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Chato D. Patterson Promoted to Program Administrator at Allison Transmission

September 19, 2007

We are pleased to announce the following organizational changes for Marketing Sales and Service and Product Engineering effective immediately.

Jill S. Massonne, currently 3000/4000 Program Administrator, has been named Program Administrator, 1000/2000 Series Transmission replacing Thomas D. Eifert. Jill will assume the responsibility of leading a cross-functional team to develop and implement product quality improvements, customer initiatives or product features and ratings including MY10i torque uprate program, and transmission/controller cost reduction initiatives. She will continue to report to the Product Engineering organization.

Jill began her career with GM as a coop student at Bedford Foundry before joining Allison Transmission, Indianapolis, in 1989 as an Associate Quality/Reliability Engineer. Jill has held a variety of assignments of increasing responsibility within Operations, including Associate Reliability Engineer, WT Design Reliability, Quality/Reliability Engineer in Statistical Support, and 3000 Series Quality Manager. Jill has a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue.

Replacing Jill as 3000/4000 Program Administrator is Chato D. Patterson. Chato's previous assignment was as a Field Sales Account Manager in the Eastern Region. His specific territory was Penn DD-A including Pennsylvania, Upper State New York, and select counties in Delaware. Chato assumes the responsibility for leading a cross-functional product team to develop and implement product quality and transmission/controller cost reduction initiatives.

Chato began his career at Allison as a Tactical Marketing Intern during the summer of 1998. After receiving an undergraduate degree in Marketing from Indiana University - Bloomington in 1999, he was hired into the Marketing Department as a Strategic Market Analyst accountable for the global marketing forecast. From there he moved to the 1000/2000 Series TM Service Department and spent one year as a Service Engineer.

Chato spent two years on Educational Leave and received an MBA in Marketing Research from the University of Wisconsin in 2004. Upon returning to Allison, he re-entered the N.A. Marketing Department and had responsibility for research, pricing, and MSS product line team activities.

Please join us in congratulating Jill and Chato in their new roles. As usual, your cooperation and support for both in their new roles is greatly appreciated.


Laurie B. Tuttle James E. Wanaselja, Director
Director of Engineering North American Marketing, Sales & Service

Burke, Inc. Executive Earns 2007 Parlin Marketing Research Award

August 30, 2007

Cincinnati, OH (August 16, 2007): Former Burke, Inc. Chairman and CEO Ronald L. Tatham is the recipient of the 2007 Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award, which recognizes Tatham's substantial contributions and unwavering dedication to the ongoing advancement of marketing research practice. The Parlin Board of Governors, as an instrument of the American Marketing Association (AMA) and the American Marketing Association Foundation (AMAF), announced the award this week.

The Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award was established in 1945 by the Philadelphia Chapter of the AMA and The Wharton School in association with the Curtis Publishing Company to honor distinguished academics and practitioners who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and sustained impact on the evolving profession of marketing research over an extended period of time. Established as a memorial to Charles Coolidge Parlin, who is recognized as a founder of marketing research, and acknowledged for his early benchmarking studies of consumer issues, the Parlin Award is today a preeminent national honor.

Tatham recently retired as Chairman and CEO of Burke, Inc., and continues to serve as a consultant and lecturer for the Burke Institute. Before joining Burke, he was a professor on the graduate business faculty of Arizona State University, and taught at the University of Cincinnati, as well as the University of Alabama. An active consulting practice while teaching led Tatham to join Burke, Inc. as a consultant and both a program developer and lecturer in the Burke Institute seminar program. In the latter capacity, Dr. Tatham lectured in hundreds of seminars over a 30-year career. Tatham joined Burke full-time in 1976 and established an advanced Decision Sciences group at Burke. Constantly concerned with Burke's adherence to the highest standards of research science, Tatham's influence spread throughout the organization, culminating in his appointment as President and CEO in 1989.

Dr. Tatham earned a B.B.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.B.A. from Texas Tech University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Alabama. He is coauthor of Multivariate Data Analysis (Prentice Hall, 6th Edition, 2005), and his research papers have appeared in several publications, including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Market Research Society, Business Horizons and Management Science. He has served as a member of the Marketing Research Advisory Board, University of Georgia; the MSMR Advisory Board, University of Texas at Arlington; the Advisory Board of the A.C. Nielsen Marketing Research Center, University of Wisconsin and the Advisory Board of the College of Business, Northern Kentucky University. Dr. Tatham has lectured at Thammasat University in Bangkok, the Kellogg School at Northwestern University, Eastern Kentucky University, University of Texas, Arlington, University of Georgia, Arizona State University and Northern Kentucky University. Dr. Tatham was recently honored as a "Legend of Marketing Research" at the 2007 AMA Executive Insights Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Founded in 1931, Burke is an independent, full service marketing research and decision support company. Burke capitalizes on its state-of-the-art research execution, advanced analytical techniques and leading edge technology to provide decision support solutions to companies across all major industry sectors. A 100% employee-owned company, Burke is also the industry leader in marketing research and consumer insights education through the Burke Institute, which has trained more than 70,000 participants from 10,000 companies, through more than 3,000 public and in-house customized marketing research seminars in 39 different countries. Burke is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, with regional offices throughout the United States.