class parts management services is impressive. Combining these assets with Neopart's deep transit industry experience and unmatched supply chain management expertise makes this an exciting place to be."

About Neopart LLC

Neopart is one of the transportation industry's leading aftermarket parts distributors for transit and over-the-road coaches, serving the bus industry for over 25 years. It has operated out of Honey Brook, PA since 1986 and has demonstrated long-standing success in meeting the needs of the transit and coach parts industry by providing a broad line of quality bus parts for all make and model buses. An investor group with deep supply chain expertise purchased the company in October 2007, and subsequently, Neopart has not only experienced double digit annual growth but also established itself as the leader in parts management and vendor managed inventory solutions for the transit industry.

Web site

www.neopart.com