No apologies from us.

It only happens every three years and it's that time again. Even with all the work involved, it's an enormously exhilarating time for me.

I'm speaking, of course, of CastExpo '93, the finest metalcasting equipment and supply exhibition held anywhere in the world. Combine CastExpo with the annual AFS Casting Congress and you have the best foundry technology available anywhere, literally, at your fingertips.

If you're a metalcasting professional, you know that the four days of April 24-27 represent a world of opportunity. For equipment makers and foundry suppliers, there's just no better time to market your products and services. How often do you have 15,000 customers and potential customers come to see you and what you have to offer?

If your livelihood revolves around getting good castings out the foundry door, where else are you going to see, hear and experience the best and most practical metalcasting technology and research available anywhere in the world? If you're planning to be in the foundry business tomorrow, CastExpo and the Casting Congress are as an important part of your planning process as are implementing the latest quality techniques or buying a new computer. It's at CastExpo and the Congress where you learn how to apply that computer efficiently or learn how other foundries are applying that quality technique. And beyond this, you can learn what's coming next. CastExpo and the Casting Congress are the future of metalcasting.

If this sounds like a lot of hooey to you, let's look beyond the surface of the event.

It wasn't too many years ago that industries like metalcasting were being written off by the economic and political gurus who want to shape the future of America. They pointed to the globalization of the world economy and forecasted that American manufacturing couldn't compete with the coming intense international competition that such an evolving world economy would pose.

Events like CastExpo fly in the face of this thinking. If industries like metalcasting have no future, why are the best international manufacturers of foundry equipment and supplies coming here to show off their products? Why will the best researchers in the world be here to present their latest findings and to hear about the latest American research?

It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. American markets and technology still remain something to be reckoned with. And beyond this, events like CastExpo represent the enormous vitality of America. Despite all we've been through the last decade or so and the dire predictions of our demise, we keep bouncing back. We read and understand the realities of a rapidly changing marketplace and respond to its needs.

Ray Witt has been spreading this message during his year as AFS president: The only way to create wealth is to grow it, mine it or manufacture it. This is a basic, underlying truth that our best international competitors understand, but one that our shortsighted politicos and economic types don't seem to grasp.

We've been bombarded over the last several years by statistics that would seem to prove that American manufacturing is losing its punch. The fact of the matter is that we're are as important and viable as we ever were.

Consider some facts recently released by the National Association of Manufacturers and the Manufacturing Institute. Manufacturing's direct share of the gross national product since the end of World War II has averaged 21.4%. In 1988, after adjusting for inflation, manufacturing accounted for 23.3% of U.S. economic activity (higher than any year since 1948).

Then there's that all important element of productivity. We've been told time and again how unproductive we are and how we're getting worse. Again, we've been misled. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, American worker productivity ranks at 100, Canada follows at 81, Germany rates a 71 and Japan scores a 69.

Now let's talk about our trade deficit. Five years ago it stood at about $160 billion. Led by manufacturing, the deficit this year is expected to be less than $80 billion.

And the American foundry industry continues to play its usual significant role in the comeback. Today, some 3000 U.S. foundries employ 250,000 people and produce more than $20 billion of castings. We've played an untold role in the conservation and recovery movement in this country. Annually, U.S. foundries recycle 15-20 million tons of scrap metal and use and reuse nearly 100 million tons of sand, only 6% of which goes into the waste stream.

Manufacturing and metalcasting have done more than their part in the American rebound--one that management expert Peter Drucker calls "unprecedented in American history and, indeed, in economic history altogether." You'll see the kind of vibrancy that symbolizes manufacturing in America at CastExpo.

You can believe what you want about the present state and future of manufacturing and foundries in the U.S. But you'll get no apologies from us.