This centenary issue offers a wonderful opportunity for me to express appreciation to the hundreds ( perhaps even thousands ) of people who I met and who contributed to INMR since it was first founded during the summer of 1993 .
People who took time to explain what is happening on their power networks , people who discussed service problems and how they are dealing with them , people who showed me around substations , people who accompanied me to inspect overhead lines , people who took me into their test laboratories , into high voltage halls , into factories , into universities , into research institutes , …
Pages 26 to 36 provide vintage photos of just a sampling of these many individuals – all as generous with their time as with their abundant knowledge – who together helped launch and shape INMR ’ s development , especially over the early years . Remember now , it ’ s been two decades and some do look younger … I suppose in our high voltage field we ’ ve all been exposed to some ‘ natural ageing ’.
Gratitude Due to So Many … But Especially to Anders Bohm
There ’ s one person , however , who deserves special mention … someone without whom INMR would never have been possible . Many believe that their fate lies in their own hands . That they alone determine their destiny . Perhaps this is true in large measure . But one always has to allow for external circumstances ( call it luck or call it chance ) that ‘ open a door ’. If that door never opens , we also never get the opportunity to take control over the future direction of our lives .
In my own case , Anders Bohm was the person who opened that door when he engaged me as a consultant to study developments in the world market for insulators . Until that day in 1989 when I first met him in Stockholm , I didn ’ t know the difference between an insulator and a pitchfork . But Anders hired me nonetheless because during that face-to-face meeting , I managed to convince him that , while I was certainly no expert on insulators , what I was good at was collecting and analyzing information . Anders , along with partners , Peter Larsson and the late Lennart Rundcrantz , had just orchestrated a management buy-out of several large insulator factories in Europe and merged them under a newly formed group called Ceram . Now , they wanted to assess international opportunities and plan new directions to grow this business .
After a few years working alongside Anders and his colleagues in Sweden , Germany , Austria , France and Slovakia , I had the sudden idea of starting a journal focusing on insulators and to be called INSULATOR NEWS & MARKET REPORT ( ergo the current name INMR ). There seemed so many changes taking place in this field and the industry was not being well served with technical and commercial information . However , before launching it , I felt it proper to ask Anders for his permission to use the knowledge I had acquired working for him to serve the insulator industry at large . He not only gave me his blessing to proceed but also became our first subscriber and also our very first advertiser .
And so , to Anders … to my colleagues and columnists , to the numerous contributors , industry experts , technical specialists , researchers , power engineers , high voltage professionals and Professors featured in all our 100 issues going back 20 years … a truly profound and heartfelt thanks . You ’ re the ones who made INMR what it is today !
Publisher
2 20
YEARS
Q2 2013