Machinery

B. Douglas Goodell never drinks draft beer. In fact, given the choice, he would always drink a packaged beverage, whether it be a soft drink or beer.As one of the three directors of Crown Simplimatic Inc., which makes machines that fill cans and bottles with water, fruit juices, soft drinks, beer and energy drinks, Goodell is doing everything he can to make the $200 million Baltimore office out of which he works the leader of the beverage-filling industry.With...

Theatre on the Hill's latest production, "Noises Off," which opens today at Western Maryland College, is more work for the stage crew than for the cast.During both 10-minute intermissions, the crew must completely remake the stage. They remove stairways and the side-pieces of the set, both 15 feet high, and spin a 20-foot section of scenery.The process converts an indoor view of a country home into a backstage view of a theater set."Not many theaters would attempt this show because it entails building a set that is complete on both sides," said Susan Thornton, who portrays Dotty Otley, an actress who plays the maid in this play-within-in-a-play.

Fusion Systems Corp., Maryland's largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer, said yesterday that it has agreed to be bought for $292.5 million by Eaton Corp., a diversified manufacturing company in Cleveland.Shares in Rockville-based Fusion rose $4.562, or 13 percent, to $39.562 on the news yesterday. Meanwhile shares in Eaton rose 50 cents to close at $87.312.Eaton said the transaction would involve purchasing Fusion's 7.5 million shares at $39 each. The majority of the shares will be bought by Monday, Eaton said.

A 9-year-old Harford County girl died last night in a family ride gone awry when she was run over by a front-end loader that her father was driving, county police said.The girl, who lived in the northeastern part of the county, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. She was identified as Vanna Henretta Lewis.Sgt. Edward Hopkins, a spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office, said Martin Lewis, 36, was giving his 11-year-old son, Brandon Lewis, a ride in the cab of the front-end loader while Vanna and Martina Lynn Lewis, 13, were walking in front.

Your grass is as high as an elephant's eye. Small animals disappear into the backyard veld, never to emerge. The neighbors are beginning to talk.Dragging the mower out from behind the snow shovels, you gas it up, pull the rope and -- nothing. What to do?In a world of self-serve gas, cash machines, U-Haul trucks and press-two-for-information telephone operators, it's nice to know there are people who will come to you.In Montgomery County, that's The Mowerman.Chris Suser has been traveling eastern Montgomery County for eight years, keeping mowers safe from well-meaning but inept tinkerers.

He was relatively young - 26 years old - visiting from France and observing the rules and habits of a then-young country, the United States. Nothing seemed more remarkable in 1831 to that Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, than elections.Elections, like the wheel, had to be invented. Tocqueville marveled at the machinery - at Americans making elections reliable, true and ordinary. He applauded the imperfect, happy marriage between the theory and practice of democracy.He wrote about it admiringly in "Democracy in America," his portrait of a country that was still untouched by national ad campaigns, exit polls and instant analyses.

Seeking to preserve more of Maryland's wilderness, Gov. Parris N. Glendening has proposed setting aside 5,700 acres of state park and forest as "wildlands" that would be off-limits to logging, driving or other mechanized disruptions.The proposal would expand wildlands in the Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas and would extend protection to patches of forest and soil that have escaped saws and plows for the past 350 years."When you're looking to save what little remains in urbanized areas, you're hard put to find something like Yosemite," said Glen Besa, Maryland chairman of the Sierra Club.

ONCE A YEAR the Mason-Dixon Historical Society Inc. offers young and old a chance to learn about our past with its Steam and Gas Roundup, an event that showcases antique farm equipment and machinery.Have your children ever seen a horse pull a plow? At the Roundup, held at the Carroll County Farm Museum, they can see the progress we've made from horse power to steam power to gas engines.Last year, 212 gas engines registered for the show. This year Shane Ey will return with his 1933 Ford truck.

Crown Cork & Seal Co.'s purchase of a French packaging company will make a Baltimore division of Crown a stronger competitor in an international market worth $18 billion annually, company officials said yesterday.By joining forces, the Baltimore-based Crown machinery division and a Virginia-based subsidiary of the French company will join a few competitors worldwide able to sell all the equipment and services demanded by new bottling and canning plants, said B. Douglas Goodell, vice president of Crown's machinery division.

Ralph J. Stolle, 91, an inventor who developed the machinery that manufactures pop-tops for metal cans, died Saturday at his Lebanon, Ohio, home.The businessman and inventor held the patent for the Stolle Can Machinery used throughout the world for production of cans.In 1923, he founded Stolle Corp., which developed the tab opener and the machinery for its production. He sold the company to Alcoa in 1975 but remained as chairman.He is listed as an inventor on more than 50 patents.His daughter, Mary Jo Cropper, said he was humble about his success.