Springfield, PA – Representative Bryan Lentz, the Democratic nominee for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 7^th Congressional District, toured Nielsen Kellerman on Tuesday for the seventeenth stop of his 10-week, 25-stop economic tour. The Boothwyn-based manufacturer makes instruments used in the sports of rowing and gliding, and hand-held weather and wind-speed gauges used in the military and construction trades and by outdoor sporting enthusiasts.

Founded in 1978 to produce instruments used by rowing crews, Nielsen Kellerman’s world-leading time and stroke meters are standard equipment for Olympic crew teams around the world. The company has expanded over the years by developing products for new markets, including hand held weather and wind-speed monitors used by U.S. Military snipers and navigation systems for gliders. More than a third of the company’s sales come from overseas markets.

During the 90-minute visit, Lentz received a guided tour of the company’s manufacturing floor from a company executive. The tour was followed by a half-hour question and answer session with more than 30 company employees in a factory break room.

“The top priority of my campaign is saving and creating good-paying jobs in the 7^th District and a company like Neilsen Kellerman that has been growing and adding new jobs through innovation and branching out into new markets is the kind of company that we should be designing policies to encourage job creation,” Lentz said.

Lentz launched his 10-week, 25-stop economic listening tour at the end of July. Recent stops on the tour included a town hall forum in Crum Lynne on jobs and the economy, and a tour of Aztec Solar, one of the region’s largest installers of commercial and residential solar power systems.

Lentz has already introduced a five-point proposal for generating job growth, including giving companies incentives to invest and expand, and providing educational opportunities to train employees in fields where demand is growing, like math and engineering. He said he would use the ten-week tour of businesses in Delaware, Chester and Montgomery counties to further fine tune his proposal to target the demands of local businesses and working families.

Lentz has made saving and creating jobs the cornerstone of his campaign for Congress. He is the only candidate with a published plan to get our economy moving again and the only candidate who supports Wall Street reform and the creation of a consumer financial protection agency to ensure another collapse does not happen. Lentz has also pledged to end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas while his opponent Pat Meehan has signed a pledge that has bound him to oppose legislation that has been introduced to end those tax breaks.

A former Airborne Ranger, criminal prosecutor and Iraq War veteran, Bryan Lentz currently serves in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from Delaware County. He was awarded both the Bronze Star for Service and the War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal for his military service. He lives in Swarthmore with his wife Jennifer and their son Thomas.