diff --git a/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/Main.kt b/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/Main.kt
index 484b33ef..7dc11647 100644
--- a/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/Main.kt
+++ b/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/Main.kt
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ private class Main @Inject constructor(
             println(Banner.get() + Kobalt.version + "\n")
 //            runTest()
             runWithArgs(jc, args)
+            log(1, "************ shutting down executors")
             executors.shutdown()
             debug("All done")
         })
diff --git a/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/ProjectGenerator.kt b/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/ProjectGenerator.kt
index f46968c2..7a7c2129 100644
--- a/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/ProjectGenerator.kt
+++ b/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/ProjectGenerator.kt
@@ -75,14 +75,46 @@ public class ProjectGenerator : KobaltLogger {
             put("version", pom.version ?: "0.1")
             put("name", pom.name ?: pom.artifactId)
         }
+
+        val properties = pom.properties
+        val mapped = properties.entrySet().toMap({it.key}, {translate(it.key)})
+
+        map.put("properties", properties
+              .entrySet()
+              .map({ Pair(mapped.get(it.key), it.value) }))
         val partition = pom.dependencies.groupBy { it.scope }
               .flatMap { it.value }
+              .map { updateVersion(it, mapped) }
               .sortedBy { it.groupId + ":" + it.artifactId }
               .partition { it.scope != "test" }
+
         mainDeps.addAll(partition.first)
         testDeps.addAll(partition.second)
     }
 
+    private fun updateVersion(dep: Dependency, mapped: Map<String, String>): Dependency {
+        if ( dep.version.startsWith("\${")) {
+            val property = dep.version.substring(2, dep.version.length() - 1)
+            println("property = ${property}")
+            return Dependency(dep.groupId, dep.artifactId, "\${${mapped.get(property)}}", dep.optional, dep.scope)
+        } else {
+            return dep
+        }
+    }
+
+    private fun translate(key: String) : String {
+        val split = key.split('.')
+        return split.mapIndexed( { index, value -> if (index == 0) value else value.upperFirst() }).join("")
+    }
+
+    private fun String.upperFirst(): String {
+        if (this.isBlank()) {
+            return this
+        } else {
+            return this.substring(0, 1).toUpperCase() + this.substring(1)
+        }
+    }
+
     /**
      * Detect all the languages contained in this project.
      */
diff --git a/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/maven/Pom.kt b/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/maven/Pom.kt
index d5537735..deb7bbdd 100644
--- a/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/maven/Pom.kt
+++ b/src/main/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/maven/Pom.kt
@@ -5,12 +5,10 @@ import com.beust.kobalt.misc.ToString
 import com.google.inject.assistedinject.Assisted
 import org.w3c.dom.Element
 import org.w3c.dom.NodeList
-import org.w3c.dom.Text
 import org.xml.sax.InputSource
 import java.io.FileReader
 import javax.xml.xpath.XPathConstants
-import kotlin.dom.get
-import kotlin.dom.toXmlString
+import kotlin.dom.childElements
 
 public class Pom @javax.inject.Inject constructor(@Assisted val id: String,
         @Assisted documentFile: java.io.File) : KobaltLogger {
@@ -65,6 +63,12 @@ public class Pom @javax.inject.Inject constructor(@Assisted val id: String,
         version = XPATH.compile("/project/version").evaluate(document)
         name = XPATH.compile("/project/name").evaluate(document)
 
+        var list = XPATH.compile("/project/properties").evaluate(document, XPathConstants.NODESET) as NodeList
+        var elem = list.item(0) as Element?
+        elem.childElements().forEach {
+            properties.put(it.nodeName, it.textContent)
+        }
+
         val deps = DEPENDENCIES.evaluate(document, XPathConstants.NODESET) as NodeList
         for (i in 0..deps.getLength() - 1) {
             val d = deps.item(i) as NodeList
diff --git a/src/main/resources/build-template.mustache b/src/main/resources/build-template.mustache
index 89a96586..79d8e088 100644
--- a/src/main/resources/build-template.mustache
+++ b/src/main/resources/build-template.mustache
@@ -2,7 +2,12 @@ import com.beust.kobalt.*
 import com.beust.kobalt.plugin.packaging.assemble
 {{imports}}
 
