Question-and-Answer Session
[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from Amit Daryanani.
Amit Daryanani - RBC Capital Markets
First on the Pump segment, it looks like gross margins were up 320 basis points. I think, Mark, you said 100 basis points was due to a better mix, the remainder 220, how much was that pricing versus operational initiatives and was commodities at all issue over there?
Mark A. Blinn - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Latin America Operations
Right. Amit, what I said was that we saw 100 basis point shift. The general rule of thumb is 100 basis point of shift mix approximately equates about 30 basis point margin improvement. So out of the 320 that would explain 30. The other 290, if you look at the implied margins in our projects, you can see that we saw a very good strong improvement there and that's being driven by price, absorption, operational excellence, all of the things. We have seen pricing and we've commented earlier that the pricing in our backlog in '07 was better than the pricing in the backlog in '06, but a lot of this is being driven by volume and operational excellence.
Amit Daryanani - RBC Capital Markets
Got it. And then just as a follow-up, on the booking side, it looks like the number is up about 21%, 22% year-over-year. That's kind of a material acceleration in my head. Was there any one-time large contracts that could have potentially helped you guys out and also when you look at the sales activity, the bidding activity that you guys see, is there a reason why you would think that number would slow down materially from here throughout 2008?
Mark A. Blinn - Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Latin America Operations
Yeah, Amit, we don't comment on bookings going forward. But looking back at the first quarter, it was consistent with the prior quarters and then we did as usual see large projects. There is a lot of projects that are being bid out there and if... going to Lew's comments, the market looks still fairly strong. But going forward, we really won't comment on bookings growth. But I think a point I want to make and we've consistently made, we're very pleased with this growth, but if you look at our business, 10% to 15% organic order growth is tremendous for our business if you see the kind of operating earnings and EPS leverage we can get through our business. So I think an important message is to achieve the objectives we've talked about in 2010, we don't need a real high levels of growth that you've seen now. We are pleased with them and we will continue to drive them, but I want to make sure that point very clear. And also, always keep in mind we are not a quarter-to-quarter business. So things can fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter, but over the cycle, we see good business coming our way.
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