Brush Engineered Materials Inc. Marks Its 75th Anniversary.

CLEVELAND -- Brush Engineered Materials Inc. turns 75 today (NYSE:BW).

The Brush Beryllium Company, the predecessor company to Brush Wellman Inc. and more recently, Brush Engineered Materials Inc., was incorporated on this day in 1931 in Cleveland, backed by a handful of investors and capitalized with $500.

In the decades since, Brush Engineered Materials has evolved into a leader of high performance engineered materials supplying global markets with beryllium and beryllium-containing products including alloys and electronic products, as well as non-beryllium-containing materials such as precious metal products and other material systems. Through the nine months of 2005, Brush's worldwide revenues were $400.6 million. Fourth quarter 2005 and full year 2005 financial results have not yet been released by the company. Major end-use markets include telecommunications and computer, automotive electronics, magnetic and optical data storage, industrial components, aerospace and defense, and appliance.

The company, which has remained headquartered in Cleveland, today has operating, service center and major office locations throughout North America, Europe and Asia. In fact, more than one third of the company's sales are outside of the U.S.

Brush employs approximately 2,050 men and women and since 1972 has been listed on the New York Exchange under the symbol BW.

"From the beginning, the lifeblood of the Brush organization has been all about innovation, the capacity to anticipate and adapt to change and a strong commitment to advance the world's technologies," reflected Gordon D. Harnett, Chairman and CEO of Brush Engineered Materials. "The fact that we can celebrate our 75th anniversary - a milestone that few U.S. companies, and even fewer materials companies can stake their claim to - is a testament to our talented employees over the years, along with the truly remarkable properties our materials provide," he added.

Engineered Materials for Advances in Technology and a Changing World

The evolution of the Brush organization has been marked by the ongoing development of new materials and improvements in existing materials to meet the design challenges presented by the constant advance of technology. Those challenges have placed more stringent demands on beryllium, beryllium-containing materials and other non-beryllium-containing engineered materials to meet superior levels of product strength, reliability, miniaturization and weight savings, thermal management, electrical conductivity and reflectivity. Moreover, high performance materials from Brush have had to successfully compete with lower cost substitutes and with new materials constantly being introduced from every corner of the world.

An Evolution in Markets and Products

The emerging Brush Beryllium traced its roots to Brush Laboratories, a small Cleveland chemical and metallurgical research laboratory that had been organized in 1921 by Charles F. Brush, Jr. and his boyhood friend, Dr. Charles B. Sawyer. Brush, educated at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) was the son of the famed Cleveland inventor whose historic developments of the electric arc lamp, the electro-dynamo and storage battery, and power transmission significantly advanced the practical use of electricity. Sawyer, who graduated from Yale and earned a doctorate at M.I.T., returned to Cleveland after his studies to join Brush Jr.

While Charles F. Brush, Jr. died in 1927 at age 35, Dr. Sawyer carried on their efforts to commercialize beryllium, a material most others discounted as a laboratory curiosity. As Chairman and President, he guided the newly incorporated company when it began operations out of an old stable on the grounds of the estate the Charles F. Brush, Sr. on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland.

Over the years, Brush has been transformed from a company initially geared toward beryllium-containing materials and primarily serving governmental uses of its materials, to a global leader in the production of a broad range of high performance engineered materials. Beyond its beryllium-based operating units organized under the Brush Wellman Inc. subsidiary, Brush Engineered Materials' portfolio of businesses include Williams Advanced Materials Inc., a leading global producer of precious metal and specialty alloy products serving the magnetic and optical data storage, the wireless, semiconductor, photonic and hybrid segments of the microelectronics markets, and Technical Materials, Inc. Major markets for Technical Materials, Inc. include telecommunications and computer and automotive electronics.

"Engineered materials from Brush make our world a better, more connected and safer place," Harnett explained. Materials from the various Brush businesses are at work helping to: protect our national defense and homeland security through use in fighter jet optical equipment, unmanned aerial vehicles, airport baggage inspection equipment and air traffic control radar; diagnose and treat disease by use in mammography X-ray equipment and surgical lasers; save lives and property with automotive airbags, anti-lock brakes, fire sprinklers and weather forecasting satellites; support the exploration of clean and affordable energy in oil and gas drilling applications; keep us connected through use in cell phones, the Internet infrastructure and wireless base stations, keep us moving in automotive electronics, aircraft electronics and land gear components, and entertained and informed by application in MP3 players, PDAs, and personal and network computers.

Name Changes over the Decades

Brush Beryllium Company shareholders agreed to change the company's name to Brush Wellman Inc. in late 1971, to reflect the company's acquisition of Abex Corporation's S.K. Wellman Division. After nearly 30 years of additional growth from existing businesses, acquisitions and geographic expansion worldwide, a new holding company, Brush Engineered Materials Inc., was approved by shareholders in May 2000. Under a reorganization of Brush Wellman's capital and corporate structure, Brush Wellman Inc. became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brush Engineered Materials at that time.

Today the company is headquartered at 17876 St. Clair Avenue in Cleveland where there are 120 employees involved in management and administration, sales and marketing, technical support and research and development.