DEPCO, LLC announces the purchase of Gears Educational Systems, LLC

Pittsburg, KS – September 22, 2011 - DEPCO, LLC, Pittsburg, KS, announced today that they have acquired Gears Educational Systems, LLC, Hanover, MA, and will move them to their Pittsburg, KS facilities. Gears Educational Systems is an innovator in providing hands-on engineering products to middle schools, high schools, and colleges. They differentiated themselves from competitors by offering robust products using industry-grade components. Gears products are designed and built to last for years in the classroom, resulting in better value. Their products are used in hundreds of high schools, colleges, and universities around the country. Gears Co-founder Michael Bastoni is a veteran educator that has direct classroom experience in STEM education. He uses this experience to develop kits that address the needs of students and teachers. In the mid-1990s, he began developing prototypes of the engineering kits that would evolve into our flagship product—GEARS Invention and Design System (IDS). GEARS-IDS was used as a trainer for his students so that they would be better prepared for regional and national engineering robotic competitions. His teams were very successful and won many top awards. More importantly, these students often continued their studies at engineering schools. Gears Co-founder, Mark Newby, has spent over twenty five years in the high-tech industry as an electro-mechanical sales engineer. He has worked closely with machinists, metal fabricators, electrical and mechanical engineers helping create and assist in the design of electro-mechanical products. Gears’ founders Mark and Mike incorporated in 2002 to refine and expand the Gears-IDS in order to share it with the educational marketplace. It was their intent for others to have similar, year-round engineering programs with all of the advantages and success that Mike and his students were experiencing in the classroom. Mark Newby says, "DEPCO's expansive warehousing and assembly facility will meet the needs of our growing customer base. This along with producing best in class online curriculum aligned to our products makes the acquisition ideal." “We are very excited to be able to add the Gears’ products to DEPCO product line. This gives us the ability to offer the most rugged and expansive mechatronic and robotic kits available to educators. We (DEPCO) continue to provide tools, not toys, to better train our students today to become the technicians and engineers of tomorrow” says Terry Graham, President of DEPCO, LLC. DEPCO intends to keep both Mark and Mike closely involved with sales and the development of new products to grow the already extensive product line. For more information about DEPCO and GEARS, please visit the following websites: www.depcollc.com www.gearseds.com