Eight companies join NexGen 2010 event

Second annual showcase will take place in February with Biesse and Stiles Machinery, along with several newcomers

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The NexGen 2010 event has been expanded to include eight additional equipment manufacturers and distributors in the woodworking industry. The new lineup, which started with Biesse and Stiles Machinery, will now include Cefla Finishing Group, Costa & Grissom Machinery Co., Delmac Machinery Group, Holz-Her, Holzma U.S., C.R. Onsrud, Superfici America and Weinig America.

The event will be held Feb. 8-12 at the companies' facilities in the Carolinas and is free for all to attend.

The event is a series of concurrent open houses, in which company specialists will interact with attendees and provide them with information about the uses and benefits of CNC routers, panel saws, edgebanders, finishing machinery, molders, sanders and more. Attendees must provide their own transportation to the facilities that are, at most, are about 50 miles apart.

"Our goal is to let people get the behind-the-scenes treatment and learn what these machines actually do. They can meet in a calm, comfortable environment," says Stephan Waltman, vice president of sales and marketing for Stiles Machinery.

Waltman collaborated with Federico Broccoli, president and CEO of Biesse America, to stage the first NexGen event in 2009. The event will now be a joint venture between all participating companies. Each participating company has a representative on the NexGen planning committee.

"We always intended [NexGen] to be a large, all-inclusive operation. Once we saw that the first one was successful, we felt comfortable in approaching our friendly competitors to see if they all would like to participate and they all were very excited to have that opportunity. So we met in a neutral place and introduced the idea, and there was a good response all around," says Waltman.

"NexGen will be a great opportunity for sales," says Tom Onsrud, president of C.R. Onsrud. "We are very proud of our facility and our people, this way the customers can see who we really are and meet all of our staff and our whole company.

"NexGen will not be a substitute for attending the IWF in Atlanta in August. Onsrud will have the same booth and the same amount of equipment we had at IWF in 2008. The economy should be coming back strongly by the time IWF rolls around."

The 2009 NexGen event drew about 300 participants from 200 companies. Waltman projects these numbers will likely double at the next event.

For information, visit www.nexgenevent.com or call 866-285-1958.

This article originally appeared in the January 2010 issue.