NEOPLAN USA Chooses Denver for Headquarter Location; New Leadership Team Accelerates Growth Plan.

DENVER -- NEOPLAN USA (NEOPLAN), a global manufacturer and solutions provider of transit buses and trolleys, today announced the location of the company's headquarters and design center in Denver, Colorado. The new headquarters will house senior management, engineering, sourcing, sales, marketing, and finance. Manufacturing operations will remain in NEOPLAN's Lamar, Colorado, location, where NEOPLAN has been producing transit buses since 1981.

NEOPLAN has chosen the previous Frontier Airlines headquarters as its new home, and will expand its Denver headquarters staff to 50 people before year-end. The move to Denver culminates an ongoing revamping of the management team. During the past two years, there have been a number of new additions to the team, including Vice President of Engineering, Prasenjit Adhikari, Vice President of Manufacturing, Jim La Rue, Vice President of Program Management, John Reynolds, Vice President of Quality Assurance, Steve Trudell, Vice President of Supply Chain, Steve Del Priore, and Vice President of Finance, Harold Boade.

The move to Denver makes the company significantly more accessible to customers and suppliers, who will be able to fly directly to Denver International Airport and be at NEOPLAN's headquarters within minutes of arrival. At the same time, the new location is convenient for travel to and from the Lamar facility.

"This move is strategic," said John Russell, president and CEO, NEOPLAN. "Over the past two years we have made dramatic improvement in our core operations in Lamar. However, we have struggled to attract and retain the technical talent that we need to support our increasingly technical product. At the same time, our customers and suppliers have tended to avoid visits to NEOPLAN due to the long trip to Lamar. Now, we continue to have our core manufacturing in a community that supports us, and we have our headquarters in a location that is better suited for our technical and service requirements. Basing our headquarters in Denver provides NEOPLAN a prime location to attract top-level talent, enhance customer service, and expand our footprint in the transportation industry."

Product Design

NEOPLAN has recently demonstrated strength in product design by delivering several new innovative products in a generally conservative industry. In the past two years alone, the company has worked closely with two key customers to produce several "firsts" in the transit industry. NEOPLAN's design strategy is based on the view that improvements should be driven by customer-defined needs, and NEOPLAN's role is to work with transit authorities to continually develop product with increasing levels of innovation.

For example, NEOPLAN worked with Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority to produce the industry's first 60-foot, low-floor natural gas vehicle in 2004. The company is currently producing the only electric trolley bus in North America. Neoplan also worked closely with New Jersey Transit to produce the industry's first and only radiator-over-engine configuration in a transit bus, which has significant performance and service advantages over traditional radiator configurations. This configuration is now available in both 40' and 60' configurations.

Customer Insight

"NEOPLAN's integrated approach to custom bus design solutions centers on the needs and desires of the client. This customer-oriented approach to building buses has helped MBTA achieve its goal of providing a safe, reliable, and comfortable service to our customers," states Michael Mulhern, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's (MBTA) general manager. "NEOPLAN accepted the challenge of building specialized buses for MBTA, a 40 foot low-floor electric trolley with doors on both sides, a 60 foot low-floor articulated CNG bus for our newest transit mode, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), and a 60 foot low-floor dual-mode vehicle for our new BRT tunnel that opens later this year. The positive feedback from our customers and employees speaks for itself. We are very pleased with our relationship with NEOPLAN. Their innovation, extraordinary commitment and the operating performance of the vehicles are good for the industry."

Industry Advancement

With a core belief that innovation can improve the cost/benefits of transportation solutions to most communities, NEOPLAN's new leadership team is actively initiating both customer and supplier discussions about a new mindset for transit products. Technological advancements and process improvements can make the bus experience more attractive without taxpayer burden. NEOPLAN actively engages customers and suppliers early in the design process to achieve a more innovative product.

"We are initiating industry conversations about the need to change our internal view before we can change the external view of public transportation. Buses have become so commoditized in the current system, that public transportation authorities have been forced into a mindset of making tradeoffs. The industry is telling us they are ready for the change we are enabling. With smart design and technology, the bus experience can be improved at reasonable cost. It is requiring a multitude of conversations with all stakeholders. So far everyone agrees that the mission to improve the public transportation experience is the right thing to do, and that the time is now," states Prasenjit Adhikari, vice president of engineering, NEOPLAN.

NEOPLAN is also designing new ways for customers to adhere to environmental and American with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. Recently, NEOPLAN launched three key natural gas products in Westchester County, New York, New Jersey, and Boston, Massachusetts. Boston is replacing a fleet of 27 buses with environmentally friendly electric trolleys. The company has been successful in implementing across all product lines a low-floor design allowing for convenient accessibility for disabled people.

About NEOPLAN USA Corporation

NEOPLAN USA is a leading, global manufacturer and solutions provider of heavy-duty buses and trolleys. NEOPLAN offers a full line of standardized products and is unique among transit manufacturers in their approach to customer-driven innovation. The company engineers solutions for accessible, efficient, and attractive buses and trolleys to public transportation entities and their riders. A new leadership team has effectively led a transition for NEOPLAN by substantially improving the company's skills in customer collaboration, engineering, and manufacturing. In 2004, NEOPLAN moved its headquarters and design center to Denver, Colorado, with manufacturing based in Lamar, Colorado.