8th February 2001 Edition 1 circulation: Immoral
Enterprise House |
The Tech-Board Story (Stranger then fiction) The true story of the most dramatic "Greenfield Startup" failure in British manufacturing history
Enterprise House A couple of weeks after the Deal was signed, Malcolm, Tony, Guy, Ted and Austin all started commuting to Wales. The Mill was to be built on the Rassau Industrial Estate, near Ebbw Vale. We were able to rent a floor of a building called "Enterprise House", at the entrance to the industrial estate, for the few months that it took to build the mill and the permanent offices.
Everyone is Equal, Except…. One of the first things we had to do was equip the offices with the basics – a kettle, desks, phones, etc. In the original business plan, there was a lot written about employing modern management practices – a "single status" company was a term which was banded about a lot. There was even talk of uniforms to be worn by everybody, from MD downwards. The first afternoon Malcolm and Tony returned from the office suppliers, followed by a large van from which several desks emerged and, sure enough, there was a really big one for Malcolm, a big one for Tony, and smaller ones for everyone else. This was a defining moment for me. I realized that whatever we built would be a traditional British manufacturing plant, run along traditional lines. Personally, this was a real shame because, naively, I thought we were part of something special. We weren’t.
Recruitment
Ted had his work cut out as HR Manager, as the task was to now fill a lot of the sales, engineering and managerial roles within the mill.
Sewage The first local person to be taken on by Tech Board was the lovely Sue Williams, who quickly picked up the affectionate nickname of "Sewage", and also picked up the art of word processing. Sue stayed with Tech Board for several years and now (Where are they now?)
Micky-D Micky-D was hired as the Sales Manager. When I first met him I thought "What a pretender". We shall pick up the Micky-D story in the Pantybeileau section (Where are they now?).
Hezza Hezza was also taken on at this time, and became Tech Board’s Manufacturing Director. Hezza came from a paper mill, and said "AYE!" a lot (Where are they now?)
Cazza
Cazza was taken on as Financial Controller. Cazza was (and still is) beautiful. Dead Ringer Liz Hurley clone. (Where are they now?)
John the Draughtsman Lovely bloke, kept telling a joke about a Maserati Bora. (Where are they now?)
Computer Muppets On the ground floor of Enterprise house was a company who sold computers and software. We went down there a few times, and were always invited to a demo of their latest piece of software. Always, after less than one minute, we realized that they had no idea what they were talking about or how the software worked. We wondered how they survived. (Where are they now?)
Candy Man Also around at this time was another lovely man called Steve Candy, who always tried to sell us office furniture. He would pop up every other week with a different company, different premises (sometimes a different company in the same premises) (Where are they now?)
Swedish Lessons It was a fine idea, but like all forign language lessons held at work, the appeal soon diminishes. Because we were buying most of the manufacturing kit from a company called Sunds Defibrator, in Sweden, and a lot of us were going to spend a lot of time with the Swedish installation engineers, some bright spark had the idea of providing Swedish lessons for anyone who wanted them. So, once a week, this Swedish lady would come up from Cardiff and give us 1 ½ hours of Swedish. Of course, the size of the class quickly fell, but in the early days, there was a good 15 people in the lessons. Including Ted the HR Manager, who could not foget his time in the Hong Kong Police: Swedish Teacher: "Repeat after me – Shushna bushta shushna bushta" Ted: "Shushna bushta ling ling" Swedish Teacher: "No – Shushna bushta shushna bushta" Ted: "Shushna bushta ling ling" Very Weird.
Residents Committee As soon as the local residents found out about the building of the mill, they formed a committee. And quite rightly, the mill would work 24 hours a day and produce vast quantities of steam and other effluents. However, they seemed to be more accommodating of the mill after their first meeting with Malcolm when he convinced them that the smell of a hardboard plant was very similar to that of baking apple pie. How ground up wood fibres combined with phenolic resin could ever smell of apple pie I still, to this day, have not worked out.
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