Hello Readers and Welcome to the New Year and the New Decade!

Writing to you from my husband’s homeland of Austria where we have been fortunate enough to spend the Christmas and New Year’s holiday season with family and friends, it seems important to share with you some of the wonderful aspects of the Austrian culture (at least to me while watching the snow covered mountains, castles, and farms drift by outside of the window of the train we are riding on from Tyrol to Vienna.)

I must confess that I’ve not spent New Year’s Eve in many countries other than the United States and Austria, but I can’t imagine being in too many places more special than the countryside of Austria. Included in this newsletter is an article relating our experience this year which I’m glad to say seems not to have changed from those “Silvesters” of years past.

In keeping with the Austrian theme, we also bring you a fun piece on the pros of Coffee, the beverage brought to the western world’s drinkers when the Turks left their provisions at the edge of Vienna at the end of their unsuccessful siege on the West. Within those provisions were stocks of coffee which the Viennese immediately made to good use. Ultimately, the fashion of drinking coffee grew on the rest of the world – including one of our senior engineers who relates how he happily fell into the coffee drinking rabbit hole.

We think you have heard a lot about the Oasis of the Seas, Royal Caribbean’s newest cruise ship and by far the largest ever to be built, so a brief and simple explanation of how the innovative wastewater system onboard the ship works to save the seas from pollution is definitely in order.

Dissolved oxygen in sea water is an important factor in maintaining a healthy environment for marine creatures. At the core of the Headworks CleanSea® system onboard the Oasis of the Seas is our ActiveCell™ biological treatment process. The process mimics the oceans’ natural treatment cycle for wastewater contaminants. In fact, our process can be thought of as “nature accelerated™.” Protecting the oceans’ dissolved oxygen levels from negative impact by human activity is one of the primary reasons to treat wastewater before discharging. This issue covers how the biological process works.

Lastly, Headworks is currently recruiting an experienced leader to head its expanding mechanical engineering department. This well compensated position will be integral to leading the growth of the company as a whole and will be a key player in our management group. Know someone that fits the Headworks culture and is suited to this position? Head them to the Job Links page of our website at www.headworksusa.com to learn more about the responsibilities the Mechanical Engineering Manager will take on.

Good reading to all of you. Each of us at Team Headworks wish you and yours good health, good times, good success and good friends in this new decade and beyond!

Best regards