Unusual Friends - Company Presidents

Part 7 of an indefinite series about unusual friends - Company Presidents

Now this set of people are probably not to be associated with the 'marginalised' label, however they do represent unusual friends none the less, specially for me, as I do not happen to be a member of this group myself.

The first time I came across one of these, it was in my boss's office in Maracaibo (Venezuela) when they hired me (without an interview I might add). How I got there is another story to be found in my book (an undisguised plug for A Nameless Book). Our team was seated around the room waiting for the President, who was coming over to see his new investment, ME. The helicopter landed on the roof and we knew he was on his way. As he approached down a corridor, I could see the group from where I was sitting. At some point he looked down the corridor and he saw me and I witnessed an explosive reaction. 'Carajo, what have we got ourself this time' (or words to that effect). I pretended not to notice.

A few seconds later he walked into the office and shook hands with 'Arvinder, welcome to Maraven. We have high hopes of your work with the computer systems here at Maraven.'

The next time I met him was at an exhibition on Information Technologies held at the Corporate Head Offices of Maraven in Caracas. The year was 1985, and we were introducing some fairly sophisticated new technology for Computer Aided Design at Maraven. I was responsible for installation and customising of this equipment at the main production offices at Maracaibo, some 1000 miles to the west. Nonetheless they flew me over and installed me and my equipment at the exhibition.

I had brought over our latest sofware for topographic mapping and piping design (don't worry, I won't go into this for the time being) which was still in its infancy in the eighties. To liven things up a bit from the boredom of work related images and simultion results, I also took along some images of Fractals that I had begun to program into these graphics displaying computers and monitors.

No one wanted to know much about the CAD design and 3D simulations, but the Fractals were an instant hit. Everyone brought their kids and partners to look at these colourful images and queues formed at my display. Everyone wanted to know what this was all about.

The next day I went out and had about 500 cards printed with these images, and at my stand I started to give one to everyone who came.

At one point I noticed the President approach and I gave him my standard 'show', which finished with the Fractals. 'And what are these images useful for?' he said. 'Nothing', I had to admit, but they were being investigated in complex mechanics to see if they could help with exploration for oil.

I don't think he was impressed.

Many years later I was developing a very sought after intelligent algorithm for designing pipeline routes (OK, again not the most interesting of topics). The president of the company I worked for at this time, again showed up to see for himself why folks in the marketplace wanted to buy what I was developing. I kept going to conferences to talk about my work and word was getting around (plus my expense accounts).

So he came and had a look, and said 'Why can't you do this for all design process?'

It has to be said that what you can do for a niche problem does not always work for the overall picture.

But he was impressed and remembered me every time he saw me in the various offices where we happened to meet. 'What new things are you working on now?' he would often ask.

Nice reputation to have.. and I usually had an elevator speech up my sleeve.