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1 3 0 H a r t f o r d Ahlstrom Ahlstrom is a high performance materials company, partnering with leading businesses around the world to help them stay ahead. U p until 2000, Windsor Locks, Connecticut, was home to the oldest corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Dexter Corporation C.H. Dexter and Sons was estab- lished in 1767 — nine years before the American Revolution — as a small, family-owned sawmill that evolved into an international producer of specialty papers. Dexter focused its manufacturing around the aerospace, automotive, electronics, food packaging and medical markets. Innovation and experimentation during the early 1900s led to the development of several new products that are still being produced today. In the 1930s, Dexter invented the Dexter wet forming long fiber nonwovens process. This process enabled the company to produce a new kind of filter material that was very light and porous, yet extremely strong. This invention provided the tea industry with the means to create a bag to strain tea leaves — what we now know as a teabag. Around the same time, the long fiber process was used to develop some very promising applications such as fibrous meat casing, stencil base paper, and a gen- eral line of absorbent and filter papers. A few years later, Dexter devoted 100 percent of its production to long fiber papers and webs for industrial uses. On its 200th birthday, Dexter publicly offered its shares and began to embark on a path of mergers and acquisitions that expanded the company's product offerings. In 2000 Dexter's nonwovens division — or paper division — was sold along with the company's original site in Windsor Locks. The buyer was Ahlstrom Corporation, a Finnish company ranked in the top ten of global manufacturers of nonwovens with facilities in the United States and Europe. Today the Windsor Locks plant is one of Ahlstrom's largest manufacturing facilities, powered by roughly 450 employees. The plant produces nonwovens — fabric-like materials made from long fibers, bonded together by chemical, mechanical, heat or solvent treatments — for the medical, food, automotive, wall covering and specialty markets. Since the acquisition, Ahlstrom has invested over $100 million in new process technology in Windsor Locks. Ahlstrom was seeking innovation and saw potential in Dexter. In 2001 the green light was given to build a composites manufacturing facility on site that would house the future of the nonwovens industry and Ahlstrom's next-generation composites. Ahlstrom was listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange in 2006. The company is now one of the world's lead- ing producers of nonwovens, backed by its 32 product facilities and 28 sales offices worldwide. More than 5,000 employees serve customers in 26 countries on six continents and global product applications stretch across food and retail, medical and healthcare, build- ing and utilities, transportation, household and con- sumer sectors. Staying ahead "We've come a long way because progress has always been our lifeblood. We need to ensure our customers stay ahead, too," said Jan Lång, Ahlstrom president and CEO. Ahlstrom has been building on its experience and know-how to anticipate customer needs for decades. Last year the company began making fundamental changes in its strategy, operating model and brand identity, strongly positioning Ahlstrom toward the future. Staying connected with what the market wants allows Ahlstrom to focus on its customers and create sustainable and profitable products and relationships. Determined innovation led by outstanding sales and marketing teams is backed by a world-class sup- ply chain and product development experts at Ahlstrom. Research and development and planning specialists keep the complex, diversified continuous process operations running on a 24/7 schedule, all supported by advanced information technology and finance divisions. Ahlstrom's office building located at Two Elm Street in Windsor Locks.