appointed member of the Board of Directors of Rockwell GMBH Germany and Dikkers Valve Products LLC Netherlands. Prior to Rockwell, Michael Hodges was a physicist with NASA and aerospace management with Martin-Marietta Corp. in Orlando, Fl. During Hodges' seven years with Rockwell there were approximately 90,000 employees in seven divisions: the Valve Division with products for the gas and oil industry with plants located in Barberton, Ohio, Raleigh, NC, Sulfur Springs, Tx., and Kearney, Nebraska, the Gas Products Division of meters and regulators in Dubois, Pa, the Municipal Water Meter Division in Uniontown, Pa., the Power Tool Division in Syracuse, NY, Jackson, Tenn., Tupelo, Miss., and Columbia, SC, the Transportation Division in Atchison, Kansas with a large steel foundry of products for the automotive, railway and rapid-transit industry, the Sterling Faucet Division in Reedsville, WV, and the Engine Division in Pinneberg, Germany (previously ILO-Motorenwerke, founded 1911 and acquired by Rockwell in 1959), manufacturing 2-cycle gas-driven motors for developing nation products including motor tillers, water pumps, sprayers, cement mixers, tampers and mopeds as well as snowmobile- and all-terrain vehicle engines for North America. A significantly different direction was planned starting in 1973 away from the business model developed since 1945 by the founder Willard Rockwell (1888–1978). The founder's son, Willard Rockwell Jr., appeared taking the company in a new direction, replacing the founder's model of strong medium-size manufacturing companies with diverse industrial products with strong industrial engineering and quality control in multiple locations – to a new model leveraging assets of the profitable seven manufacturing divisions of Rockwell Manufacturing Company into a new business model of a dominant government-serving (NASA, Defense Dept.) aerospace company, named Rockwell International, which included North American Aviation, of products such as the Space Shuttle. By the end of the 1980s, Rockwell International began to sell-off its prior industrial product manufacturing divisions, starting with the Valve Division, leading to the sale of all divisions and the end of the Rockwell names > Rockwell Manufacturing Company, North American Rockwell, and Rockwell International In 1973, North American Rockwell merged with Rockwell Manufacturing, run by Willard Rockwell Jr., to form Rockwell International. In the same year, the company acquired Admiral Radio and TV for US$500 million. In 1979, the appliance division was sold to Magic Chef. Rockwell International also drew on the strengths of several of George Westinghouse's concerns, and Westinghouse is considered a co-founder of the company. Apex and