WARRENDALE, Pa., January 17, 2006 -- For the second time in less than a year, an increase in business has caused United Sciences Testing, Inc. (USTI) to make major changes in order to accommodate growth.

"The new building will provide the space USTI needs to continue growing the business," said Scott N. Smith, vice president-generation business services for USTI's parent company, American Electric Power (AEP).

USTI has a new address for its main office in Warrendale, Pennsylvania, approximately 10 miles away from its previous location in Gibsonia. The new facilities expand USTI´s overall floor space to 14,000 square feet, an increase of approximately 150 percent over its previous space.

Last spring, USTI opened its first satellite operation in an office and workshop space at AEP´s Tulsa Power Station. The satellite operation enhances service to its customers in the west-central United States.

USTI provides relative accuracy test audits (RATA) with its Auto-Probe Q2000 testing equipment in order to calibrate and certify accuracy of the continuous emissions flow monitoring (CEM) equipment installed in smokestacks.

During the RATA process, USTI takes a number of flow rate measurements and compares its data with the plant´s CEM readings. When the readings vary outside of an acceptable tolerance, the CEM equipment is recalibrated to match the RATA test data USTI measures with the Auto-Probe.

"Our new location provides us with additional space for equipment maintenance and new equipment production and better resources to more efficiently serve our customers" said Mike Brown, USTI´s general manager.

AEP acquired USTI in 2002. Since that year, the company has steadily increased the testing workload. The old facility became much too small to efficiently support the current workload as a base of operations

The company also leases its patented Auto-Probe technology to utilities who perform their own testing.