William B. White Speaking Notes DuPont Canada Pointe-Claire Centre Opening June 8, 2007 Thank you very much Mario. Merci beaucoup, Mario. I hope you all will forgive me for my Missouri French. C est un plaisir d être ici avec vous à Pointe-Claire aujourd hui. I have been working on my Québec French and would like to say Ce sont de très beaux chars!. I first of all want to thank my fellow speakers Mr. Scarpaleggia, Mayor McMurchie, and Ray Anderson and all our guests, for taking time from your busy schedules to be with us today. We appreciate your participation, and we look forward to working with you and having your support as we embark on this new beginning for our company in Pointe-Claire. I say new beginning because, as many of you know, the building next to us is one of our key Canadian Distribution Centres, which has been in operation for more than thirty years. We also have an office in downtown Montréal, and we manufacture our DuPont Zodiaq quartz surfaces product in Thetford Mines, Québec. 1
By opening this Centre, DuPont is taking an important step in Canada that demonstrates our on-going commitment to the growth and success of our Canadian customers, and particularly those in the transportation manufacturing and collision repair industries in Québec, Eastern Ontario, the Maritimes and the northeastern United States. The advanced technical and business skills that the students will acquire at this state-of-the-art centre will enable them to be more productive and competitive as they manufacture, restore or enhance the look of automobiles, commercial vehicles, aircraft and industrial machinery. By increasing the capabilities, effectiveness, sustainability of our customers with this centre we are confident that we can contribute to the continued economic vitality of their businesses and communities. If you visit our company Web site, you ll quickly see that DuPont offers many products and services to a wide spectrum of industry sectors, such as agriculture, energy, health care, manufacturing, packaging and graphic arts, plastics and transportation and everything in between. Globally, we sell approximately 500,000 products to more than 400,000 global customers and the list keeps growing. Last year, 2
global DuPont introduced almost 1,200 new products and product applications. DuPont also has product and service solutions that can help companies to deal with some of the toughest challenges related to reducing their environmental impact and operating safely. These offerings stemmed from our company s long-standing Core Values, and our work with customers in diverse sectors to improve their safety and environmental performance. This Pointe-Claire facility, for example, is equipped with the latest, high performance waterborne basecoat and low VOC technologies from DuPont, Spies Hecker and Standox. These unique basecoats represent a breakthrough in durability, quality, productivity and contribute to environmental compliance. They are tangible examples of the work we are doing to support our company s global 2015 Sustainability Goals, which call on us to go beyond just reducing our own environmental footprint. We are working to achieve reductions beginning with the products we create through our research-and-development and extending our efforts to across our value chains. 3
DuPont s Refinish business has designated approximately 25 percent of its 2007 research and development budget for the development of new water-based coatings. Recently, two new DuPont water-based finishes were launched to mark the company s 30 th year of developing coatings with reduced environmental impact. One of these products is DuPont Cromax Pro, which is designed to help collision repair shops to meet stricter emissions regulations while improving productivity. With these products, we can help our customers to meet their own sustainability goals while maintaining or enhancing performance. Patrice, as Canadian training manager, we appreciate your efforts, along with everyone else who contributed to the successful launch of this facility, and we wish you the very best in the years to come as you grow our presence and contribute to our customers success with our now three Canadian training centres. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you again for being with us today for this exciting new chapter for DuPont in Canada. 4
With your help, I am confident that this Centre will be an engine that will drive the success of our Québec and Eastern Canadian customers. I look forward to having you with us as we proceed on this journey, and as we move forward toward DuPont s vision to be the world s most dynamic science company, creating sustainable solutions essential to a better, safer, healthier life for people everywhere. Merci beaucoup d être venus ici aujourd hui. Bon chance! 5