HANOVER - Engineers are the driving force in good technology companies, influencing everything from what types of products the company produces to the sodas their vending machines will dispense, John Morgridge, chairman of the board of Cisco Systems Inc., told some 300 students and other people at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business last week.

"Engineers are the first to influence culture," said Morgridge, whose San Jose-based company produces the routers and other equipment that make the Internet work. "We were a Dr Pepper company because the engineers liked it."

And if engineers wield that much influence, then the United States better invest more in science and engineering education. A failure not to, he warned, would allow India and China, whose schools are producing more and more students with computer skills, to dominate technology industries in this century.

"The challenge of China, the challenge of India, that'll be the real challenge," he said.

- Valley News

WEST LEBANON - Panera Bread, a publicly traded bakery and restaurant chain headquartered in Richmond Heights, Mo., will be opening a new location next month in West Lebanon's North Country Plaza. Panera's opening will fill a space vacant since Great Fun, an arcade, went out of business last summer.

"It's not the most glamorous center, but it does have a good access and visibility," said David Peterman, president of PR Restaurants LLC, a Needham, Mass.-based franchiser that has already opened 15 Panera outlets in New England, including seven in New Hampshire - Concord, Bedford, Keene, Manchester, Portsmouth, and two in Nashua.

Peterman said he and his partner, Mitch Roberts, identified West Lebanon as a potential location in 1997, a year before opening their first restaurant in Framingham, Mass. The partners liked that Lebanon was "at the crossroads" of two highways - interstates 89 and 91 - and was in a growing community that also included Dartmouth College.

"We knew there was a reason to be there, we just needed a good site," said Peterman. "It's an area that's been underserved with casual dining."

- Valley News

PORTSMOUTH - A zoning board hearing about Public Service of New Hampshire's plan to build a wood-fed boiler at Schiller Station has been postponed until next month.

The utility is undertaking the $70-million Northern Wood Power Project in the hopes of generating electricity via a new wood-fed boiler at the power plant at 400 Gosling Road.

The project needs local approval because PSNH needs variances to build the boiler, an air-emission-control device and ductwork not to exceed 125 feet in height; a smoke stack not to exceed 350 feet in height, and a wood conveyor not to exceed 100 feet in height. All of these structures, and a wash-recycle basin, are proposed for the Waterfront Industrial District, where the maximum height allowed is 45 feet and the minimum required side yards are 50 feet.

The project also needs the approval of the state Public Utilities Commission and various other municipal, state and federal authorities to move forward.

PSNH officials believe the wood-fired boiler would significantly reduce harmful air emissions and enhance the state's timber industry.

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