Profile
9. Memorable business moments of the 80s?
- As Irrigation Consultants, we were awarded the 1981
contract to design and specify the very Pilot Project
to install 27 Pierce Center Pivots on an aquifer near
Riyadh for the Deputy Director of Agriculture, Dr.
Mohammed Monsoor. Today over 30,000 systems are
working in the region.
- During 1982 together with Walid bin Essa we signed a
$25 Million Contract: 101-104 Kuwait Sewage effluent
utilization contract to provide designs, installation
specifications and supply of all irrigation equipment
for the green belting of Safat Kuwait’s highways, parks
gardens and a 2000 acre experimental dairy farm for
2,000 cows.
- As a continuing service and presence, CISCO
organized and conducted a series of on-going
Symposiums & Workshops in the Arabian Gulf region
until the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in
1989 and Gulf War “Desert Storm”.
10. The 90s saw much change for
enterprises in the Middle East.
The Middle East became a “no man’s land ” with the
invasion of Kuwait and our business ceased as our
partner and his family fled to Egypt. JLG Industries for
Western Europe, Africa and the Middle East offered me
an attractive contract and I moved to Scotland. My wife
and two daughters remained living in our home on the
outskirts of Zurich to complete their educations. I then
moved to North America with JLG, which was battling
in Europe. I moved to Maryland in 1993. The company
was still struggling but we hired strategic planner Tom
Paterson, we kick-started new strategies and operating
programs, increased sales revenues from around
$100million and launched a rocket ship to $1billion
in 2000. I worked with Ben Appleby and we introduced
JIT and Supply Chain Partnerships cutting delivery
times from 90 days on receipt of order to 5 days.
11. Soul mates
Dave, Ben and I – soul mates – retired together in
2000, remaining close friends with periodic rendezvous
to this day.
12. “21st century” “Nothing happens until
something moves,” Albert Einstein
On retiring I moved back to Zurich and re-activated my
Swiss company (CISCO AG) which had been sleeping
for over 10 years and began working again as a
private consultant in USA, Africa and Europe. Having
divorced, on a visit to America for a business and a
family visit, I met one of my college girlfriends Judy
Ecklund Harrison who had also married and divorced.
I had not seen her for over 40 years, and we decided
to get married .Now back in California, I had a “back
to the future” experience discovering Californians were
still using gravity flood irrigation on over 57% of their
10 million acres of irrigated agricultural land.
Continues…l X\