+{{#properties}}
+val {{first}} = {{second}}
+{{/properties}}
+
 val p = {{directive}} {
+
     name = "{{name}}"
     group = "{{group}}"
     artifactId = name
diff --git a/src/test/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/maven/PomTest.kt b/src/test/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/maven/PomTest.kt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..376cd79a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/test/kotlin/com/beust/kobalt/maven/PomTest.kt
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+package com.beust.kobalt.maven
+
+import org.testng.Assert
+import org.testng.annotations.Test
+import java.io.File
+
+class PomTest {
+    @Test
+    fun importPom() {
+        val pom = Pom("testing", File("src/test/resources/pom.xml"));
+
+        Assert.assertEquals(pom.groupId, "com.foo.bob")
+        Assert.assertEquals(pom.artifactId, "rawr")
+        Assert.assertEquals(pom.name, "rawr")
+        Assert.assertEquals(pom.version, "1.2.3")
+        Assert.assertEquals(pom.properties.get("commons.version"), "2.1.1")
+        Assert.assertEquals(pom.properties.get("guice.version"), "4.0")
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/test/resources/pom.xml b/src/test/resources/pom.xml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..43be77d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/test/resources/pom.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,152 @@
+<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
+         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
+    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
+
+    <groupId>com.foo.bob</groupId>
+    <artifactId>rawr</artifactId>
+    <packaging>jar</packaging>
+    <version>1.2.3</version>
+
+    <name>rawr</name>
+
+    <repositories>
+        <repository>
+            <id>sonatype</id>
+            <url>https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/</url>
+        </repository>
+    </repositories>
+
+    <build>
+        <defaultGoal>install</defaultGoal>
+        <resources>
+            <resource>
+                <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
+                <excludes>
+                    <exclude>something.properties</exclude>
+                </excludes>
+            </resource>
+        </resources>
+        <sourceDirectory>${project.basedir}/src/main/kotlin</sourceDirectory>
+        <testSourceDirectory>${project.basedir}/src/test/kotlin</testSourceDirectory>
+        <plugins>
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>2.5.1</version>
+                <inherited>true</inherited>
+                <configuration>
+                    <source>1.8</source>
+                    <target>1.8</target>
+                </configuration>
+            </plugin>
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.jetbrains.kotlin</groupId>
+                <artifactId>kotlin-maven-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>${kotlin.version}</version>
+
+                <executions>
+                    <execution>
+                        <id>compile</id>
+                        <phase>compile</phase>
+                        <goals>
+                            <goal>compile</goal>
+                        </goals>
+                    </execution>
+
+                    <execution>
+                        <id>test-compile</id>
+                        <phase>test-compile</phase>
+                        <goals>
+                            <goal>test-compile</goal>
+                        </goals>
+                    </execution>
+                </executions>
+            </plugin>
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+                <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>2.4.1</version>
+            </plugin>
+            <!-- Run me with 'mvn exec:java'. -->
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
+                <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>1.2.1</version>
+
+                <configuration>
+                    <mainClass>com.foo.bob.Rawr</mainClass>
+                    <classpathScope>test</classpathScope>
+                    <arguments>
+                        <argument>-Xmx512m</argument>
+                    </arguments>
+                </configuration>
+            </plugin>
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+                <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>2.4</version>
+                <configuration>
+                    <archive>
+                        <manifest>
+                            <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
+                            <classpathPrefix>lib/</classpathPrefix>
+                            <mainClass>com.foo.bob.Rawr</mainClass>
+                        </manifest>
+                    </archive>
+                </configuration>
+            </plugin>
+        </plugins>
+    </build>
+    <dependencies>
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
+            <artifactId>commons-email</artifactId>
+            <version>${commons.version}</version>
+        </dependency>
+
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>com.google.inject</groupId>
+            <artifactId>guice</artifactId>
+            <classifier>no_aop</classifier>
+            <version>${guice.version}</version>
+        </dependency>
+
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
+            <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
+            <version>${slf4j.version}</version>
+        </dependency>
+
+        <dependency>
+            <groupId>org.testng</groupId>
+            <artifactId>testng</artifactId>
+            <version>6.8.7</version>
+            <scope>test</scope>
+        </dependency>
+
+    </dependencies>
+
+    <reporting>
+        <plugins>
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
+                <artifactId>cobertura-maven-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>2.5.2</version>
+            </plugin>
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+                <artifactId>maven-surefire-report-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>2.16</version>
+                <configuration>
+                    <linkXRef>false</linkXRef>
+                </configuration>
+            </plugin>
+        </plugins>
+    </reporting>
+
+    <properties>
+        <commons.version>2.1.1</commons.version>
+        <guice.version>4.0</guice.version>
+        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
+    </properties>
+</project>