LECO Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc

-- CFO Vincent K. Petrella elected Senior Vice President CLEVELAND, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LECO) today announced the promotion of three members of executive management to Senior Vice President positions. Vincent K. Petrella and George D. Blankenship were elected Senior Vice Presidents of Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc., and Richard J. Seif was named a Senior Vice President of The Lincoln Electric Company, a major domestic subsidiary. Mr. Petrella continues as the Company's Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Mr. Blankenship has added responsibility for all of the Company's U.S. operations and will continue his responsibilities for global engineering and the Cleveland operations. Mr. Seif will serve as Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing and Senior Vice President for the Middle East and Africa (MEA), responsible for Lincoln's marketing, sales and distributor relations in those regions. Mr. Petrella has been the Company's Chief Financial Officer since February 2004. Prior to that, he was Vice President, Corporate Controller for the Company. He joined Lincoln in 1995 as Manager of Internal Audit and was responsible for the development and organization of the Company's internal audit function. Mr. Petrella was named Corporate Controller in 1997 and was elected an officer of the Company in 2001. Prior to joining Lincoln, he was with the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for 13 years and held a number of management-level positions. Mr. Petrella graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College with a bachelor of arts in accounting in 1982 and received his CPA in 1984. Mr. Blankenship has been Vice President, Global Engineering and Cleveland Operations since June 2005. Prior to that position, he was Vice President of Engineering and Quality Assurance. Mr. Blankenship joined Lincoln in 1985 as an engineering trainee and held engineering and product development management positions of increasing responsibility, including Chief R&D Engineer. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from The Ohio State University. Mr. Seif previously was Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Lincoln Electric U.S. He joined Lincoln in 1971 as a technical sales representative; served as manager of the Salt Lake City District office and the Cleveland sales office; and was named Marketing Director in 1992. He was elected a Corporate Vice President in 1994 and was President and Chief Executive Officer of Lincoln Electric Canada from 1998 to 2001. Mr. Seif attended Michigan State University where he earned both a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and an MBA degree. Lincoln Electric is the world leader in the design, development and manufacture of arc welding products, robotic arc-welding systems, plasma and oxyfuel cutting equipment and has a leading global position in the brazing and soldering alloys market. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Lincoln has 33 manufacturing locations, including operations, manufacturing alliances and joint ventures in 18 countries and a worldwide network of distributors and sales offices covering more than 160 countries. The Company is celebrating its 110th anniversary this year. For more information about Lincoln Electric, its products and services, visit the Company's Web site at http://www.lincolnelectric.com/. DATASOURCE: Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. CONTACT: Roy L. Morrow of Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc., +1-216-383-4893, or Web site: http://www.lincolnelectric.com/

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