A special relationship

Posting this on 25.11.2016 - Thanksgiving weekend in the USA

I had been working for a US company in the medical device business (i.e. not pills and creams) since 1st June 1996, Xomed Surgical Products Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida. I will write this up in more detail elsewhere. This episode was to include the most enjoyable time of my work life.

Responsible for this were a great team of people from the colleagues in the office, the German sales reps and the very supportive management and staff at the US HQ.

But above all to Tino Schuler our General Manager in Germany. Somehow we hit it off, as the German expression, like "Pech und Schwefel" literally Pitch and Sulphur, a very sticky combination with visions of burning hell. Difficult to find an exact English translation: some may say "as thick as thieves" or as in Forrest Gump, "like peas and carrots".

That's not to say it was all sunshine and roses. It was a time of hard work, heated discussion, nerve racking flying by the seat of our pants, competitive rivalry but passion for the task and always, respect, trust and belief in one another.

While Tino did the whole sales, customer, product, motivational and PR bit, he left me to do all the office support work as Finance & Logistics Manager. While he conveyed total blind trust in me, he always as any good manager should, knew what was going on and with his sometimes annoying "Elephant Memory", was not one you could easily fool.

Not to sure what ingredients made the chemistry work. At first sight it may seem strange that a colonial Brit and a Munich born Manager type would get on so well. When in fact while Tino was indeed born within hearing distance of Munich Town Hall's Glockenspiel, he is a US citizen, his father an American, who was working I think for Texas Instruments at the time, and his mother a German. While he was still in nappies, the family moved to Japan and various countries around the world, but his parents settled in the Chicago area and Tino did his studying in the US. So perhaps it was our common "mixed marriage" backgrounds which brought together the (best) qualities from the US, UK and Germany.

Our work and that of the whole German team turned us from being the newest small subsidiary in 1996 to the most successful by 1998 and no doubt contributed to the success of Xomed Inc and the resulting takeover by the massive Medtronic Inc in 1999. The reorganisations that followed meant Tino returning to the US.

Despite the hard work, Tino had managed to get married in the time we were together. As if history repeats itself, Silke his wife is a German and their first child was born in Munich.

Our friendship which had also expanded in to our private lives, continues to this very day and the now five strong family have visited us but Angie and I have still not managed to take up the standing offer to spend some time with them in Florida. And like another former boss, Tino's Christmas card and annual newsletter flutters in to the letterbox in December, just as reliably as the turkey lands on US dinner plates on Thanksgiving.

I hope Tino and family have a great Thanksgiving weekend.

This photo was taken at the German office in Gilching, a sleepy suburb of Munich. I think back then, the town with the highest child/adult ratio in Germany. On the left another Brit, Kevin who lived in the town, had been an aircraft fitter at the Dornier aircraft site just one or two kilometres away. He had been made redundant, and I can't quite remember how he came to be our storeman but think it may have been our cleaning lady who knew he was looking for work. Perhaps fortunately he was later to get a job back at the airfield.

Unusually Tino and I were wearing ties, but we had visitors from the US HQ that day and the photo was taken for publicity purposes. In fact the US business had a "business casual" policy and Fridays were "Jeans Friday" with even the CEO in the US turning up to work on his Harley and dressed in leathers.